Amy Watson 0:01 Most of all, thank you Jesus. Thank you for your nail scared hands that reached into my heart that day and Dr. Pettits office who reminded me that I can never be shameful to you. You paid much too high a price for me to have that experience that David thank you for paying shadow Hey everybody, and welcome to the season finale of the Wednesday’s with Watson podcasts. We made it y’all three seasons of this little passion project of mine. I am immensely grateful for this platform. And for you the listeners. The truth of the matter is that I would get behind this microphone for just one of you. Because your work that Jesus taught me that by stressing the importance of leaving the 99 to find the one if you’re the one that needs this episode today. Welcome. This is the first two episodes, and you’re gonna want to listen to this one before the next episode with Dr. Pettit. Gotta be honest with you guys, this one is difficult. And the people that are watching this on YouTube may see it on my face, probably see a few tears glistening in my eyes, because this is a tough one. But in obedience, I’m bringing it to you. It is time for me to finally get behind this microphone and tell you how God is continuing to heal my own unspeakable childhood trauma, as it has been the focus of the season, Places Spaces, and aces childhood trauma and the home. I’ve talked a lot, a lot about shame on this podcast and how she wants us to believe that we are at a mistake, not that we made a mistake. That is one of the many definitions are saying. But the point is there’s no denying that shame robs us the truth, the truth of who we are. And you know, it acts like a thief in the night that steals our sense of value and greatly affects how we show up in this world. I believe it is one of the greatest tools where enemy, an enemy that we cannot see, but is out to destroy us and our faith if we have faith in the first place. While I have shared my story on many platforms, I’ve always been careful to speak in general terms. And I do that for a lot of reasons. These were these reasons make sense. They’re prudent, partially because I know better. Some of my trauma still brings with it an incredible amount of shame. When I started this podcast, and I’ve said this several times, I started there for you, not me. But I also understand the responsibility of what we’re doing here. And so when I curated an entire season, on childhood trauma, I had to go into those closed off dark rooms and open the door of my soul, as John Eldridge says from inside out, and I had to invite God in to help me to spell the lies. I’m not very good at asking for help. So that battle was real for me. As I’ve mentioned, we have spent most of this season focusing on childhood trauma, how we process it based on the way God made us. We did that through the lens of the Enneagram. And some of the later episodes highlighted its effect on us as adults, we talked about how food is connected to helping us heal from trauma. I have purposely purposely stayed quiet about most of mine this season, as I absolutely wanted to highlight the stories of others. And I wanted to finally address my own shame and I needed to do it privately. For me, knowing full well, one day it would end up here and your earbuds. Today’s episode is part one of our season finale this, this episode will highlight the miraculous, the miraculous work that God has done in my life over the course of this podcast season. But first you need some perspective before Dr. Pettit comes on to end the season. And we’re going to talk about a day a counseling session that happened in his office. You guys know how important counseling is to me and how important I think it is in our healing process. So this is a good place for me to stop and say, if you’re interested in helping us provide counseling services for people who cannot afford it, please click on that contact me button in the show notes. We have awarded two scholarships in 2020, to apply to a war two more to people that just could not get help. Because the fact of the matter is, I would not be, I just I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be behind this microphone. If it weren’t for my access to counseling, I am so immensely grateful that I have been able to provide that for myself. And so I want to provide it for others. And if you want to share along on that journey, just click on that that button, there’s several ways you can do it. This all started guys, when I found a picture of me when I was about seven years old pictures of me of a child, I thought were pretty relatively non existent. And so I struggled remember being a child. And so this picture and some subsequent ones that came behind it, jarred V. I remember that little girl who I sometimes call the towheaded monster slayer. And one day audibly spoke to that picture and promised that little girl who kept me alive that I was going to take care of what she had protected. She got me here to this day recording this podcast, the more importantly, she got me here to this life, that I am living, abundant, and free. And so my promise to the monster slayer was that I was going to do the hard work of healing parts of me. And there was a part that not a single soul knew existed. I knew if I was going to continue to get behind microphones and keyboards that I had to invite Jesus the start of the entire story into my pain. I was feeling incredibly burned out on my work here, the pandemic and life in general. I think John Eldridge said it best in his new book resilient, we have not yet paid the psychological bill for the pandemic, he has likely referring to the world at large. But for those of us who are trauma survivors, it has been a double whammy. Early last year, I added another tool to my toolbox by way of hiring an Enneagram coach. And while I know that not all Christians believe that the Enneagram can be used with through the gospel lens, I chose to learn about my core motivations and my core fears through the gospel lens and the way God made me what makes me tick and to address my propensity to help others sometimes to my own detriment. I did it because I was done guys. I was done fighting. I was done fighting for me, and I was done fighting. I was getting very close to being done fighting for you. I learned a lot through that process and realize that my childhood message you must always plan in the background. As my core fear of being unwanted and unloved had been met from my earliest memory. We spent the first half of this season learning about how each of us process trauma. And all the while I was learning that I am wanted and loved by the Most High God operating from that truth ingrained in me by both Dr. Pettit and Carissa Harrison, who was my Enneagram coach, it was time and here’s where YouTube you viewers are going to see it on my face, it was time to address the shame of sexual abuse. For some reason I was able to share the abuse when I was a small child through elementary school. But it was my last abuser that left marks of shame on the deepest parts of me. What I’m going to share with you today is only been shared with Dr. Pettit and a close and a few close friends. It is my hope again, leaving the 99 to find the one that one of you are helped by this gut wrenching battle to defeat the shame that I have endured for decades. It was my last abuser the seventh of seven that haunts me but a finally laid it down nailed it to the cross I can hear it in my ears now the hammer hitting the nail because that was on that cross where they took my Jesus and the earth was changed forever. Why as bloodshed for you and me. The completed work on the cross gives shame the knockout punch. It has no game. And that is all because of Jesus the story the story. This man my seventh abuser I’ve mentioned before mentioned before that even as a young adult I’ve had I when I was very young. 789 years old, I had odd jobs that put food on the table and clothes on my back. One day I was canvassing for set jobs and people who didn’t care about child labor laws. When I walked into a thrift shop to find a fragile man sitting behind the counter. I asked if he could use some help and after negotiating my $32 a week salary. I found my first sales job as surely as I got At more further secondhand items than he was getting on his own, I swept floors hung up close counted money, and I was immensely proud of that work. Because I think we all get a sense of fulfillment and work is how God made us. I was perhaps just a decade early on the work, my friends were outside playing, and I was selling secondhand clothes to people. I will not get this man airtime by giving you his name. But it wasn’t long before he wanted more than that, but in sales skills or keeping his shop clean. It was the summer between my fifth and sixth grade season of school. My uncle Lloyd, who had already been a steady presence in my life offered to put me in a private school as I was incredibly bored and not challenged in the public school system. I was going to church, as I’ve mentioned before the robust ministry and they had a school and so I was so excited that I was going to be going to school with my friends from church. The only problem is that there was a dress code at that school and I had nothing that met that dress code. So that summer was all about earning money to buy clothes for the school year. I saved that $32 A week all summer and at the end of the summer, I jumped on the city bus went to the mall, I filled my closet with acceptable school clothes. But that summer job came at a great cost to me. And at 50 years old, it was finally time to address it, as shameful as it was, and can sometimes still be because I don’t believe that these things are one and done. I believe that I constantly have to take this to the cross. I was active in church as I’ve mentioned, I want all the sword drills memorized scripture for contest got picked for Bible trivia teams went to summer camp and heard some of the main most amazing preaching I’ve ever heard still to this day. However, those were the days where the most of the preaching was hellfire and brimstone and perhaps the beginning of what many Christians call and I’m err quoting when I say this purity culture. Now, before I go further, I want to make clear that I believe that these people were well meaning because the Bible does in fact, teach sexual purity. That the idea that my generation was beat down with sexual purity messaging without the why behind it is real. Like I said, I believe these people were well meaning that this message was damaging. To many of us. The message was simple. Don’t have sex before marriage. Don’t do this before marriage. Don’t do that before marriage. Don’t defile yourself. Don’t make yourself unclean. I think that those people will teach us differently now perhaps telling us the why behind the double biblical truth of sexual purity. That back then all that we knew was sexual activity, and any form was bad, dirty, defiled, perhaps even evil. No one could have known that kids like me, who had some of that stuff forcibly taken from them were sitting under their preaching and teaching. They just wanted the best for us avoiding the ills of premature sexual activity Not to mention, all the things they were teaching us is in fact that local when engaging in their sexual activities was a choice. And so when my new boss added some things to my job description that fell in that room, I chose to keep collecting my $32 a week and hope they got understood. I was 12 years old, my body was also confusing me. And he realized he put me in the palm of his hand as he began providing for my almost my every need at that point, food, transportation, lunch money and attention that I so desperately needed. Not too long after that summer, my mom made that decision that got me removed from her by the state and this man disappeared because he knew that what he did left marks on my body that the doctors would notice and questions would be asked. They never found him. My heart and my mind never lost the shame and regret from not saying something forgiven at my quote, purity, for food, transportation and attention and attention. The indictments remained until the beginning of this podcast season, the barrage of purity culture preaching only added to that shame, and I was certain that I was damaged goods and no one would ever want me. And moreover, God would be forever disappointed in me. I should have known better right? I should have told somebody dirty MTA filed. Plan over and over my mind like a broken record. Visiting this 30 years later also highlight some pain guys that my mom let it happen. Often fewer 25 yards from the shadow of shame, the settlement same property of our rented house. I’m not sure that pain will ever go away this side of heaven but the pain of her not wanting me and not loving me enough to protect me added to shame and that started the ball up performing for people to love me doing things for people so that they would keep me around working to the point of burnout so that I could prove that I love God in spite of the 13 year old decision to let this man air quote defile me. Fast forward many years later, when I met and married the man that about killed me, I figured he was the best I was ever going to get damaged goods dirty to filed center spoil goods. But the day I arrived and I walked into Dr. Pets office to tell determine to tell him things that I had never told his soul including these details about my last abuser. finally able to see him in person because of the of the pandemic I drove the two hours to his office and I felt more and more sick. As I watched the miles click Buy, was I really going to do this was I going to share what a horrible, unclean, defiled and unpure person I was, because I should have known better. I was learning that at church. I knew I was wrong. I knew it was wrong in my soul. And now decades later, I was finally going to tell somebody after an interview with my friend morally, the season before I became fascinated with inner child work. My fascination though was for you, not for me. But the more that I researched inner child work and even repairing, I could easily conjure up images of that towheaded monster slayer that kept me alive from the first time I was locked in a room and the physical abuse that happened there. She protected me in weird ways for me to the seven abusers including the serial killer. Somehow that little girl got me to this place. I am now alive and a productive member of society. And so I walked into Dr. pedis office that morning for that towhead monster slayer, little Amy. Little Amy deserves some attention. She deserves some validation. And moreover, that little girl deserve to heal. Little Amy deserved that promise to take care of what she had protected in childhood. Her very wife, my very wife. I sat in the waiting room of his office and that picture in my hand blurry when I looked at it because my hands are shaking. When he came into the waiting room I swallowed hard and stared down on the picture of my hand. He knew I was finally was as ready as I was ever going to be. I handed them the picture one of the few of the towheaded monster slayer, the seven year old snaggletooth little girl dirty but smiling that signature Amy Watson smile sitting on a pony. As odd as that is. I remember the people that knocked on doors with a pony and a hat. The pictures cost money. I don’t know who paid it. But somehow there I sat on Apone the monster slayer squinted from the Florida Sun. And for reasons that defy logic gifted the camera again that trademark AMI smile. That’s to this day is one of the first things that people notice about me. Dr. Pettit gently took the picture for me and taped it on a dry erase board in his office. I could hear my heartbeat and I was sure that he could to. I couldn’t look at him at first. But when the words began to flow as did the tears, I stared at that picture of that little girl once that somehow found a way to survive. I felt gratitude in my heart for her and pride that a girl is short on trips around the Sun managed to stay alive. I began telling the floor my story, the story of the last abuser I could look up at Dr. Pettit. I guess he heard the story too. When I was done that looked up to see the words he had written on the board. He wrote them as I said them and even kept count on him many times I use phrases like I should have known better. God has to be so mad at me. I am dirty. I deserved to marry into domestic violence marriage, I am spoiled goods. I failed to protect my purity for some clothes, and for some housing and for a ride to school. Because I just should have known better. The board was full of such phrases and words he didn’t need to write them all because all of them are covered by one simple word shame. We are on holy ground because then Dr. Pettit began right in the opposite of those words on the other side of the board, Queen and isn’t resilient, and a bunch of other words that I still struggle to attach to myself. He then got up and handed me the EMDR paddles and asked me to repeat the words on the right side of the board. I was a little girl. I wasn’t in and God isn’t mad at me. I am not defiled. I did what I had to do to survive. It was your mom’s job to protect you. And finally, monster slayer. Thank you. Thank you for doing what you needed to do to keep me alive. He took the paddles from my hand and as like a veil have been lifted. And the fogginess of guilt and shame was gone. I felt an immense warmth of my Jesus holding me grieved at what happened to me and remind me that is why he came to this earth to save us all. Song popped in my head that cross I have sent me earlier in the year by Maverick city. I have never been more loved than I am right now. It wasn’t holding you up. So there’s nothing I can do to let you down. It doesn’t take a trophy to make you proud, never been more loved than I am right now. And so as we close out the season where we have well covered shoulder trauma, I want you to hear what that day was like for Dr. Pettit. We both took pictures of the board. I didn’t need it, as EMDR had done his job. No longer trapped in the trauma loop both sides of my brain. No more counts. No more shame. This is what I want for you. In the next episode, Dr. Pettit dives deeper into what happened that day, and how you too can experience the same piece that comes with surrender to the truth of who God made us. And not our circumstances or decisions want us to think that we are. As for me, this is the last solo episode of season three. I am so grateful for all of you all around the world who pushed play and sometimes told me when things have helped you. You plan to push forward on our central focus continuing to be the star of the story of Jesus. Guys, if you don’t know him, I would love to tell you how you can know Him. You can contact me anytime by hitting that contact me button. But while the mic is mine, I want to thank a few people me Highland who so excellently produces these episodes and keeps me sane, with the things that would rob me of creativity and carefully listening to the voice of the star of the story. This season like the two before podcast covers were created by Brittany knight who donate it to to us for this season. All the graphics that you see on social media are by my friend Rebecca Miller, I would like to thank her. Thank you to those who support us on Patreon and who participated in last year’s fundraiser. As I mentioned earlier, we still have two more school counseling scholarships to award this year because of your kindness. Look for new merchandise in the store. By the time you hear in this episode, we hopefully will have launched the umat er line from merchandise. Profits from merch sales also goes to support our effort to award counseling scholarships. Finally, thank you to Phil Baker, whose music you hear always plays us out on the podcast. Most of all, thank you Jesus. Thank you for your nail score us that reached into my heart that they had Dr. Pettit, Sophos who reminded me that I can never be shameful to you pick up much too high a price for me to have that experience experienced that David, thank you for paying it. Next up is Dr. cadettes perspective on this day in his office, that episode will be in two weeks. Till now, if I’ve left them on you notifying them why now I hope that you are a loved one. And I never close a podcast without reminding you that you are so busy. You’re so loved. You’re so heard. You’re so valued. And you’re so now tune in in two weeks for Dr. Pettit. But I have a treat for you. I mentioned that one day and nailed this literally to the cross. That was at seven rivers Presbyterian Church in Crystal River, Florida. About 14 years ago. At that church there was a worship leader whose name is Josh bales, who has a song called isn’t that amazing grace. It is one of the most played songs on my phone. He has given me permission to use the song today. And I think it speaks to this message perfectly. So enjoy this song by Josh bales. Isn’t that amazing grace Unknown Speaker 25:04 underneath the counter guy we all try to hide we forget how he loves us so we forget mihrab as the gospel drown joy is amazing there imposters in the sky trust is love it on ourselves we must drown? Shadow Shadow Amy Watson 29:07 I hope that song was a blessing to you we will see you here in two weeks when Dr. Pettit comes and talks about this very same day. You guys have a good one Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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The Journey In The Writing 