When You Harm Others In Spite of Your Best Intentions

EP 144 | When you harm others in spite of your best intentions

[00:00:00] Introduction to Becoming Me Podcast

Welcome to Becoming Me, the podcast for complex trauma survivors seeking a more integrated, intimate, and secure relationship within ourselves, with God, and with others.

I'm your host, Ann Yeong, and in today's episode, I would like to share with you that moment of realization that can be so painful for many of us when we realize that our faith is not going to save us from the dysfunctional patterns in our life.

[00:00:36] Lack of Awareness and Spiritually Abusive Behaviours

So something that I often notice is how people use faith to kind of paint over the problems in their lives, right? And I've always been very intrigued, fascinated, but also troubled at why it is that people with very sincere faith, who are very devout, who are very active in their practice of their faith, can at the same time be emotionally very immature, manipulative, even abusive. And why is it that somehow that dissonance doesn't come into their awareness? Right?

[00:01:23] Personal Story on Spiritual Abuse

Now, it's often easier to pick this up in another person as compared to noticing it within our own selves. And I want to share with you something that I, I can't remember now if I've shared before in former episodes, but if I have probably not with a lot of, um, detail and I just feel prompted to share this story, at this point in my journey. And also in the context of, this is also how I actually learned that I was potentially spiritually abusive, even though I had no awareness that that was happening, but how this realization also started me in earnest in the integration journey, seeking healing in my family of origin. Or, in my seeking healing for my family of origin wounds.

[00:02:27] Gaps in Human Formation and Integration

So like many, many people, I think many Catholics, who have gone for retreats, spiritual direction, and who have, you know, had inner healing prayers, prayed over there, gone for inner healing retreats. I used to think, I used to believe that just spiritual inner healing would be sufficient to heal me from whatever wounds I have received from my parents, from my family of origin.

So for many, many years, although I had awareness that I was wounded, I mean, just because I think it's too obvious that, you know, I bore wounds. I never really made that journey to understand what those wounds were. Uh, what exactly the nature of unhealthy relationships and dysfunction actually was in my family? Because in the first place, I wasn't aware there were such things, right?

So there was just no language for it in the communities that I grew up in, you know, the family that I had, the faith community that surrounded me. Well, nobody spoke about human formation or human integration. When wounds were acknowledged, it was always just referred to in a healing prayer, for example, or going for inner healing retreats, right? And I did experience some healing in those contexts, but now on hindsight, with the journey that I've made in the last decade or so, I just realized now how that was really like the tip of the tip of the iceberg kind of a thing when it comes to healing, right. And I wouldn't have realized it if not for something that, something that actually horrified me, but also really woke me up. So the context is I had already gone through yet another deep conversion and healing experience, right?

I had yet another experience of God's unconditional love. And probably at this point in time, I think I had just around turned 30. It was the deepest encounter I had up to that point, of course, unconditional love. So, you know, I had new zest, new life, new confidence really from the Holy Spirit, right? And that was a time that I entered into full-time ministry in a parish.

Now, what I didn't notice, of course, what I wasn't able to be aware of at that time was that although there was this renewed confidence and renewed faith and even deeper confidence in God's love for me, the underlying dynamics of my relational life, they remain the same because, well, how could they, how could they not, uh, the healing hadn't happened there yet.

And so although I was in a brand new environment, in a parish that I did not grow up in, I felt like I had a clean slate to begin with, right? I want to evangelize. I wanted to make disciples and I did with as much energy and passion as I had. And on one hand, you could say, it looked like I was pretty spiritually fruitful. I was making some impact, especially among the young people. I was drawing some of them, you know, quite a few of them into deeper interest in making that relationship with Christ a priority in their lives.

[00:06:07] Impact of Gaps in Integration: Poor Boundaries

So as I was embarking on all that, though, it never occurred to me that I could be harming them or overstepping my boundaries because well, at that point in time, I wasn't aware yet just how I really didn't have any boundaries.

So I wasn't aware of boundaries yet. I was still very enmeshed. I haven't truly individuated from my own family enmeshment yet. I had begun to try and enforce certain boundaries in my own relationship with family of origin only because I had awakened to just how problematic those relationships were.

But while I had enforced kind of like in the sense strong boundaries, basically by just creating more distance, I didn't know how to deal with it yet. No healing had really taken place. Okay. I just become aware that it was an issue and I just didn't want to inflict what had happened to me, what I began to be aware of what happened to me onto others.

So there was this conscious awareness in me that I didn't want to repeat the pattern with the young people that I was journeying with, right? But in spite of that conscious awareness of really not wanting to repeat the pattern, one thing, you know, led to another.

[00:07:38] Impact of Gaps in Integration: Insecurities and Burnout

Success in ministry led to burnout. And then after burnout, things began to fray. I found myself in survival mode inside, but not wanting to acknowledge or admit to anyone that I was in survival mode because it just didn't feel safe to do so. Why? Because actually now in hindsight, I realized my whole life, part of the role that I needed to play was someone who always has it all together and that I was capable, that I was reliable.

So it felt really threatening to my own sense of safety to acknowledge my vulnerability that I was not coping, that I was burning out. And I started spiraling. And for me the insecurity that eats at me is being abandoned and rejected by people, and by people that I care about, and being misunderstood.

So in the midst of my evangelizing and discipling and teaching and all these, you know, you know, activities that are good somewhere, even not really in my full awareness, I was trying to ensure that I would not be misunderstood, that I would not be rejected and abandoned. And when this is unconscious or subconscious, what can be really dangerous is that because of, for me, because of my need to still believe that I'm always operating above board, right, that what I'm doing is always for the good of others. It wasn't even really safe for me within myself to acknowledge that I was spiraling.

What I didn't know was that the methods that I was using to bring people closer to Christ began to be, I guess I could say, maybe more emotionally and perhaps even spiritually manipulative without my realization.

Okay, when I think back now, I just, it was true. I didn't have the realization, but I do remember the times when I felt anxiety attacks, when I felt panic. Panic at the, at the thought, like any sign that I was being misconstrued and misunderstood, you know, when, when fractures inadvertently happened in community, within community, in church politics and all that, I became more and more defensive within myself.

[00:10:15] Impact of Gaps in Integration: Performing and Pushing for Perfection

I would never explicitly admit that because the persona that I wanted to project was someone that was not defensive, right? I had this awareness of how I wanted to appear or how I should appear. I mentioned before that I was really good at that performance because my whole life had been a performance. That's how I learned to survive, how I won affirmation and approval, right? By appearing always performing well. So even in faith, even in full time ministry, I wanted to perform well.

There was so much emphasis on the outward expression that I never really noticed how that interior experience, my interior experience was actually coloring the energy of that outward expression.

So in my zeal, some of that, that zeal, the nervous energy was coming from my need to prove myself, that I was good at evangelizing, that I was effective at bringing people closer to God. Again, this is on hindsight. I didn't have the explicit awareness back then. And so I pushed certain people hard. And it wasn't just that I pushed certain people hard. I was known for having, for example, very high standards of discipleship, which I used to think there was nothing wrong with that. Again, what I can see now that I didn't see then, it wasn't just that there were high standards of discipleship, but in itself, that's nothing wrong.

But I didn't have space within me to receive and embrace and love with compassion, you know, all the ways that people fall short of those high standards. And that included myself. And so I wasn't somebody that was very attuned, right? Although I cared very deeply, I was very passionate. I was very sincere.

[00:12:13] The Wake-Up Call that I Had Harmed Others

Then one day, one of the young people that I had accompanied more closely, that I had mentored, that I thought had such great potential. I mean, I really saw potential in this person. And we had this conversation that wasn't really planned, and I will remember, I think I'll always remember, that shock I felt when he said, you know, I hadn't planned to say this, I, I've been at my wits end about, you know, everything that's happening. And I came really close to just deciding to cut you off from my life, like to just cut off this relationship.

And, and it took me by surprise because, I really had not seen any indication that there had been a problem in, you know, the relationship that we had. And when I asked this young person, you know, what happened, like, what have I done? What is it that made you feel that you have to take such a drastic measure, right? That you had to cut me off from your life.

And, he said, bless his heart for his courage and his honesty, he said, I don't know, you know, he just felt kind of really stuck, right? He said, I don't know, but I've been feeling like what you've been doing borderlines on spiritual abuse. All right. So what he's talking about is how I have been mentoring him, how I have been so whatever journey with him borders on spiritual abuse.

That was actually the first time in my life that I've actually heard that term. And I'm not even really sure that he knew exactly what that term meant. I don't think he did like, you know, in his fullness, but he was very accurate, I think, in his intuition in saying that.

[00:14:12] On Realizing that I Had Been Spiritually Abusive

Now, it really threw me for a loop. I was shocked and stunned and horrified. I've been asked before, , when I shared in, you know, this particular experience with people in, of course, always in, in private, and especially in the context of learning about spiritual abuse, people like to ask me, so how did you react or how did you respond?

And I said, well, it was overwhelming. I mean, I managed to close that particular conversation. I thanked him for his courage. I was able to hold myself together, to finish the conversation. Told him I'm so sorry that he felt that, I never intended that. And I know that he knew that he believed that I did meant, you know, well, he believed that I cared for all of them, for him, as well. He knew I never intended to harm him, which is why I think all the more he said he didn't know what to do. He knew I didn't intend to harm him and yet he felt violated. And I remember he actually used that word as well, right? There's something about me violating his boundaries.

So what I felt after I ended that conversation was horror. Horror that in spite of my best efforts, my conscious efforts to not inflict onto others what I have begun to realize had happened to me, that I had somehow inadvertently done the exact same thing. And I didn't even realize that I was doing it.

[00:15:45] Trauma and Toxic Shame

I, and once again, it was like the trauma, the trauma response, that always comes up for me is I screwed up again, you know, so the toxic shame just surged up and it's like, see, this is proof that I am, I am rotten. You know, there's something really wrong with me. I remember thinking I am not a safe person. I should not be allowed to be in ministry. I should not be allowed to be near young people.

And at the same time, at the back of my mind, there was this, this thought, this has something to do with my family of origin. And that I really need to go and start tending to those wounds that I have. That whatever I've done up to now, all the inner healing prayers and retreats and spiritual direction, clearly, is insufficient, right? And I really need to figure out or find out, start finding out what is this that is influencing me, even in my unconscious, like that is, that is carrying me in the way that I relate to others.

So I took urgent leave after that conversation. I think I took leave for the rest of the week. And I missed a very important meeting, which is very unlike me, but that's just how urgent it felt for me and how desperate I felt. I couldn't, I really didn't, didn't feel I could just continue another, you know, like, like per normal, another day of work in the parish. And I made an appointment with a religious sister that I knew has some training in like, psycho-dynamics and psycho-spirituality. And this, this part, I think I've shared before, uh, in other episodes where she was the one that pointed me towards understanding and reading about really, family dynamics and family systems.

[00:17:44] 'Waking Up' to the Integration Journey

Okay. And that was what started me on learning about, there's this book. pretty old by John Bradshaw called 'Healing the Shame that Binds You'. And I read that book and that's when I learned about toxic shame and immediately recognized that's what I experience, like almost all the time. It was like a constant experience in my life up to that point, toxic shame.

I recognized the dysfunctional family dynamics that was described in that book. I recognized the family role that I played as the golden child and the achiever. that began in a sense, in a real way, the integration journey for me. Okay. But it was, it was still going to be a few years before I actually went to therapy or even counseling.

I can only say that I think after this point within the context of spiritual direction with a spiritual director that I had, who also did some inner child healing work, that began to come and feature more in my spiritual direction sessions and in my retreat. Okay, so it was still more within the context of spirituality, but now I'd begun to pay attention to my wounded inner child and that started paving the way, right, for later healing.

So that was this, this incident was probably like in 2013? I think it was in 2013. And so, so that's, this is like almost 12 years ago now.

[00:19:17] Acknowledging Our Context with Compassion

And I want to, I want to share in more detail this time, that conversation that I had and how I, and how I felt because I know what it's like to do your best, to really mean really well, to feel like you care a lot and that all you want to do is glorify God and build God's kingdom and to work very hard at your interior life spiritually to try and build like a robust prayer life, spiritual disciplines and all that.

Somehow believing that having a more robust faith a more of a spiritual life, like prayer life, will somehow make up for the wounds that we bear and that somehow those spiritual practices, and deepening in our relationship with God in the, in the spiritual sense, we'll fix, or, you know, in a sense that will kind of just heal us, right? Will heal the human problems, the emotional immaturity or the emotional stunted development that we have. That our spirituality, our devotion or more devotion will somehow make up for and save us from the same dysfunctions and woundedness that we have experienced, and somehow that we wouldn't pass that on.

I get why that happens. It made sense to me back then, because that was the only picture that had been presented to me. I mean, think about it, when we go to church, when we go to Mass, even when we go to so many kind of like faith formation sessions and all that.

Until very recently, almost nobody talks about human formation. Almost nobody brings in psychology or, or acknowledges that things like marriages breaking down, family dysfunctions and all of that isn't just a matter of a lack of faith formation, because it really, really isn't, right? It's a matter of a lack of human integration in so many cases.

So many people I know who, who, have experienced all these pain of let's say they are their marriages breaking apart, right? Or whether they are the adult children of divorced parents or adult children of parents whose marriages are technically intact, never got divorced, but just are just as dysfunctional as divorced, you know, couples or they are themselves now experiencing their marriages breaking down or maybe they've already gotten divorced.

So many of them, they know what the faith teaches and they wanted to follow what the faith teaches, right, what our Catholic faith teaches. But what they found is that they can't, or that even in spite of their best intentions, just like what I experienced in, in this particular context, you know, with this young person, a lot of people experience in their marriages, for example, this was not what I intended.
I did the best that I could. Clearly, it wasn't enough. And for many people, they may not even realize where they went wrong. And, maybe it feels like it's too late now. Like maybe it's past. It feels like things have broken down, you know, so badly that it can't be salvaged. And why? Also, because usually when we realize it, we're at this point where things have really broken down so badly.

We don't have the emotional, psychological, embodied resource within ourselves. to make the repair. We can't do it just because we know that now we have to repair. These are not resources that we just suddenly learn overnight. They come from integration and healing, which takes a long time. All right.

So this is why, although it really, really sucks to be in that position when you experience the fallout. When you have to come face to face with what really feels like tremendous failure on your part. And if you're a complex trauma survivor, chances are you will experience that hot shame just kind of like surging up in you.
Like for me, I just, I literally I mean, like I, that's how I felt, right? I mean, like, I actually really wished that the ground would just open up and swallow me and that I just didn't exist on this earth anymore like that would solve all my problems because.. In that moment, it really just felt like I don't know how I can go on like what's the point? That I try so hard And I still make the same horrible mistake and that I'm harming people that I love. It really hurt me that I was harming people that I loved when all I wanted to do was will their good. Right? And I felt completely helpless and powerless at that situation.

[00:24:52] Embodied Faith

But it was also that experience that opened, I think, my mind or, you know, awakened me that I needed much more than just more devotion or more spiritual practices or, just like trying harder to imitate the saints or, more frequency of the sacraments. That there was something else. And now I'm so glad that that moment of waking up happened because, as I shared before as well, I didn't know what it meant to have an embodied faith.

So up to that point in my life faith was spirituality and faith practices and prayer and.. It didn't, it didn't touch my embodied self, right? So even my relationship with God was, a lot of it was very conceptual and abstract. I wasn't even aware of how much deep down I really struggled to trust him because I just never knew what attunement was in my life.

So I never really had a secure attachment. At the time I think the healthiest relationship I had was with my husband and even then it was still pretty early days in our marriage and we were still building and learning and building that mutual trust. And because of both our wounds that we had from our families of origin, there were also a lot of experiences of rupture that made it really scary to trust.

So I just, I never really had an embodied experience of what it's like to be loved unconditionally so that you know, loving others came not from a place of drivenness. Because for me it really came from a place of drivenness. I love because I was commanded by Christ to love. All right. I, I, and, and things like teachings, like, you know, loving is the will, willing the good of the other, right? It's not, not about what you feel. It didn't help me because as it didn't help me become more embodied, because I just thought then that love is something I can intellectually will myself to do. And actually love is not that.

Love requires the whole self. It requires the heart and the body and the nervous system. I mean, it's, we can't be split that way. Right. But so much of the formation that I received about my faith was very disembodied and presented it kind of like faith in a very idealized, disembodied manner. That's just the reality. And I'm not blaming anybody.

I've come to the point of accepting that, you know, everything, everyone, and including the church and the traditions of the church is still growing and evolving and maturing in embodiment, in, you know, it's in the depth, and even the church has, is still evolving and maturing in her depth of, um, integrating and embodying the message of Christ and an understanding of Christ and God.

All right, so I believe that we're now at the point in history where we are talking a lot more.. Like, more Catholics I'm hearing becoming aware of trauma and the importance of integration and embodiment and how love is not just something that is like an intellectual assent and faith isn't just an intellectual assent. And that if faith is a relationship. with the living God, then it has to be embodied and we need to understand and learn what embodiment means and what are obstacles to that embodied experience of that relationship with God.

[00:28:56] Encouragement for Listeners

So, if there's something that I hope you take away from today's sharing is that I want to encourage especially those people that I know, who tell me that they're not yet able to really look at the reality that they have harmed those they love. And this is especially so for parents, parents of children, whether they're already adult children or they're young children.

Complex trauma survivors who are making this interior journey at some point recognize how they have harmed those that they love. And that's probably one of the hardest things for us to deal with. And I can't imagine what it's like if it's your own beloved children. If I feel so much already for the young people that are my spiritual children, since I do care for them, I cannot imagine what it's like when you realize that you've done this to, let's say, other young people, but also to your own flesh and blood. Maybe the very things that you swore you would never do because you've experienced what it's like when it was done to you by your parents.

I just want to say.. You're held. I know a bit of it's like to feel that shame, that grief. I know it's not easy to enter that space to just look at yourself. And so don't try to do it on your own, but go find the resources, pray, ask for the resources.

There are resources, okay, including maybe even this, this episode that you're listening to. There's at least one other person that's telling you. I really know from my experience, God doesn't judge you. I know you can't help judging yourself, but be patient with yourself there as well. You're still on the journey and what you're experiencing, if you're at that point right now, realizing, being horrified at maybe what you've, you've done without intending to, I just want to say this:

[00:31:14] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

There is so much grace in your waking up to this reality. And that this means that you're that much closer to allowing God to be with you on this integration and healing journey.

Please allow yourself to be carried and accompanied and just be aware that there's, there are more, there are more resources than what faith like, you know, the usual kind of church resources and spiritual resources can avail you and you need those other resources as well.

Okay, so we need human integration and human formation. And a lot of times, so often it is crises, um, experiences of just failures that help us to become open to what we may not have even considered before. So I'm praying for you. And I hope that this sharing today makes you feel less alone and give you hope.

So take care and God bless. Until the next time. Happy becoming.