4: Be Aware of Your Body

[00:00] Stephanie: Season 3, episode 4. Today, we are looking at breakthrough’s engine number one, the body. Hello, Father.

[00:08] Marcus: Hello, Daughter.

[00:10] Stephanie: Good to be with you today.

[00:11] Marcus: Yeah, it is indeed.

[00:12] Stephanie: Thank you for speaking with us about this very important topic.

[00:16] Marcus: Yeah, I thought I’d show up.

[00:17] Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. Glad you did.

[00:19] Stephanie: Before we start, actually, I have something that I hope people in general will show up to, which is this week. We have a really important online event happening on Saturday that if people can’t show up live for, they can catch the recordings.

This is a name-your-own-price event with you and Dr. Heather Gingrich and Melissa Finger. And you guys are going to be talking to people about the path to healing from sexual trauma. Do you want to give us a quick pitch for it?

[00:54] Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. Heather Gingrich has taught counseling at Denver Theological Seminary for many years, has written two books on complex trauma as an expert in the field of recovering from all kinds of trauma. And so we’re delighted that she’s going to be joining us.

Melissa Finger runs a ministry in Kansas City that also deals with complex trauma, much of it related to the issues that arise from sexual trauma in childhood. And then I’m there just, you know because.

[01:29] Stephanie: You’re going to be talking about Understanding the Wounded Heart.

[01:30] Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:31] Stephanie: And then Dr. Gingrich is going to be having a session, and Melissa’s going to have a session, and then you guys will do a panel together. So it will be a robust afternoon on a very heavy but important topic.

[01:44] Marcus: Yes.

[01:44] Stephanie: Yeah, and it’s name your own price.

[01:46] Marcus: So I figure everybody is either dealing with this or knows somebody dealing with this. It’s sadly all too common.

[01:54] Stephanie: All right. Well, we are currently in a series looking at the five engines that drive our emotions, and breakthrough is a journey. Breakthrough is a journey. A lot of people are looking for that one big breakthrough. But one of the things that we’re unpacking is that you have identified, Father, five core areas where people tend to need breakthroughs.

And we can have small ones, big ones. Sometimes it’s complex, and you need a breakthrough in multiple areas for one issue. And so right now, we’re looking at the body. But actually, I’d like, just for the sake of making sure that we keep the holistic nature of breakthrough at the forefront, would you just give us a quick walkthrough? What are the five engines?

[02:40] Marcus: Yeah, so this is meant to be a holistic model that takes everything into consideration. And that is there are engines that drive our emotions. Our body is one of those engines. Our beliefs are one of those engines. Our bonding attachments would be one of those engines. And then the spirit realm — it’s wicked spirits and the Holy Spirit.

And so a holistic model has to account for all of those. So beliefs gets into the Bible. Right. And what we believe about things that are true and beyond that, just the things that we’ve come to believe to be true throughout life. So, yeah, today we’re going to focus on engine number one, on the body, and I’m looking forward to it.

[03:13] Stephanie: So, yeah, I can’t tell you how many times, and I’m sure you’ve had the same experience — I’ve had someone come up to me, you know, at church, at an event somewhere, and just be like, so what do you think about the body? And it’s usually in the guise of, you know, should so and so take medication for this? Do you think that the body is a real issue or do you think it’s just spiritual or vice versa?

Like, I’ve met people who are kind of anti being aware of your body, and I’ve met people who are anti not being aware of your body, and the body is the only thing. And so I think where we tend to fall is, you know, we’ve said often on this podcast and in the ministry, that if you have a spiritual warfare issue, only a spiritual warfare solution is going to solve it.

And if you have a physical issue, you’re likely going to need, short of a miracle, a physical solution. Now, there are spiritual things that can cause physical solutions. So I’m not saying, anyway, we’re going to unpack that. But if the issue is truly a physical origin, then yes, we believe that there are going to be physical solutions.

[04:17] Marcus: Yeah, and, you know, there are some obvious things like this, and that is we know people who, for instance, were in a traffic accident, damaged part of their brain, and now their entire personality changed. Their emotional ability to regulate their emotions has changed. It affects things.

So you just go from the obvious example of damage to the body and specifically damage to parts of the brain, and you realize, okay, yeah, there’s a direct connection between what’s going on in my body and my emotions at some level. So now we’re just kind of unpacking some of the more nuances of it besides those big obvious ones.

[04:58] Stephanie: Right. And so I would just finalize the thought of, you know, looking at our holistic model and thinking that we have a toolkit and not every issue is a nail. And so we don’t always reach for the hammer. Sometimes you’re going to need the hammer and the screwdriver, you know, you’re going to need multiple things.

[05:14] Marcus: Well, and what you mean by complex is when you need more than one tool. So that’s what we’re talking about. You’ve got more than one origin to the problem, you need more than one tool for the solution. That makes it a more complex thing.

[05:26] Stephanie: Or for instance — and I think we’ll talk about this a little bit more later in the episode — you know, sometimes you have a physical issue, but you’re going to have a spiritual warfare issue layered on top of it so that maybe they’re muddled but they’re not the same root, or things like that.

[05:45] Marcus: So that makes it complex. We’ve got multiple engines that are affecting things simultaneously.

[05:50] Stephanie: Right. I wanted to kind of go maybe to the deep end on that first just because I feel oftentimes people approach me with that first, like that’s the felt need. And, so I wanted to address that head-on. But let’s pull back. You often talk about the two-way street of emotions in your body.

[06:10] Marcus: Yeah.

[06:10] Stephanie: So would you unpack that a little bit for us?

[06:12] Marcus: Yeah. So the two-way street basically is the idea that if something is wrong in my body it affects my emotions, but also if something’s wrong with my emotions, it affects my body. So all emotions manifest physically. That’s something to remember. I’ll say it again. All emotions manifest physically.

So if I have fear and anger, those are high-energy emotions. So what makes them high energy? High energy things are happening in my body, and that’s why calming is how do I quiet my body from this emotion that has hijacked my body. And then there are low energy emotions that suck the energy out of your body. Shame, sadness, disgust, despair.

And so if you look at these things, you’re like, all right, so this is why we say that emotions can affect my body. And if you get complex emotions — I’ve got anger and hopeless despair, I’ve got fear and sadness, I’ve got complex things going on — it’s a little bit like stepping on the brakes and stepping on the gas at the same time, and physically it affects my body.

You do that for a long time, and you can see why people with unresolved emotional damage will have a lot of physical problems generally. And I had one doctor tell me they estimated that 80% of their client needs were actually rooted in some sort of psychological trauma.

[07:35] Stephanie: Yeah, and wasn’t the word like psychosomatic? But that’s not just believing that you have — I don’t know — we’re not actually medical professionals here, so I won’t.

[07:42] Marcus: Yeah. And no, it wasn’t just psychosomatic. It wasn’t, is it being caused by something they’re believing it was? Is there a psychological root to it?

[07:50] Stephanie: I was just reading in your book and you mentioned it, and you said that you used to believe that psychosomatic meant that, but that it was the correction of …

[07:56] Marcus: I see.

[07:57] Stephanie: Anyway, I don’t know. I shouldn’t dig into that.

[07:58] Marcus: I should read my book sometime.

[08:03] Stephanie: I also just wanted to briefly address — you were talking about emotions manifesting in the body. And these days that word I feel like for some people could be a trigger word for, you know, people talk about manifesting things in a more new age or occult way.

[08:19] Marcus: Did not know that. Okay.

[08:19] Stephanie: I don’t know, maybe it’s …

[08:23] Marcus: You’re more in touch than I am. What can I say? Go ahead.

[08:25] Stephanie: So I just wanted to address that’s not what you meant.

[08:27] Marcus: No.

[08:28] Stephanie: So, all right. Anything more on the two-way street?

[08:33] Marcus: That’s very freeing, I think, for some people to realize like, okay, part of my health issues are related to emotions. And because of that, a lot of times the help that you get with your emotions can make a difference in your physical symptoms.

And then the other way around is that because my body being off affects my emotions that’s why prescriptions are so often part of the solution that people are given, because the doctors look at what’s happening, and they’re like, well, physically this is not where it ought to be. So let’s do some things to adjust that. And it can help. It can help.

So I tell people that medication occasionally is the whole solution because that is what’s wrong. But it doesn’t mean it’s always the solution, and it doesn’t mean that it is always the right path. But I’m not in a position to prescribe when it is and when it isn’t.

[09:36] Stephanie: Well, and I would just add to that we set up a couple episodes ago, the three levels of breakthrough and there being pain relief, you know, taking care of your symptoms and then getting to root issues and then doing repair and building up. And so sometimes you’re needing the physical thing — maybe that’s not the whole issue — but you still need the physical thing as the pain relief so that you can adjust to the rest of it.

So I don’t know. We’re getting into really specific stuff, but the point being. medicine matters and please take it if you need it.

[10:18] Marcus: Yes.

[10:21] Stephanie: All right. Well, do you have any examples?

[10:26] Marcus: Sure. So, in my own life, I had a huge battle with anxiety for a period of time. And taking some medication helped because getting it out of your body helps you to calm down some other things and helps you kind of recalibrate. So there have been times when I’ve taken medication, like, for when I was just not able to get anxiety out of my body.

I also know, I read a book by the head of the AACC, American Association of Christian Counselors, in which he talks about a Bible teacher who was in a group that didn’t believe in taking medication. And this guy got so bad that he could hardly function and ended up in a padded cell, like in a psychiatric ward. Finally, this man was able to convince the Bible teacher to try some medication. And within a couple of weeks — I can’t remember the exact scenario, but you get the idea. So within a certain amount of time, he not only had recovered, but he was back to teaching Bible and feeling like himself. And in his case, really, it was mostly medical. And that’s why I say sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed.

[11:43] Stephanie: And we’re focusing on medicine right now. But sometimes it’s diet change, sometimes it’s working on your sleep, sometimes it is exercise, and so all of these things can affect — fixing those will help our emotional needs or what have you.

Okay, jumping back into the deep end, because I think it’s a really clear example, could you talk a little bit about your experience and testimonies you’ve heard of schizophrenia?

[12:18] Marcus: Sure, schizophrenia. So I would say that the first time I ran into somebody who was truly schizophrenic, the only tool I had was spiritual warfare, and this person couldn’t carry on a coherent conversation long enough to deal with legal ground and things like that. And so my other tool was emotional healing and memories. And again, this person couldn’t carry on a coherent conversation long enough to process those past memories. And I was stuck. I had no idea what to do with this person, did not know they were schizophrenic. But that was my first experience with it and going, okay, I kind of see what people are talking about now.

Sometimes schizophrenia gets misdiagnosed because anybody these days who says I have voices in my head is open to that diagnosis. So people who are doing listening prayer, saying, God told me something, sound an awful lot like people who are in psych wards saying, Mother Mary told me to kill my husband. You know what I’m saying? Or God is telling me that it’s okay to hate people or whatever.

There’s a lot — anybody who has spent much time in psych wards knows there’s a lot of religious talk in people’s heads. And so where I’m going with that is schizophrenia is an actual malfunction physically in the body that is causing things not to connect the way that they are, you know, supposed to be connecting. And so the normal tools aren’t going to fix that.

So I can’t cast out a demon and get rid of the schizophrenia unless it was just misdiagnosed. I guess that’s where I was going with it, is that when it’s misdiagnosed. I’ve also had people who are diagnosed schizophrenic who, when they got rid of the demonic presence, all the issues resolved and that was cleared, but that was because they were misdiagnosed.

So I’ve also talked to at least one psychiatrist who worked heavily with schizophrenia who told me that it was not uncommon for them to have two sets of voices, kind of like the everyday set of voices. And he said, those tend to just not make sense. They tend to be all over the place and hard to follow. And then there’s a darker religious set of voices, and he tends to suspect that those are the more demonic voices so that you can have layering with that.

And again, I haven’t worked with it much personally because it feels like there is medical stuff that has to happen with schizophrenia, that unless that happens, the rest of what I’m trying to do isn’t going to help, if that’s what’s actually going on.

[14:51] Stephanie: Yeah, I think the crux of where we’re going with this particular episode is to address the fact that physical things are real and should not be discounted.

[15:03] Marcus: Yes.

[15:04] Stephanie: And that you should listen to your doctors and do things that you know would help you physically. Like I’m going to start taking more walks throughout the day or whatever, you know, from the little scale to the large scale of issues. We want to make sure people take engine 1 seriously because we talk a lot about spiritual stuff.

And the fact is we are spiritual beings embodied in bodies. God created us with bodies, and he designed us. We talk a lot about the brain and brain science and how things work because we are incarnational creatures. Anyway, do you want to talk any more about that on the biblical side of things?

[15:52] Marcus: Well you mean the body and what the Bible has to say about the body? You know, it is interesting because a lot of the emotion words in the Bible are related to body functions and body parts. We talk about having weak knees or limp arms or we talk about the countenance and the face, you know, and it just reinforces this idea that our emotions always, always affect the body and can be seen and shown in some way through what the body is doing.

So because of this, because it’s a two-way street, there are times when addressing the root issues that resolve those things help your body, and there are times when you’ve got to deal with your body in order to resolve the emotional issue you’re going through. So it’s not that, you know, we have all the answers on this. We’re just trying to let people know, take it seriously. And we are not anti-medication just because we are pro-spiritual warfare.

[16:49] Stephanie: Right. All right, next episode we’re going to talk more about the body, and we’ve got an acrostic for you and all the things. But for now I want to let our listeners who might be using this podcast as a book club of sorts, know that you can go deeper in today’s topic in chapter six of the book, Breakthrough.

And if you are just getting started and waiting on your book, or maybe you’re wanting to share this book with a friend, we’ve got a free first chapter for you in the description, so we hope you’ll check that out and also hope that you will check out this November conference. I think that we will be covering a lot of good ground here.

So Father, any final thoughts for this episode?

[17:39] Marcus: Yeah, I think when I started in ministry I tended to think that all emotions were anchored in beliefs, and you’ve just got to get your beliefs straightened out and everything else took care of itself. So for me, it was a big aha moment to realize that it’s not just about beliefs, and it’s not just about thinking more biblically.

Because sometimes we hear the truth will set you free, and we think it’s the only thing that sets you free. And it’s not the only thing that sets you free. I will say if I have problems in my body though, it will make it much easier to believe wrong things. And so I do think that beliefs tend to get involved at some level in almost all of our emotions.

And so I would just put it there that if you’ve got a physical problem and you are having trouble beating it, it’s going to tend to affect the other engines too. It’s going to tend to make it more difficult to bond, enjoy, and more difficult to believe positive, correct things. And that’s why it’s important to pay attention.

[18:36] Stephanie: Very good. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. What are you saying?

[18:38] Marcus: Well, yeah, and before we go too much further, I just remembered, I met a young lady at church the other day who said, could I please say hi to her on our podcast. And when you get an 11-year old listening to the podcast, I gotta. So Stella, hello! I’m glad that you listen and watch, and it’s good to have you as part of the team.

[19:01] Stephanie: Yes. Oh, thank you for remembering that.

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