2: Five Engines That Drive Our Emotions

[00:00] Stephanie: Season three, episode two. We are talking more about the B.U.I.L.D. maturity model today. Hello, Father.

[00:07] Marcus: Hello, Daughter. Good to be back doing this together.

[00:10] Stephanie: It’s good stuff. Last episode we launched this new series, digging into breakthrough and looking at growth models. And so today we want to go into the B.U.I.L.D. maturity acrostic. But first let’s just set up. Why are we building maturity? Why breakthrough? Can you give us a pitch for that?

[00:34] Marcus: Yes, why are we doing this and what is it all about? The word breakthrough needs a little defining because it means different things to different people. When I talk about breakthrough, I have a variety of things in mind.

First of all, it depends on what my problem is, what breakthrough means to me. Let’s say I am struggling with a pornography addiction. A breakthrough to me means I don’t have that compulsion anymore. I have some level of victory there that I am not getting right now. So sometimes breakthrough is behavioral, and my behavior changes.

Sometimes breakthrough is emotional. And that is I’m having emotions I can’t seem to get through, I can’t get out of. I feel like I’m swimming against the tide. Every time I deal with this emotion, it just wins. So a breakthrough for me in that setting would be I am starting to win those battles, and I’m gradually getting to the point where that emotion is not the norm that I’m feeling.

And then there’s a third level where we’re just talking about what I would call leveling up my maturity. That is, moving from one level of maturity to another, so that things that used to defeat me are no longer defeating me because there’s something stronger going on inside.

[01:58] Stephanie: And it’s really helpful to think about it in these three levels. So let’s define these. So we have level one where we are relieving pain. We’re focusing on managing symptoms.

[02:08] Marcus: Yeah. So relieving pain and managing symptoms is all about, again, is my symptom a behavior I’m trying to break? Is my symptom an emotion I don’t want to feel? What’s that symptom? What is it? And most people are either feeling pain about a relationship or they’re feeling pain about something they don’t have control over in their life.

There is a presenting problem that is causing emotions, and they want a breakthrough because they don’t want to be stuck feeling that anymore, or they have a behavioral problem and they don’t want to be stuck in that behavior anymore. They want to find a way through it. And so breakthrough for them is a symptom relief and getting pain relief from the thing that is troubling them.

[02:47] Stephanie: And then we have level two, which is repairing damage. So that’s focusing on root issues and bringing healing to things.

[02:56] Marcus: Somebody can come in, and we can give them a plan for managing their symptoms, and it’s good to manage the symptoms and not just let them go all over the place, but at some point, we want to get to the root level issues.

Now, root issues include things like, is there something demonic going on that needs to be addressed? Are there root memories that need to be healed? Are there wounds that are unresolved? Are there core lies that need to be identified and replaced? Are there vows that need to be renounced?

Those are what I would mean by root level issues. There is something underneath here that is driving the symptoms. And so a second level of breakthrough is dealing with the root issues.

[03:37] Stephanie: Awesome. So then we get to our third level of breakthrough. You’ve been managing your symptoms, you’re dealing with your root issues, and now you’re rebuilding or developing maturity, focusing on new habits and skills you might have missed.

[03:52] Marcus: You said that well. So developing maturity has to do with moving from infant to child to adult to parent to elder. But that’s not just a matter of choosing to be more mature. A lot of times you think, “Would you just grow up?” — like it’s a choice that I make. And there are times I can choose to be more in sync with maturity than not.

But maturity can be thought of as capacity. And so what we’re really trying to grow is my capacity to not get triggered. In other words, wouldn’t it be nice not only to be able to recover from getting triggered but to actually grow my capacity for something to not trigger me as much as it currently does?

And that’s what happens when I am leveling up in my maturity — I don’t get triggered as easily. And when I do get triggered, I bounce back faster. And those are core signs that I am increasing my maturity and increasing my emotional capacity.

So that is a little bit different in that the first two have to do with relieving things and getting rid of things, and this one has to do with actually building skills and building habits that increase our capacity.

[05:04] Stephanie: Interesting. So I usually think about triggering as being more related to root issue things, but in terms of if you have enough emotional capacity to handle something, it might not trigger you as much because something from your root issues might not be as triggering because you have the capacity to do that.

[05:25] Marcus: Part of the maturity development is I may be able to function like an adult until I get triggered and then I turn into a little kid. The goal here is part of the maturity process is that that doesn’t happen as much. So one of the things that does have to happen is you have to deal with the root issues. That’s part of it.

But there are other things that have to happen, too. So growing my maturity always involves both a healing component and a habit component, if you will, to use the two Hs. There are healings, and there are habits. They’re both involved.

[05:57] Stephanie: That’s awesome. And all of this is to say, we’re not saying look for your one big breakthrough or look for one of these levels to bring the breakthrough. We want all of these levels working, and it’s often going to be a process. And even, as Dan Rumberger, likes to say, the spiral of healing and of growth is where you revisit things.

[06:18] Marcus: It’s very common in the emotional healing journey to think that you have gone back to square one because you’re right back to feeling the same emotion that you thought you had gotten victory over. You’re dealing with the same old memories and experiences. But a lot of times, God takes us on a journey where we revisit emotions, and we revisit those experiences, but we’re doing them from a different perspective and at a different point in our life.

Sometimes we overreact to the fact that that is happening, thinking that I am back to square one and I’ve made no progress at all because we think emotional maturity should be point A to point B to point C, and I never look back once I get there. What I like about Dan Rumberger’s model is this spiral idea that I can gradually spiral up, but it can feel like I am actually losing ground along the way because I often do revisit emotions and issues.

[07:19] Stephanie: Well, that’s a really good setup. I think we can move into this B.U.I.L.D. acrostic now — build maturity. So the B.U.I.L.D. acrostic is divided into physical and spiritual components. Why don’t you give us a brief overview, and then we’ll break it down.

[07:39] Marcus: We call them the five engines that drive emotions. There are three physical engines and two spiritual engines.

The three physical engines can be thought of as my body, my left brain, and my right brain. It’s a little oversimplified, but this makes it easy for me to think about. For my body, the idea is that if something is wrong in my body, it can affect my emotions. If something is wrong in my emotions, it can affect my body. So it’s a two-way street.

And so I have to be aware of my body. That’s the first habit. Be aware of my body. Right now, what is going on? How is this emotion affecting my body? Is my breathing getting shallow? Is my stomach tense? Are my ears getting hot?

What is going on in my body with this emotion? What is it doing to my body? Also, is it possible that the reason I’m struggling with this emotion is because something is off in my body that needs to be addressed? So, being aware of the body is the first one. That’s the first engine.

The second engine, left brain, has to do with beliefs. And the main function of the left part of my brain is to solve problems. And the core way that I solve problems is by analyzing them, coming up with a narrative to explain them, and then following a solution based on the narrative that I create.

And so my left brain is very good at focusing on problems, coming up with narratives to explain them, and then doing something based on that narrative. Now, the problem here, of course, is that my left brain doesn’t know fact from fantasy. It can only deal with the information and the data that it’s given.

So if it’s given bad data, it’s going to come up with a bad narrative that’s going to lead me to bad solutions. And so a lot of time in traditional counseling is spent helping people get their narrative straight. How do I get my beliefs straight? Because if I can straighten out my beliefs, an awful lot of problems get solved.

The only problem I see with this is where people make everything about beliefs and that you just straighten out your beliefs and everything gets taken care of. I actually found that there is an engine deeper than beliefs that needs to be addressed, though I do not disregard the importance of them.

[09:44] Stephanie: Mm-hmm. So if we’re doing the acrostic here, it’s be aware of your body, unleash your beliefs, and then we get to increase your joy bond.

[09:56] Marcus: Yeah. So the third B is the right brain. It’s bonding — it’s attachment bonding — and that’s largely happening on the right hemisphere of the brain. And so, oversimplifying, it’s the right brain function. And what’s happening there is that even deeper than my beliefs, things are happening on the right side of my brain first and faster than the left side of my brain.

In other words, everything in my brain moves from right to left. And what happens on the right-hand side of my brain is very important because it is telling my left brain what is important enough to deserve its focus. So if my right brain is constantly saying, this is the problem you need to be solving right now, my left brain will go, okay, I can solve that problem, and its focus will just be on that problem.

But if my right brain is learning, “You know what, we should really take time to focus on what there is to appreciate right now,” and it’s sending over that signal, my left brain can do that, too. But there are skills that I develop on both sides of the brain.

Some are related to bonding, and some are related to beliefs. What happens is if in the attachment part of my brain, I am already feeling fear or shame or anger, then that feeling that has already been generated by the bonding part of my brain, my left brain is going to pick up on that, and it’s going to be much easier to pull up narratives to reinforce that emotion.

And so there is something deeper going on that affects what I end up believing. Most of us are used to thinking what I believe affects my emotions, but they don’t understand that what I am feeling can actually affect what I’m believing. And that also is sort of this two-way street. Sometimes my beliefs do affect my emotions, but sometimes it’s the other way around.

[11:47] Stephanie: So those are our physical engines?

[11:48] Marcus: Those are the three physical engines.

[11:50] Stephanie: And then we have two more that are the spiritual engines.

[11:54] Marcus: So the two spiritual engines — we have the Holy Spirit and wicked spirits. So they’re both spiritual engines. And what we find is both wicked spirits and the Holy Spirit can affect all three physical engines.

We see it in the Bible. We see people who are ill and have things not working because of demonic spirits present. We see that a lot of the miracles that Jesus did involve casting out demons, and it heals something physical. We see the Holy Spirit giving the gift of healing and being able to heal the body and such. Both can affect the body, and both can affect our beliefs.

The devil is called the father of lies, which is a belief thing, and the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth, which is a truth idea. You have two spiritual engines that are trying to control our belief engine. And then on the bonding side of it, the devil is constantly trying to get us to bond to the wrong things.

The devil wants us to bond to the things of this world. It wants us to bond to the things of the flesh. It wants to bond to things that are going to actually destroy us, whereas the Holy Spirit wants us to form bonds that are going to increase joy, increase love, that are going to grow our world. So they affect the bonding engine as well.

And what I found is that if you really want to be holistic, you have to address all five things. There are times where the body is the issue, and the root issue going on is that there is something wrong physically that needs to get fixed. Fix that and things get resolved.

There are times when it’s your beliefs, and you’ve got to change your beliefs about this, or nothing is going to get resolved. There are times when it is at the bonding level, and things have to get addressed. There are other times when there are demons that are active here, and if you don’t deal with them, you’re not going to make any progress.

And there are times when this is about connecting with God and the Holy Spirit, maybe for inner healing, but it’s also just in our daily walk with him of what he wants us to know and what he wants us to experience. So all five engines play a role, and at different times, any one of these five can be the significant thing that needs to be resolved.

[14:02] Stephanie: Right. If you have a spiritual warfare issue, only a spiritual warfare solution will help. So just for the sake of people who are tracking the acrostic, I don’t know that we specified, but we have B.U.I., then the L is listen to the Holy Spirit, and then D is deal with demons or defeat demons.

[14:28] Marcus: Deal with and defeat the demons. Yes.

[14:30] Stephanie: So, what have you seen from people as they are on their breakthrough journeys? Like, how have you seen them engage with these five engines?

[14:44] Marcus: So, for example, I know somebody who had massive headaches, and those headaches were relentless and didn’t end. They took the medicine, they went to the doctors, they got all the brain scans, and they got everything done.

There were no solutions to their headaches until they went to somebody who was a spiritual warfare practitioner and identified the fact that they had opened up a door through an occult object they had brought into their life. As soon as they destroyed that object and renounced any connection to it, their headaches stopped immediately.

So there is an example where they were trying to fix their problem. Because it had physical symptoms, they assumed that it had a physical origin, but it actually had a spiritual origin. And until they dealt with that engine, they weren’t going to get the breakthrough they were looking for.

I’ve seen similar things. People with pornography issues who were managing it well through their management and behavioral choices but again had an emotional healing experience where God took them back to some root memories that were driving that, or in other cases when demons were driving the compulsion, until those were addressed and gotten rid of.

A lot of times you find that until you’re dealing with these spiritual engines, some of the things we’re trying to fix at the physical level don’t matter. I’ve also seen it go the other way where people are so fixated on getting rid of this demon and that’ll fix everything that they aren’t doing the things they need to do to deal with their thought life and with their bonding and attachments and the things that it takes to grow maturity and build those skills.

So I’ve seen all of this stuff. That’s why we identify these.

[16:30] Stephanie: Well, if somebody who is maybe assessing all five engines together for the first time, where would you recommend that they start? How would you recommend they figure out which engine to go for?

[16:43] Marcus: Yeah, sure. So the original point of these five engines was as a means to try to help people helpers who are working with folks stuck in addiction. So the origin of it was that someone had asked me for help in developing a model on how to help men who are stuck in pornography.

So they were like, “Does spiritual warfare play a role?” Absolutely. I’ve seen guys get free from pornography by dealing with spiritual warfare. Well, what else is in there? There’s listening prayer and connecting to God and having him heal memories.

And then there is this whole building maturity thing that gets into growing your habits and your skills, especially at the bonding and attachment level. There’s beliefs. What you believe about things has to change. And there’s sometimes physical stuff that you need to pay attention to that’s affecting it.

And so this whole model came as a means of trying to make a simple, transferable system for people helpers who are trying to help others get out of their addiction. Now, of course, the most motivated people tend to be ones who are in their problem trying to get out of it. And it can be a little bit overwhelming to think, wait, all these things are included?

And the answer is, well, yeah, because this is a journey. There’s a reason why we call it the emotional healing journey. It’s not a one-and-done thing, and you get your breakthrough. Now, there could be breakthrough moments that are one-and-done, but we’re constantly growing in our maturity, we’re constantly increasing.

I’m in my sixties. I’m still growing my ability to deal with things, hopefully better than I used to. They all connect.

[18:31] Stephanie: I think it’s helpful to look through the three levels of relieving pain and whatever your felt need is. One time I was listening to you teach on this, and you had some bullets, and I started Venn diagramming — bigger than a Venn diagram. It was a matrix.

It was like, okay, if you’re at level one and you need pain relief, what does pain relief look like in body, beliefs, bonds, and Holy Spirit. If you are needing to repair damage, what does that look like at each of these levels? If you are needing to rebuild maturity, what does that look like at each of these levels?

And just starting to brainstorm out, What does this look like at this level? And so maybe a place to start might be having some listening prayer with God to say, “Hey, God, where do I start? There’s a lot here. What are you wanting to walk with me through right now? And at which level?”

[19:30] Marcus: I think we actually have a diagram like that in the book where we kind of look at the five engines.

[19:37] Stephanie: There is a diagram like that in the Freedom Course.

[19:41] Marcus: Well, somewhere there’s a diagram. I agree that it’s hard to know where to start. Generally speaking, when I was meeting with people on a regular basis, I started with listening prayer and spiritual warfare, and then went into the other things, primarily because there are fewer people who are really experienced at those.

And so I figure they can find people to help them with the other things a little bit easier. So we started there for the most part. But I began to realize that you can help people meet Jesus in a memory and get some kind of healing, and you can help people actually get free from something demonic, and it doesn’t produce instant maturity.

If I come in as an emotional infant, and I experience more freedom than I had before, I’m still an emotional infant the next day. What has happened is a barrier to my growth has been removed, but there is still growth that is needed. And that’s part of this whole thing. That’s why instant breakthrough is a very rare thing.

[20:53] Stephanie: Awesome. Well, I think that is about wrapping us up for today. I want to encourage you all, if you want to go deeper into this overview and you have the book. Ta da! We have a physical book here if you’re on YouTube and can see.

So chapter three of this book is going to go deeper into this. And if you want to start reading right away, we actually have a free sample chapter of chapter one in the description. I encourage you to check that out or share it.

Father, thank you so much. This is such an incredibly helpful overview. Will you give us any final thoughts for this episode? And next episode we’re going to be talking more about maturity development.

[21:45] Marcus: Well, one of the reasons that we have to think about with these engines is that just like any vehicle that has engines, you have to keep them up to speed on a regular basis. So the very fact that I experienced something like this at some point in my past doesn’t mean I don’t have to go through it again or that there isn’t some more to do in that area.

There’s maintenance, and there’s upkeep and there’s all these things that go on. And this is just meant to make it clear where I need to be looking. So if I open up the hood, look underneath, see what’s going on, this is meant to give you an idea of where to start looking. I hope that the model is helpful.

[22:22] Stephanie: Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the trail today. Did you like this episode? Would you like more people to see it? This is the part where I ask you to, like, comment, subscribe, share with a friend.

And do you love this channel? One of the best ways that you can support us is by becoming a Deeper Walk Trailblazer. Thanks again! We’ll see you back on the trail next week.