Nick Meeder | Way Finders

We all want “high performance”, “success”, and “fulfillment”. For some, it looks like Elon Musk. Some people think to themselves, “Maybe if I just worked hard like him, I’d have success.” Or some people ascribe to Gary Vaynerchuk’s montra of “hustle”. There are many messages and marketing stories that promote the pathway to success, fulfillment, and high performance.

I used to ascribe to them and think that way. I would push myself to do more and be better. I’d set goals and plan my days and weeks. I was driven to achieve and accomplish my dreams and ambitions. Why was I so driven? I didn’t know. I just wanted to feel whole inside and “hustle”, “success”, and “this [however many step] process to achieving your goals” were some of many things being marketed as the means to “fulfillment”. 

Each time I had faith that these schemes would work, hope would well up that maybe, just maybe, I could find fulfillment, purpose, meaning, and the life I was searching for. Maybe I could find the love and peace I was told was out there through success, but could never seem to find. But after several weeks of insane amounts of work and sleeplessness, I was even more drained and empty than when I started. I’d face yet another failed attempt at making my “side hustle” or “dream” a reality. This would plunge me into deeper despair. I would feel even more pressure and condemnation from not seeing any tangible results. The shame and stupidity of my naive belief that I could find goodness in success bound me to contempt and hatred of who I was. I would even externalize my contempt by hating the people near me that were “holding me back.” 

This cycle repeated over and over and over. What’s really crazy is that I was a Christian. I was supposed to have all the answers. I was supposed to be fulfilled and happy. Wasn’t all I needed was Jesus? So, why wasn’t he fulfilling?

I began killing my desire and longing for my dreams and ambitions to bring me wholeness. I labeled it as “bad” because it led me away from Christ. I would make vows in my heart to destroy what I sought and longed for. I had to deny that which was sinful and wrong. My desire for success and high performance was bad. I was bad for having such strong desires. And I was bad for being a failure each time I attempted, but then burnt out.

No one around me had answers. Not even my spiritual mentors and leaders knew how to engage me. I had already done discipleship and all of the things that a legalistic Christianity says to do. Yet, it did not yield anything new. Just more of the same cycles. Therefore, I isolated more from those closest to me. I began searching for answers outside of my spiritual community and desperately pleading with God for help. 

In my search I came across two books. One was called “Anatomy of the Soul” by Dr. Kurt Thompson. The other was called “The Power of the Other” by Dr. Henry Cloud. These two books opened my eyes to understand what I was searching for and a pathway of change.

In the midst of my crazy cycles, it effected my relationship with my wife. I treated her with a lot of contempt and often blamed her for “holding me back.” It got to a point that she decided to get counseling because we would get into fights that would lead to ruptures between us. That also led me to start counseling with her, even though I didn’t believe I needed counseling. I even told the counselor, “I’m just looking for someone to help with coaching and high performance. I don’t think I really need counseling.” Oh, man. I’m chuckling to myself as I remember how I was back then. I used to hate myself so much. I have so much more grace and kindness for that “past me.” I don’t hate who I was or who I am now.

But to get where I am now, I needed a safe place to go to. I needed someone to help me into the places of my heart I didn’t want to go. Heck, I didn’t know how to go to those place. Feeling the pain I’d dissociated from isn’t a natural. I needed a place and person where I could talk and vent about my struggles without a fear of condemnation, more shame, or being “fixed”. I needed someone who could handle my BIG emotions and desires. I needed someone who could attune to what I felt without being overcome by it’s bigness. I needed someone who could bear my burden without running away from me. I needed someone who could respond kindly to my sad face, my anxious drivenness, and offer hope. I needed someone who was willing to know me, the true me – all of the parts that I hid from others, even Christians – especially them. I needed someone who could help soothe me when I was in distress. I needed someone who could guide me into grief, lament, and sorrow for the underlying pain and trauma I’d experienced that caused me to be so driven and empty inside. And I needed someone who could own when they failed me, even in little ways, and yet was willing to confess, repent, and reconcile – repair the relationship. I needed to experience what a secure attachment felt, looked, and sounded like so that it could be internalized.

And, although I originally started counseling because I wanted help with “coaching and performance”, I was patiently engaged in such a way to begin seeing and naming those places in me that evil had assaulted and marred in my heart. These were the real things “holding me back” from high performance and living out my calling. Slowly, I began to change. Entering the pain that I was so driven to escape from was the hardest and scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was fraught with danger, land mines, and debilitating/overwhelming fear. I could not have done it without my Father in heaven, my best friend and wife, Kate, or the wise and patient grace of trained theological psychologists and counselors. 

The beauty of this is that I also discovered a deeper relationship with Jesus. I now had fellowship with Jesus’ suffering. I knew Jesus in a deeper way than ever before. He knew/knows me in a deeper way than ever before. The gospel and hope of Jesus Christ made more sense to me because I have experienced what he experienced. I have stories of betrayal, abandonment, rejection, crucifixion, and death. But it is because of Jesus that I have gone through them and also seen resurrection in a spiritual sense that has transformed my physical sense. 

Sadly, churches, pastors, and congregations have adopted and become much like the world. There’s not much difference, which is why many leave the church. There’s no difference within the people of churches than those who are of the world.

Few, very few, have discovered true Christianity. Most practice a rigid, hypocritical, and surface level religion. The theological psychologists and counselors have been better pastors and teachers of God’s word than those who stand on the stage and preach. Not all, but many. Just as the world markets success and achievement as means to a fulfilling life, so have churches adopted much of the ways of businesses; they are all blind guides leading the blind.

“They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on peoples’ shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move a finger…You travel across the sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves…” – Matthew 24. 

The pathway to high performance isn’t through success principles. The pathway to high performance is to unburden the load on your shoulders to be someone you’re not. This was the whole point of Jesus’ gospel. He unburdened you from the requirement to pay for your imperfection, murder, idolatry, and sin. It is to heal the pain of your past relationships that marred the beauty, goodness, and dignity in your gifting and likeness of God. It is to repent of your depravity and seeking life outside of God. It is learning dependence upon God, not yourself, for you are poor and needy inside. You do not have life within yourself. You need God to make you whole. It is he who grants you high performance when you are secure in his love, have healed your past, and secure in who you are and where you are.

When you were a kid, do you remember getting injured?

I can’t tell you how many times I scraped my knee, pulled a muscle, or got injured in some way as a kid. And, the part that I hated the most was that I had to stop playing. 

Ugh! I hated that I had to stop playing. I couldn’t sit still. I had to be with my friends playing games and having fun. That’s where I felt most alive.

But, my body had to heal. It took time. Maybe it was a few days, but for a kid it felt like an eternity. If the injury was more extensive, obviously, it took longer to heal. That’s the natural progression of life, though. Certain, activities must stop so that whatever was injured can heal properly. 

If that’s what has to happen to us physically, what about emotionally, psychologically, or relationally? Why haven’t we recognized that just as we need healing for physical injuries, we also need healing for relational, emotional, and psychological injuries? 

Did you know that there are many neurological studies that demonstrate we experience brain injuries and brain developmental issues when we experience relational ruptures, intense shame, and trauma? This impacts us for the rest of our lives until we get healing. We experience injuries when we’re rejected or abandoned by those we love. Like, literally, our brains disintegrate and fragment depending on how severe the trauma is. 

For me, I grew up in a home where there were constant ruptures within relationships, really messed up thinking correlations, and an inability to repair or reconcile. I learned to cope with it in unhealthy, damaging ways. Luckily, non of the ways were criminal or illegal. However, I wondered why I felt purposeless at 25 years old. I didn’t know why I got up in the morning to go to work; I hated my job. I didn’t know how to deal with people at work that made me angry. I was usually anxious about what someone at work would make fun of and mock me for. 

The sad part is that I wasn’t even aware how injured I was. Yet, I was searching for answers. I found A LOT of the wrong answers through marketing on positive thinking, strategies, and different influencers that propagated “hustle”, and “Follow my proven formula and you’ll accomplish your goals”. What a bunch of B.S. 

Maybe that works for the extreme people who don’t have a lot of trauma. However, if you’re reading this, the probability is that you’re living with extensive relational trauma. When we become injured internally like this, if there’s no healing, our brains and ability to achieve what we desire in life become mostly impossible.

But…there’s hope. The process is more difficult than most people want, but it’s the only way. It’s the way through the pain.

You can continue living your life the way it is now, repeating the same patterns, and getting the same results. Or, you can chart a new course into the unknown of your soul. It will be dark, painful, and full of suffering. But the reward on the other side is worth the journey. I don’t know how long it will take. There are no principles or formulas, only further into the pain.

The first major hurdle is learning to let your body experience the emotional hurt, rage, or trauma that you’ve stored in your body from past experiences. This is scary; we weren’t meant to live with and feel pain. Naturally we avoid it. Avoiding it is what keeps us stuck. 

Begin by giving yourself permission to enter pain with someone who can handle your pain. This might be a counselor, a pastor, or a psychologist. Whoever it is, they need to exhibit patients and kindness towards you without minimizing your pain, changing the subject, becoming awkward, or anxious. You need someone who is secure and can stay with you as you learn to feel and metabolize your past experiences. 

This is the first step of everyone who goes through healing and finds life on the other side with more joy, more thriving, and more purpose that ever before. There will also be pain on the other side. But on the other side, you’ll have Christ, others, and new skills to process and metabolize the negative experiences so that you’re not continuing to live with them in the present.

Here are some scriptures to encourage you to step towards this journey. 

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” – Psalm 23:4 ESV.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12:1-2

It is painful to watch someone break a bone. Have you ever seen something like that? Maybe not in real life, but you’ve probably seen something on YouTube. Didn’t it evoke a pain sensation in your own body watching it? Or how about all of those fail compilation videos where people try really dumb things and end up hurting themselves or being injured? 

Well, for me, I also get that sensation when I talk with people who have experienced tragic pain in their lives, but it has gone unprocessed. It’s painful to be attuned to their inner pain, but realize as I listen to their story, they aren’t aware that there’s pain there. It’s even more heavy when the person believes that it’s in the past and they’ve moved on. Yet, as I ask questions to delve deeper, clearly the effects and implications of what happened haven’t been named so that they’re able to treat themselves with kindness for what they’ve suffered. It’s like they’re still living with a broken ankle and trying to walk around on it. Even though they’re in tremendous pain they keep telling themselves, “I’m okay. This is normal.” 

For some, they’ve walked around on their broken ankle for so long, it has healed in a deformed state. So, maybe they don’t have pain. Yet, their lives are full of debilitation, hindered thriving, and stagnated potential. Again, the broken ankle is a metaphor for the pain and brokenness they’re carrying around inside. Maybe it was a destructive betrayal by a friend or spouse. Perhaps some friends rejected the person and it has filled him or her with bitterness because of the hurt. Maybe the person has experienced the world as being a dangerous and unsafe place due to family or friends abandoning him or her when he or she needed them most.

We all have pain that’s unprocessed. Are you aware of your’s? Here are some diagnostic questions that might help you become aware as you begin to pay attention to the answers.

1. How happy and fulfilled are you in life right now? 
2. What is the quality of your relationships? 
3. How busy are you? 
4. Do you have regular intervals for rest?
5. Can you sit in quiet and stillness for an hour or more without needing a distraction or something to do?
6. How often are emotions overwhelming and confusing for you? 
7. How often do you get your needs met in relationships? 
8. Can you write with specificity what your relational needs are?

If four or more of these questions are difficult to answer, there’s a high probability that you’re not operating at your full potential. It’s also likely that there’s parts of your life story that don’t make sense to you. The more your story doesn’t make sense, the more broken your ankle is. 

I want to give you hope that life can be way more fulfilling and glorious than what you’re experiencing now. You’re not okay, and your life isn’t normal. Life doesn’t have to feel like you’re constantly walking around on a broken ankle.

Hope is scary. It requires you to be connected with your desires of what you want. You’ve probably learned to live with numbed desire because it makes life more tolerable. Killing your heart’s longing is easier than living vulnerably and being hurt or abused by others. 

Yet, there’s hope. You can experience freedom in your story through healing your broken ankle. It may take re-entering past pain that has been shoved down deep inside. This will be like re-breaking your deformed ankle. But it’s necessary to reset the ankle and allow it to begin healing in its proper form so that it can function. The most difficult first step is allowing yourself the permission to feel the pain of the past. Stop telling yourself, “I’m okay. This is normal.” 

It is NOT!

Your story involves heartache. It must, otherwise, it wouldn’t be a good story.

In our culture, we avoid heartache because it unearths our desires. When our desires are exposed, we often feel shame in some way because of the vulnerability. This vulnerability creates a sense of weakness, stupidity, and accusation. The way we engage heartache is to use self or others centered contempt to hide our shame.

Have you ever said something like these?

“Why was I so stupid for trusting that person?”

“Why can’t I do better? I’m such a failure.” 

“Why do I feel this way? I shouldn’t feel all these emotions. Just pull yourself together and get through this.”

“My spouse is such an idiot for doing and saying that!”

“If my friend is going to treat me like that, then I’ll give him what he deserves.”

Can you hear the accusation and contempt in these sentences. I’m sure you’ve said them to yourself or about others at some point.

What do these statements reveal of your heartache and desire?

What if you engaged your heartache differently so that you could receive kindness and grace for your shame? What if you allowed the heartache of Jesus’ crucifixion to show you how relatable your pain is to Jesus’?

What would that reveal of your heartache and contempt?

Jesus didn’t treat himself or others with accusation, blame, or contempt. He allowed himself to experience shame. Yet, he despised its mockery for he looked to the joy set before him (Heb. 12:2).

This is the power of Jesus and the Good News. Even in our heartache and pain, we can be transformed. 

Just because you trusted someone and were betrayed doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It means you had a desire for goodness in the relationship. You had faith that the other person cared about you. Don’t call yourself “stupid.” Receive the grace and kindness Christ offers through the crucifixion and resurrection.

Just because you failed doesn’t mean you are a failure. It means you desired a good outcome. Don’t curse your desire for better. Receive the grace and kindness Christ offers through the crucifixion and resurrection. Try again in a different way with grace for yourself to fail.

Just because your feelings are overwhelming doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel them. Pulling yourself together will not work in the long run. Your body has experienced a lot of pain and your emotions are a sign to get healing. Don’t treat yourself with contempt by “pulling yourself up by your own boot straps.” If you could, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die for you. Receive his grace and kindness for your overwhelming emotions.

Just because your spouse hurt you, doesn’t mean you need to turn against them in accusation. Acknowledge how hurt you feel, because that is real. Allow the story of Jesus to transform you heart. Go to your spouse and tell them of your hurt. Let the love and grace of Jesus motivate you to seek reconciliation instead of blame and contempt.

If your friend hurt you, you don’t have to retaliate or accuse him. You can allow the grace and kindness of Christ to soothe your ache. Don’t turn to vengeance in your desire for justice. See your own sinfulness to exact punishment as you see fit. Then confess it to Christ, turning over your desire for justice to him. Receive Christ’s grace for yourself. Then you will overcome evil and can see clearly to offer your friend grace for the wrong committed.

What is your heartache? How have you treated it with contempt? Will you begin engaging your heartache and desire with the grace and kindness Christ provided?

How do you change? 

If you’ve asked this question, you’re not alone. 

There are several things you need for change to occur, but here are three basic starting points: 

1. Securely attached relationship where you’re free to fail.
2. A regularly scheduled time for the activity, behavior, or feelings that you want to change to be engaged.
3. You need to describe and understand your current pattern and what you want it to become.

Things that get in the way of change.

When you have a lot of trauma, you see the world and choices through the lens of life or death. You’ll often be hyper-vigilant or become paralyzed with analysis because you don’t know what choice to make. What if you make the wrong choice? That wrong choice will feel like the end of the world. So you freeze because the end of life is very scary. 

All this means is that you need care, love, grief, and a safe place to process the pain you’ve experienced. But this doesn’t happen all at once.

This is another hallmark of people with trauma. They look for the quick fix, a solution right now, or an experience that will change them in one moment. The issue is that trauma has damaged the brain in such a way that the components responsible for executive functioning aren’t developed and strong enough. This leads to emotional immaturity, extreme highs and lows with no control or regulatory ability over them. 

To heal this, the process is both physical and spiritual in nature because they are inseparably linked to each other. You are a soul, an eternal being interwoven with the fabric of physical reality.

To grow the components of the brain for a highly fulfilled, stable, and functional person you need to be in a healing process with a counselor or psychologist who specializes in trauma. Change is possible because I’m one example. But the journey is slow, not quick. Yet it yields the peaceful fruit of faith, hope, love, fulfillment, and purpose by those who have been trained by it. 

Hope and help

Three really good books that changed my perspective and began my journey to heal and change are:

1. Anatomy of the Soul by Dr. Curt Thompson
2. Power of the Other by Dr. Henry Cloud
3. The Wounded Heart by Dr. Dan Allender

I’d recommend starting with Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson.

Change is possible. Finding the life, inner peace, and fulfillment you long for is possible. But it is found on the least likely road you want to travel because it involves pain and suffering. Once you’ve traveled the road, though, you’re no longer scared of pain and suffering because you’ve been with Christ in his darkest hour of crucifixion. Yet, this also paves the way for your heart to also experience the resurrection of Christ and the hope of redemption!

Don’t give up hope, no matter how evil has assaulted your heart.