Inner Children Conversation with Dr. Scott Hamilton | Ep 6

Dr. Scott Hamilton holds a M.Div., from George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Religious Education, a Th.M., from Brite Divinity School in Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling, and a Ph.D., from Walden University in Counseling Psychology.    Dr. Hamilton has been my academic advisor at Yellowstone Theological Institute where he is currently a Lecturer in Pastoral Care & Counseling and an Academic Administrator.    The first class I took with Dr. Hamilton was entitled Pastoral Care & Conflict. We discussed real life situations amongst the students in order to identify healthy and unhealthy ways of dealing with conflict in the church. During one of the classes, I asked Dr. Hamilton the question “how does spiritual warfare impact conflict in the church?”. Though it wasn’t originally a topic for the class, it led us to have some great after class conversations.   I gave Dr. Hamilton some of Dr. Kraft’s books to look over for us to have a frame of reference for our conversation. I asked Dr. Hamilton if he would be willing to help me walk out some of our prayer practices through his tool set and lens as a PhD in counseling psychology. I am keenly aware that we are prayer practitioners and NOT professional counselors and I always want to improve my understanding of scripture and prayer through that perspective.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome to the Everfree podcast.

My name is Keith Peeler and I'm here with my amazing wife, Megan Peeler, and we are all about prayer, aren't we? 

We really are.

And the purpose of the Everfree podcast is to be naturally supernatural as we share stories, biblical principles, concepts, and tools that are going to help you find freedom in your relationship with Christ.

In today's episode, we have Dr.Scott Hamilton from the Yellowstone Theological Institute, and we're excited to share with you some interesting feedback he has for us on inner children.

Okay, so hey friends, we are here today and talking with my good friend, Dr.Scott Hamilton.

Y'all are in French, we've been horsing around.

It's not gonna be good, is it? 

We're not, but that's okay.

We're gonna trust God to take care of it.

It's gonna be a good episode.

So I got to meet Dr.Hamilton and we've become friends.

He's also been an academic advisor for me at the Yellowstone Theological Institute where I'm currently working on some studies.

So we've got to know each other, and originally, the first class that I took with you was a pastoral care and conflict.

It was an introductory class.

Yeah, and so in that class, a day or two in, it was a five-day class, and great material.

We were working through some stuff, and because of our background with Everfree and talking about spiritual warfare, I asked the question along the way, Dr.Hamilton, where do you see spiritual warfare in the midst of pastoral care and conflict? 

Is that a normal question that you have gotten in a lot of your classes, or is that unusual? Because where I was coming from, my theological background, we didn't talk about spiritual warfare a lot.

So kind of coming from where you're coming from, did that question throw you? 

Was that a normal question? 

Just to help the folks that are out here listen to what we're trying to share with you.

What was your perspective when I asked that question? 

My first thought when you originally asked the question was that your religious tradition brings with it some material that I'm very comfortable with.

I grew up in a very evangelical or from a very evangelical perspective, and hearing that sort of language as I grew up through the mid-70s into the early 80s, that sort of thing, was not out of my ballpark at all.

Now, to hear the question in an academic setting was a little bit of a push, because in my academic or much more academic training, certainly when I was working on my master's at a divinity degree, the thought of spiritual warfare would have been some language that was a bit of a push for some of those folks.

So for you to ask the question didn't bother me and it wasn't a concern, because I am an avid believer in the fact that some of those things are very, very warfare-oriented when it comes to conflict or inter-difficulties or other things like that.

So it wasn't too far of a stretch at all.

That's helpful for me only because academia has not been my framework of thinking, but I want to stretch these things out.

So as Everfree as birthing and as we're growing these things, I just want to make sure that I'm learning whatever I can both academically, scripturally, spiritually to help make sure that we're kind of being helpful and learning all that we need to learn.

And then as we talked, I shared kind of our healing prayer model that we were talking about, and I had you read a couple of Dr.Kraft's books that we had kind of referenced.

I remember we were having coffee and you mentioned kind of seeing some either clinical type or I think the phrase you said was the guy who wrote this book clearly has some background or some exposure to some therapy type tools.

Yes.

Right? 

So what did you see from your background?

Some of that was kind of using some imagination tools or things like that that were the way that he would kind of frame.

When we asked the Holy Spirit to show people things, it's, I think I told you one time there's a counselor that as a friend that uses the term redemptive imagination.

And so that redemptive imagination being something where we can ask the Holy Spirit to show us things, but that like tools like the white wall, like imagining a blank white wall and asking the Holy Spirit to take pictures like if I'm dealing with shame, one of the tools we might use is, okay, in Jesus' name, I just ask, Holy Spirit, would you just take all the pictures or the things that Keith has going on with him and take them out of Keith and put them on that white wall so there's some separation, some distance emotionally, and then I would say, okay, now Jesus, would you come and stand next to Keith? 

And what do you want to say to Keith about what's on this white wall? 

As really an issue like a shame issue or a fear or an anger issue, that kind of thing.

Right.

Do you recall any of the thoughts? 

I spent some time since you and I read that book together.

Yes.

That's why I was looking at you like you're going to need to help me a little bit more.

As I'm thinking through that, as you're trying to articulate the question, I don't remember specifically what I read in Dr.Kraft's work that prompted me to think, oh, this fellow has some sort of psychological background somewhere back in there someplace.

But I can recall that the whole idea or the ideas themselves about how it is the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit can use our own human cognitive processes to help us unpack things that can be both very spiritually inclined to use your friend's language, very redemptive from an imaginative perspective, or they can also be very spiritually driven from a darker side.

Then that's where we get into some discernment concerns.

But I also know that there will also be times when some of those things simply are emotionally driven and may or may not have a spiritual component attached to them.

That's when the muddy water shows up and you have to figure out how to filter all those things out.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's helpful for me to hear because that is the discernment question, right? 

And that's being careful in asking the Holy Spirit to lead those things and to be discerning of that.

And our posture is always inviting of the Holy Spirit, not concerning ourselves with any of the dark forces that might be present.

It's not my concern personally, as we're praying for someone to try and have to go, okay, well this here was demonic and that one wasn't.

I'm not a trained counselor.

It's not my posture.

It's not my goal.

It's not any of that.

The goal is always to help the person process their pain.

And so one of the concepts that you and I have talked about outside of class that I wanted us to be the primary focus today is the idea and the concept of inner children.

Because as we are praying with people, often we're praying and inner children kind of come up.

And as a person, I've shared, I've been through some counseling in my history.

The concept of inner children was not new to me.

But as we have prayed with people, we've explained, hey, as we pray, let's say I'm praying for a guy named Steve.

Steve, we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to lead this whole time of prayer.

We're going to trust that the Lord wants to show something to you.

I'm going to ask you questions.

And sometimes if we're asking the Holy Spirit something, I might say a thing like, okay, hey Steve, Holy Spirit, are there any little Steve's that feel like they want to say something? And surprise, almost every single time we pray that, they'll go, well, that's interesting.

I'm like, okay, Steve, what are you getting? 

Well, I said, I hadn't thought about this in years, but when I was six years old, I feel like I'm seeing a picture of six-year-old Steve.

So that is a pretty normal, like when we're praying for somebody, that's a question that we often ask.

Sometimes there's nothing there.

And we move on to another question.

But as I understand it, and this is what I'm looking for your feedback, when we get there, there's kind of this idea of an inner child.

And as I understand it, inner children come from a place of either conflict or a trauma or something where people can get stuck at an age or it's something that's just holding on to it.

So that's where I kind of wanted to get from your perspective, clinically, academically, how would you explain to our listeners, what is an inner child? 

The notion of inner children, and I'm using the word plural, in a plural fashion, on purpose, because there can be more than one.

In fact, more often than not, there probably are numerous of them.

Now, please don't mishear me as to say that we're talking about split off and different types of personalities.

That's a different conversation for a different day, completely different sort of emotional and psychological matter.

Because you're making reference to asking about Steve, if there are some little Steve's in there.

Because little Steve may refer to that particular part of himself as Jonathan.

It may have a different name.

If it did have a different name, would that be a true split personality, or could that just be a variation of how they see themselves? 

It's a variation on how they see themselves from the standpoint of it becomes more of a, certainly not a split off personality, but much more of a, if I was going to assign anything to it, I'd probably call it more like a sibling.

It's just another name that that person might use to refer to him or herself.

Sometimes people will say, or I might ask, do you want me to call you little Steve, or do you have another name? 

And sometimes they'll go, I like to be called Bubby, and they have a little nickname or something like that.

That makes sense.

When I did my own therapeutic work, and dealing with my own sorts of inner struggle, I settled on Scotty.

My folks have called me Scott all of my life.

If I ever got called by my first name, I knew I was in deep trouble.

And I was dealing with Scott, and Scotty became normal, and very comfortable.

So that was the little one of me.

With the whole idea being that there are places in people's past where there may have been a particular concern come up, or whether it was conflict, or whether it was abuse, or whether it was just some average happenstance that happened at school one day, that create either pressure points or gaps, maybe even places that are much more of a touchstone for us to go back and remember later.

We encounter similar events as adults and find ourselves in our mind's eye, right back where we were at whatever that younger age was.

That's the appearance of that younger person, that younger rendition of us.

And that's a normal, in my experience, that's a normal sort of reaction, and it's nothing to be fearful of.

Again, at the end of the day, the idea is to make sure that the adult with whom you are dealing at the moment, in your prayer time, for example, is aware that such smaller people that they encounter from the past in their mind's eye, or using that notion of the redemptive imagination, are simply younger versions of themselves.

And the idea is for the current adult to go through insofar as possible a way to help the younger version understand that he or she is perfectly safe.

That becomes a significant key because our typical experience has been that when those little versions of ourselves show up, they are not safe.

And it becomes paramount that whoever is in that prayerful process with you, or outside of your purview, or whatever else, helps the little one understand that that person is safe.

Because if that person is not safe, then it creates the potential for, I guess I would use the words, like decline into something else.

I'm not saying that you're going to end up, what you're going to end up with is a distorted memory.

That's what I'm looking for.

And that may, the memory you end up with may be one that's not actually accurate, which creates a different set of problems.

Okay, so that's helpful.

Okay, so in previous podcasts, I had shared my testimony of the healing prayer process when I went through it, and then later Megan's process.

So for me, Dr.Kraft uses a chronological method of counting people up.

Starts in the womb and says, all right, now you're one years old, now you're two years old, now you're three years.

So he's got a very distinctive method of addressing if there's, it may be an inner child or just a memory that's connected to an age.

So for mine, it was a, when I was four, I was exposed to hardcore pornography.

So as I'm going through this process, in my redemptive imagination, he said, all right, now you're four.

And I instantly got that picture in my mind created, and I could see four year old Keith on the floor looking ashamed, fearful and whatnot.

And then as Jesus walked into the room, and again, I shared that in a previous podcast.

But as that happened, I was aware of this memory, cognitively as an adult, I was struggling with the pornography issue as an adult, as a pastor.

And I didn't acknowledge that there was a spiritual component to it.

So Dr.Kraft's language was that trauma created a garbage wound that rats, demons weren't feeding off of.

And the idea was that if Jesus can clean up our garbage, then there's nothing for that demonic stuff to hang on to.

So in my imagination, I see him come in.

So four year old Keith looks afraid, he looks ashamed, he's fearful.

But then as I say, okay, Jesus, where were you in this memory? 

All of a sudden, now I see this Jesus walk in, pick up four year old Keith, he goes, that, you don't need that anymore.

And he just walks me out of the room.

And what it did for me in my own, like my own inner interpretation of that was, wait, you're not mad Jesus.

Jesus, you're not ashamed of me.

And so I was hanging on to fear and shame and perversion of my own sexuality.

But by imagining or by seeing the presence of Christ in that memory, four year old Keith went, wait, he's not mad.

And then from a spiritual perspective, I was like, all right, whatever's attached to that junk, and Jesus name, get out.

And it was a transformational process for me that was both emotionally healing, because I could see the merciful Christ coming to me and redeeming this memory.

And so it corrected my own thinking about that memory.

Yes.

Right.

And so I still have the physical memory of that exposure.

Sure.

But now that memory has been redeemed.

Right.

Because now I am seeing that the presence of Christ in that memory and I go, oh, four year old Keith doesn't have to hold that shame and pain anymore because Jesus just told Keith, he's cool.

He's good.

He's all right.

Because you've had a piece of yourself that's been trying to exercise a far more mature self than what that four year old self was able to process.

I think is where you're going because you've got this four year old little key, right, who is hung up.

When you say or when I heard you say, I've got this four year old Keith, who is ashamed.

Find me a four year old child who can articulate in that type of language that he or she is ashamed of something.

Yeah, they don't know that.

That's some language that some adult has given him or her.

Right now for you to have processed it that way as you aged and were able to look back, you put that shame language on it.

Correct.

So the idea then becomes one that you in essence, this is the language I would use in the therapy room.

You release that emotion.

You release that memory into a power that's far greater than yourself.

In your context, it's going to be Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that sort of thing.

Right.

And that becomes, as you put it, redeemed.

And it no longer has an effect, certainly not a poor effect, on how it is you process that information, which is why you sit here and tell me, oh, I'm not ashamed of that anymore because Jesus took care of that.

Yeah.

So then for, let's say someone's listening here now that they're listening to this podcast and they've never heard of inner children before.

Okay.

What encouragement would you give them? 

I mean, our goal with Everfree is not to get everybody to a prayer appointment like that.

We offer that.

That's one of the things that we do.

But what we're really trying to do with the podcast is give people tools to understand self and understand how they're made.

Right.

And we're always pointing people to their identity in Christ and what the Scriptures teach them about who they are.

But we also recognize, because I've been through counseling, Megan's been through good counseling, that we have stinking thinking that needs to be dealt with.

So if a person is hearing about this idea for the first time, is there a book or is there a resource on inner children that might help them understand it? 

Is there just a word of encouragement that you give them to explore and understand themselves? 

Like how would you, maybe how would you get someone who's like, I've never heard of inner children before.

What would you want them to hear from you or about how to just understand themselves with that new information? 

Okay.

First, when it comes to external resources, I'll have to get back with you.

Sure.

I'll put that in the podcast later.

I didn't bring my list of that.

Now from an encouraging perspective, I would hope that folks who hear this would understand that when they are encountering memories that we'll say are less than desirable, that point them back to a time in life that is much earlier, far less emotionally and or spiritually mature, to bear in mind a couple of things.

First of all, again, that person is simply a much younger version of your grown-up self.

That person, as young as he or she happens to be, is functioning at that age level.

You make reference to yourself as a four-year-old.

I've got a four-year-old kid here named Keith who is trying to process this grown-up piece of information.

That doesn't work well.

Give your little tyke a break.

Let him let her catch their breath.

If push comes to shove, as odd as it might sound in the midst of that moment, have everybody, to use a military term, stand down and catch a breath.

You would be absolutely amazed what can happen when people will simply slow down enough and physically catch a breath.

Just that by itself, I can even feel my shoulders relaxed and I'm not in a bind at the moment.

It's like, okay, this is going to be okay because if we can, as mature and reasonably responsible adults, look back at our younger selves, give ourselves a break, understand that those are our pieces that are much smaller and children, it empowers our grown-up selves to administer a lot more broad sense of grace than shame or whatever other poor thought you would come up with besides shame.

All those terms that shaped me at the moment.

But that is almost like a side note, you made reference to your four-year-old.

The first one of those that I could ever recall, which was troubling to me, that I could only get back to 10, but I was in a corner.

I was sitting in a corner in my bedroom.

In my mind's eye, the image I was sitting, Indian style, which may not be the better, I had my legs crossed sitting in the floor.

In between a piece of furniture and the wall, now physically in real time, in real life, there was about an inch and a half between that piece of furniture and the wall.

So that was not physically possible.

But when my therapist asked me, where is Scotty sitting? 

Oh, he's propped up in the corner.

Boom.

There wasn't a question to exactly where he was.

And then that started a series of conversations about how to get him out of the corner, what's he capable of? 

Can he stand up? 

Can he talk? 

All this other sort of stuff.

But I was able to acknowledge, even with those real-time physical impossibilities in my mind's eye, in that redemptive place in my imagination, I could be in all kinds of places and not have a distorted version of that in real life versus what was happening in my mind at the time my therapist was helping me unpack it.

So what I'm getting at is that when we're dealing with the imagination, especially the redemptive pieces of it, space literally will broaden and get far larger for you to maneuver in and to wiggle, literally, if you need, to feel things that you hadn't thought about feeling before.

The space literally opens itself.

And I think part of that process, and I know that I'm on the edge of a bunny trail, but part of that process is that space opens is to acknowledge that, at least in the experiences I've had with clients and or personally, has been that that space gets filled up with something far, far bigger than I am from a very significant spiritual perspective that becomes very safe.

And it will be awkward if you've never walked into that space before.

When it opens up, it's like, uh-oh, something is not right here.

And it becomes important for the person who is directing this experience to be aware enough to make sure everybody realizes everybody is safe.

Because if we get that twisted, and it gets twisted up, it can go poorly.

It can.

It can go poorly.

But that's when you get into some of the challenges from a therapeutic perspective that the research refers to as false memories being recalled and all that other sort of stuff again, another conversation for another day.

But you have to be mindful of the entire process because everybody who's in it at that moment is shouldering a significant responsibility for a number of things.

I'm sure we'll get to some of those later.

But the whole idea of sitting and relaxing and living into is better for my language.

Living into that space and simply letting it be what it is in the midst of that initial moment so that it can take its own course and not have to be shoved or pushed or manipulated into something that's not.

It takes its own amount of time, basically.

That's what I'm getting at.

Okay, so that's really helpful because we make it clear when we're in a prayer appointment that we are not mental health professionals.

Okay, thank you.

And part of me asking you as a mental health professional is making sure that we have clear boundaries and lines around that so that we're not crossing lines.

We want to have safety around this.

In the 10 years that we prayed, there have been people that have been confused by prayer.

And we've made corrections and language corrections or posturing, things like that.

So as we're in a prayer appointment, often what I will do is that very thing.

Like, okay, so it's six-year-old Steve.

All right, six-year-old Steve, first I want to make sure, hey, do you feel safe talking to me? Adult Steve is here talking to me.

Do you feel safe? 

And often I'll tell a Bible story just as a way of kind of creating that safe space.

Hey, little Steve, have you met my friend Jesus? 

No.

Would it be okay if I tell you a story about him? 

Right.

And oh, yeah, that's okay.

I'm always asking for permission in that realm.

And so that might say, hey, there's this one time when Jesus is hanging out and he's got all of his adult friends.

And you know, sometimes adults think that they're more important than kids, you know, and all these kids were trying to come and hang out with Jesus.

And all of Jesus' friends like, no, no, no, you guys, this is an important guy.

You're not, you can't come around here.

You all need to go away.

But Jesus said, no, no, no, unless you come to me like these little children, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven.

And you know, little Steve, isn't that a cool story about how much Jesus loves and values children? 

Yeah, that is.

And then I'll say, well, would it be okay, you know, like little Steve is something bothering you.

Well, I just, I'm in my house and I feel really afraid right now.

Well, would it be okay if we invited Jesus to come and meet you there? 

Okay, Jesus, would you come meet, you know, six year old Steve? 

And again, every person is different.

It's not a hook, line and sinker sort of process, but inevitably at some point that person at six year old version of Steve or Katie or whoever it is will imagine, sense, see, hear from Jesus.

And it's always so powerful to hear, what did Jesus say to you? 

And they recall a Bible verse, well, he's saying he loves me or he's holding my hand or, you know, it's my story.

He walked in, picked me up, yeah, you don't need that anymore.

He walks me out.

And so it's very, it's really powerful to watch that and just engage that with the person and see that there, that Jesus really can heal things.

I have a question.

Yeah.

Have you ever had an experience, whether personally or otherwise with one of your clients, individuals you've been praying with when Jesus has come in the imaginative perspective and it has not gone well? 

Yes.

One time as we were praying for someone, I'll call him Steve again, was, okay, Steve, where do you see Jesus? 

Well, I'm in the bedroom and he's over in the corner and I'll always ask the question, okay, what does he look like? 

Because part of my function in the prayer appointment, again, not as therapists, but as prayer warrior, prayer guide is I'm constantly filtering the experience through what I understand and know about Jesus through the scriptures.

Okay.

Okay.

So that's kind of my role and function is to, it is to kind of help make sure that we're hearing from Jesus, the real Jesus, and not just our own crazy imagination.

So anything that happens in that prayer process, if I can't back it up in scripture somewhere, then I'm not allowing it.

All right.

So little Steve says, yeah, he's in the corner.

He's wearing this black hood.

Tell me more.

See what, can you see his face? 

No, I can't see his face, but I get the feeling he's really, really mad.

And so as I encounter Jesus in scriptures, I don't see a lot of angry Jesus unless there's a lot of like stuff going on that he needs to turn some tables over.

But more often than not, what I see in the nature of who Christ is, is the one engaging the people that are hurting and broken, not shaming them.

Right.

And this felt like a shaming kind of posture.

So what we'll do in that scenario is I will often quote the apostles creed.

Right.

So here's this tried and true tested prayer, if you will, of, of the authoritative Jesus in scripture.

And so we'll quote that in that time and say, now this is the Jesus that, that we're asking to reveal himself.

And I said, all right, Steve, now what do you see? 

Well, that's interesting.

He's not in the corner at all.

Actually, he's standing right next to me.

What does he say? 

And then that redemptive Jesus reveals himself in some way.

And then again, it kind of reorients it and gets it back on track to the scriptural nature of what we're doing.

Right.

And that's, that's the tension we're holding all the time is in this is we want to be completely open to the power of the Holy Spirit, which can use our redemptive imagination, but we have to then filter through some of that static.

Right.

And so pointing it back to scripture, pointing it back to historic prayers that we can pray that honor the, you know, theologically accurate, you know, traditional Jesus that we know as kind of mainline denominational background kind of people.

Sure.

I understand.

And so as you asked that, it makes me think about, you know, again, keeping things on track.

And we were right before we started talking, we were talking about some things I want to get us back to.

And in the last episode, episode number four, actually, not the last episode, but episode four.

In episode four of our podcast, we talked about a picture that I explained earlier about the antenna.

And there's like, you know, the main antenna on top of my helmet that I'm kind of imagining is the Keith antenna.

And as we seek to grow in our faith and in our maturity, and in our intellect, and in our mental health, that main antenna is the Keith antenna.

Then I got the father, son, Holy Spirit antenna over here on the other side.

And then that third side is the enemy's antenna that's trying to just mess my antenna up all the time.

Okay.

So I've got these tapes, these rolling tapes that I get in my head.

And you might have different language for that that you can expand on.

But as I am, you know, walking through life, I've got these things and the scriptures say to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And for me, as we're having this conversation, this is where I think it's so important that psychological, like sound psychological kind of help with biblical, you know, help, that blending of those two things is so helpful.

Like, we really value mental health professionals, and we want people to seek their mental health from professionals that do that, right? 

Okay.

Now, when we do deliverance, that's not something that can happen in a professional counselor's office, as I understand it.

Not normally.

Or in a normal...

By law.

That's a great...

That's a conversation.

We could go there.

So in that right, that main antenna, that's where my stinking thinking gets in the way.

And so we were talking about some of the tapes.

I think the word you used was scripts.

Scripts.

And so would you help...

Let's go back to that and that idea.

Because what we're talking about is the voices we hear in our head.

Sure.

And some people are very uncomfortable even me saying that terminology, because then they're thinking, hey, I'm not crazy.

I don't hear voices.

I'm not schizophrenic.

And so what we're trying to normalize in the podcast is how the human operates and how the power of the Holy Spirit can use our redemptive imagination and how we want to thwart whatever the enemy's trying to do to keep us from the right way of thinking.

Okay.

So help me, help our listeners understand the scripts or what voices in our head, little children or other, do we need to be paying attention to that will help us process how to take on that script that says to be transformed by the renewing of our mind? 

How do we write our mind from a psychological perspective? 

Okay.

Let's see if I can get this surrounded in minimal amount of time.

Just so anyone, not that I'm special in this regard, but I'm forthright in my own journey.

I have a committee that lives in my head.

Okay.

Right.

Right.

And I hear all kinds of fun conversations in there all of the time.

But here's the key to that while we're distinguishing between being relatively normal and something like schizophrenia, almost all of those sorts of episodes are simply versions of my own voice talking to myself.

Right.

That makes me normal.

So did you hear that listeners? 

That makes us normal.

So you're having this conversation.

Why? 

I cannot believe that woman walking down the street is wearing that.

That is normal.

You see someone, I'm sorry, I can appreciate you sharing your opinion, but I'm just not good with that.

Yeah.

You're having that conversation in your head.

That's normal.

There are days when parents are going to be probably some of them a little bit uptight.

You'll have a conversation with yourself one day when you don't like your children, you're normal.

So hearing a voice that is yours in your head is normal.

So let that sit for a second.

Good.

Now, that being said, if the things that you're having a conversation about in your head with yourself to use that language is where things get to be a little, the water gets muddy there, because I would dare say that more times than not, when you hear that voice that's yours, telling you about something, whether it's shameful, whether it's anger, whether it's depressive or whatever else is probably a voice that's being very, very critical of something most likely attached to a memory from the past.

And if that is so, there is a strain of not theological, but psychological intervention where the language we use in that paradigm is that we're running through our past scripts.

Okay.

Now, and when we're running those tapes, you can use tapes, you can use scripts, you can use stories, all those things will work interchangeably.

So if I'm running a script related to something from the past, that script has come because of the adult contact I have at that stage of my life, which then means, broadly speaking, that this voice you are hearing from the past that's being overly critical, we could refer to as a critical parent.

Okay.

Now, I'm not making an overly general statement about how critical parents are altogether.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

What I am saying is that many times, that overly critical notion that we have of ourselves as it relates to something we have done or not done is because of a voice from a parent we've had, it's triggered something in the past long ago.

Does that have to be an actual parent or could that be a leader role or is it likely really legitimately a actual parent? 

In many cases, it will be a literal parent, but in a number of other contexts, it could be a significant leader role and that would work just fine.

The example that I have in my mind that I have used therapeutically, I've used it at home with my wife, I've used it with my children, everybody else, is I make my bed every day.

I don't care what day of the week it is.

It is every day.

My wife couldn't care less if the bed ever got made.

I don't love her anymore or any less, but I am saying I make my bed every day because my mother told me to.

If I don't make it, I hear my mother in my ear all day long.

That is my critical parent.

In the grand scheme of things, is God overly concerned that Scott did not make his bed today? Honestly, I think God's got more important things to worry about than my bed, but what I'm saying is when we have that type of conversation with ourselves, I should do a number of things.

This is the therapist Scott talking now.

We don't should on ourselves or anybody else.

When you start having that conversation with yourself about I should, I should, I should have, I shouldn't have, or whatever else, you have entered a realm when something critical, more than likely a leadership person or a parent of some sort, whether it's a significant caregiver, all kinds of ways we can define it, is being critical of something that you have done in the past.

That's when you're going to find yourself extremely uncomfortable because what I want to encourage you to do as a part of all of this is to remember you have the authority and the right as the adult who's having this conversation.

First of all, to reassure the little person that you are not trying to be critical.

You are simply trying to correct an action and we can do that without being overly critical.

Also bear in mind, if that voice is being critical, it becomes paramount for the parent or the, I'm sorry, not so much the parent, but it becomes paramount for the person hearing that to tell the little version of themselves the environment is safe.

We don't have to listen to that person anymore.

Now that can create a different set of problems for a different day if all of the personalities involved are still living.

I make reference to my mother.

I don't make reference to my parents and did not make reference to my parents until they were both deceased.

I would make reference tangentially perhaps in a classroom story or something like that, but specifically my mother had me do this, not until she passed away.

That's me.

Other clinicians may do that differently.

It's been very difficult for me to process certain pieces of information because she was still alive and that can create its own set of difficulties.

So when I'm talking about a voice that I hear of my mother ragging on me about knocking making my bed, I can say that out loud because I can tell you exactly where it comes from.

I've been having this conversation for 50 years.

So that's a common conversation for me.

The same thing about how I keep house or how I don't keep house or how I treat my elders or don't treat my elders or how I encounter all kinds of individuals or not.

All of that comes from the relational aspects that I have had all of my life with all types of adults, not just my parents.

So if you hear those voices in your ear, as it were, to use that sort of language, those voices being exceptionally critical, please bear in mind they are related and attached to memories that you are currently distorting in some way.

Those, when they are distorted certainly, are redeemable and it becomes important for us to be willing to live into that with a little bit of help, whether it's with a prayer partner, whether it's with a professional therapist or whomever.

I'm not one who says, oh, come see me.

If that were to ever come up, I'm happy to do that, but that's not what we're talking about today.

The idea being you get to be in charge of those relational transactions that are taking place in the midst of those moments and you get to be the adult.

That's one of the struggles of adulting sometimes.

That's what you have to do.

I've had, I cannot articulate how many conversations with little Scotty about any number of things, even today.

I am in a different state today.

I went to church.

I went to church for a handful of reasons.

I wanted to see the person who was going to be at the church, but there's also a little voice in the back of my head that said, been telling me since I was old enough to walk, you go to church on Sunday, it doesn't matter where you are, you go.

Now, that's my critical parent.

One of them, racking my little ear, little Scotty, you better get to church today.

Now, the adult could have said, I don't feel like it and I'm not going to go.

And I could have done that.

I'm using that as an example because all of us have conversations like that with ourselves all of the time.

They're a very normal part of human existence.

Don't be frightened, just have a conversation.

It'll work itself out.

That's so hopeful.

Okay, so man, there's so many other things, but for the sake of keeping on track with episodes and all that stuff, we're going to wrap it up here.

Here's what I'm hearing and I'm encouraged by, and I hope you're encouraged by, is this, that these voices that we hear in our head are normal and that we have tools both biblically, mental health professionally, and in prayer that can help us discern the truth about who Christ says we are, about our brokenness, and about leaving everything before the throne of Jesus.

So we're so glad you're with us today.

Thank you, Dr.Hamilton.

I appreciate your time.

It's always fun to speak with you.

We can't record everything we talk about because that'd be...

We would never get this done.

We wouldn't anything done, but I do appreciate you and thank you for you in my life as you've helped me personally, but then also for the sake of our listeners.

Thanks for being here.

You bet.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for listening today.

You can find Dr.Hamilton at drscotthamilton.com.

That's Dr.Scott Hamilton.com.

He'd love to hear from you and find out how he can support you in your future ministry endeavors.

Also, we at everfree.us are growing and we need your monthly financial support.

Would you consider helping this ministry grow by a monthly gift of some kind, five, 25, 50, or 100 dollars a month? 

That would be a way to ensure that our podcasts and everything that we're doing here at everfree can continue and not lose the momentum and steam that's already building.

We're so glad you're with us today and take a look at everfree.us for the notes about today's podcast and the book recommendations that he has.

Thanks so much for listening.

Talk to you soon.