Learn how to heal from your past wounds and take the power away from your current fears with special guest, Christian Recording Artist, Author, Business Owner, and mother, Tasha Layton.
It's me God, where are you? You ever wonder where Jesus was when you were hurt, when you experience loss, when you are in pain? This episode will give you a definitive answer of just where Jesus was, by your side.
On the outside it looked like everything was going for her! Made it to Hollywood on American Idol, sang as a back up singer and traveled the world with Katy Perry, but found herself so deep in depression that she tried to commit suicide.
Three Ways You can Heal Emotional Pain
1. [8:15] Write Down Every Single Thing in Your Life has Hurt You
Tasha shares what her therapist taught her to do at this retreat center to heal from childhood trauma. She took each instance and did this process. At first it will make things harder, she says, but just wait, healing is on the way.
2. [10:14] Describe the moment, describe what happened, where you are, and what are you feeling.
Tasha shares about a moment as a child when she tried to share an experience with her father, and was dismissed. She told herself "I'm not worthy of getting to know...so I'll never let anyone know the real me." Go through this process with the things on your list. Write it in your journal. What did the room look like, what did it smell like, who was there, it sounds hard, but it will be worth it.
3. [13:01] Ask yourself this: Where is Jesus in the Room?
Tasha, says that's the moment she began balling her eyes out. God stands outside of time, He was there when that thing happened to you, but he is still there. What does he want to say to you now? Tasha began to cry because she realized Jesus was there, standing next to her at the table, looking at her intently, and HE WANTED to hear what she had to say. He was EAGER to get to know her. That's when you begin to COMBAT THE LIE.
"I felt truth move from my head to heart in that moment and it dispelled the lie." -Tasha Layton
Anything you have gone through in life, you can use this process to heal from past traumas and choose to Get Your Brave On for your future. Give yourself some grace, some love, some space, and walk through this journey, knowing God is FOR you. He's the one that split the red sea, provided mana in the desert, your identity is not in question!
Click Here to Listen ! There is SO MUCH MORE in the full podcast. We talked about how you can use this same process to counteract your current fears. Please listen and please share it with a friend.
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FULL PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
AMANDA: taking the power away from your fears with my special guest today Tasha Layton hi i'm amanda carroll a recovering fearful woman inspiring you to be brave too thanks for joining me on the get your brave on podcast season two episode 12 taking the power away from your fears i'm so glad you're here Tahsa is one of the most powerful voices in christian music right now and she's about to tell her story on how she bounced back after trying to commit suicide and has now learned how to take the power away from fear and she's going to teach you how to do it too it all begins after this quick message from our sponsor
you're about to learn how to heal your past and how to take the power away from your current fear from powerful christian recording artist Tasha Layton on the outside it looked like everything was going for her made it to Hollywood an American Idol l sang as a backup singer and traveled the world with Katy Perry but found herself so deep in a depression that she tried to commit suicide she's about to share with you her secret to healing that you can use too now she's this very powerful christian recording artist you might recognize her from songs like this but you would never know now the story that she's been through okay real quick
if you have a friend who's going through a very difficult time and feels lost they're trapped by fear and you want the best for them be a hero copy the link to this podcast and send it to them it could change their life so i ran into Tasha at a conference for christian radio people and christian artists recently in Florida she was so kind to meet up with me in my hotel room to record this very powerful conversation we're sitting in a hotel room at a christian music conference in Orlando but i i just i've been dying to talk to you about all of these things so i'm glad that you're we can fit this in with beauty of this medium i've had to figure out different ways to come back from setbacks and so this is where i got this idea and also it's based on Joshua 1 9. because and in the beginning it says have i not commanded you so it's not an option for us to be strong and courageous it's actually a command so how do we live more strong and courageous lives so what is something that you have been through that you're like okay i'm scared of this but i have to push through and i have to be brave and i have to as we say get our brave on kind of like it's an outfit even though you're not feeling it you have to do it anyway i think i always felt like i couldn't be free like for most of my life TASHA: i was concerned about what other people thought i was concerned about being accepted not being rejected i have a lot of childhood rejection in my past from growing up with without a lot of money and you know i grew up in a trailer my parents didn't drive the nicest cars to come and get us from school or something like that i didn't have you know new shoes we'd always have used shoes and all that and i think there were a lot of things that really the enemy used to kind of get hooks in me from the beginning and i saw the world through that lens later on years later and you know i grew up in church but then i was really wounded in the church and i think my childhood wounds coupled with hurt in the church really was a recipe for disaster uh in college because i was already searching and i didn't feel like i had a safe place to go to ask the questions that i needed to ask and i wasn't sure if jesus was the way and so that was really really a tough season and i i tried i don't know how much you know my story but i tried to commit suicide during that time and it was at that lowest of low that i you know realized wait that wasn't just an emotional high that i experienced in church when i was younger that was the real power and transformative power of jesus that i experienced and so i ended up going to seminary worked as a worship pastor for four years uh did american idol sang for Katy Perry did all these cool things but at the end of the day when i laid my head on the pillow i felt inadequate i felt like i wasn't enough i felt afraid i was concerned about what people would think about every single decision i made and so i felt stuck and i even felt ashamed that i felt stuck because i thought okay i have grown up in the church my whole life and i know the right things to think and yet why am i feeling this way and so i took a sabbatical and i went to a place in colorado where we dug up all those lies from childhood and one by one we invited the holy spirit into that process into that moment and asked jesus where he was and it was like truth in those moments i could feel it moving from my head to my heart and at the end of that process i felt so free i felt a courage and a boldness i'd never experienced before and that came from wholeness that came from healing it didn't come from me mustering up strength or getting myself talk right you know like or like you know talking myself into it or self affirmations it didn't come from any of that it solely came from the healing that god had done in my heart because when i felt seen and loved and known by god that deeply and that intimately i felt like i can do anything he's called me to do because he loves me i don't think i truly understood how much god loved me until i was in that season of healing where he had to dig all that stuff up and get it get it healed up and that's when i started stepping out in faith in a new way in a fresh way because i thought i don't have anything holding me back i'm not comparing myself to anybody i'm not afraid of anything right now i'm not making decisions out of fear scripture says the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom not the fear of man and so i had such a fear of man my whole life and it wasn't until i really gained a fear of the lord that i started to not not worry so much it's like who cares what anybody else thinks i'm just going to do what god's called me to do so walk me through that if you want to you go to this place in colorado and you said you take these wounds and you allowed jesus in and the holy spirit walk me through like one way maybe myself or one of my brave babes listening they could do that i am so glad you asked me that question i'm kind of no i am so glad so i actually wrote a book about the process that god and my therapist took me through to get me free it's called boundless and so what we started to do is i wrote down every single thing in my life that had ever hurt me and honestly it took me a week like i was like how am i going to do from childhood to adulthood like every single thing that ever hurt me and then at the end of that i felt worse like i was like how in the world like i'm actually drudging through the mud right now of every wound in my life and so i wrote it all out and we took each instance and we did this process so my counselor would say tasha describe the setting and i'll give you an example so when i was five or six years old i came home from kindergarten and i was really excited to tell my dad something that had happened that day that i was just happy about and i was so excited but he had had a hard day at work and so he didn't want to hear it right then he was like you know children need to be quiet right now because he had just had a hard day and so he spoke to me at the dinner table really stern and so in that moment in just a few seconds of that exchange i felt shut down i thought i'm not worth getting to know it hurt my feelings so badly that my dad didn't want to hear what i had to say and so i go through my adult life not thinking much of that at all but then when i find myself at 30 years old sitting on a therapist couch writing this out on a piece of paper i realized okay this has affected me more than i realized because when i think about this i want to cry and so he said talk to me about the room and i could still smell the the air the warm air coming through the window because my mom had the window open and the screen up and we were sitting at a really 80s brown uh dinner table and my dad was sitting on the right and i remember sitting in that chair and i felt so sad he's like tell me what you're feeling so the process was to describe the moment describe what happened describe where you are where are you in the room and then what are you feeling now this is where i get a little bit uh you know i'm a three on the enneagram i tend to stuff my feelings i just want to roll through and barrel through and just get it done um i i just compartmentalize and so sometimes i didn't even know what i was feeling so i actually had to get a list of emotions out and point to the ones that i was actually feeling because i didn't even know how to describe what i was feeling i said i feel sad i feel ashamed that i even tried to say something i feel hurt by my dad's tone i i feel very alone right now i feel lonely and so i started describing my emotions and he said what's the vow that you made to yourself because you're feeling all those things and i started to cry because i i knew exactly what the vow was i made a vow in that moment i'm not worth getting to know so i'll never let anyone know the real me oh my okay how she learned to get over that with the help of therapy and she's going to teach you how to do the same after a quick message from our sponsor Tasha Layton's plan for healing and how to take the power away from your fears next
AMANDA: so Tasha shared a story about when she was a little girl and she wanted to tell her dad some exciting news and he dismissed her and at that moment she made this vow to herself that she wasn't worth getting to know Tasha what kind of effect did that have on you? TAHSA: so i became impenetrable like not vulnerable with anyone i became the person that wouldn't be rejected in school that wouldn't make mistakes so nobody could you know say something bad about me and i was just not i was totally not vulnerable and so he said the next process was the next thing in the process was where is jesus in the room and again i just started blowing my eyes out because i just pictured he said because god stands outside of time he was there when that thing happened to you but he's still there and so what does he want to say to you now and so i began to cry because he was sitting right next to me at the table looking at me so intently and he wanted to hear what i had to say so much and he was so eager to get to know me even though he knows me because he created me it was like this such a special moment and in that moment i realized where jesus was in the room and how he actually feels about me and so then i start to combat the lie it's not true that i'm not worth getting to know it's actually the very opposite is true i am so worth getting to know he is in love with who i am because he made me he's so excited to hear from me and that lie that had been in my heart it was like i felt truth move from my head to my heart in that moment and it just dispelled the lie and so i went through every single circumstance in my life every single event that was kind of a tame one just from childhood but you can do this with anything sexual abuse uh spiritual abuse in a church you know my church wounds like um any kind of bullying like you know your divorce like it's like anything that you go through in life you can invite god into this process and say because you stand outside of time and you created time take me back there in my memory take me back there in my imagination holy spirit and do your work and and show me where the lie is show me the vow that i made and tell me your truth so after you do that then i would imagine there's this rush of emotions i would and then do you kind of have to pace yourself you're like okay i'm not going to take care of this whole list on this one day you kind of pace yourself maybe do you want a time journal process be ready for the next one yeah i think you know when i was in colorado i did a lot of work in just a few days over the lies but i think anybody can go through this process at their own pace that feels safe and guided by god and it's always good to have someone who you're processing with and debriefing with and talking about these things because sometimes we just think the wrong thoughts like you know you could think oh i'm not this enough i'm not bad enough i'm not this and it takes a voice of reason sometimes it takes an external voice of reason to just remind us of who we are and what god says and you know the israelites when they uh when they sabbath when they were still and knew that he was god they took that time to remember who god was and when they remembered who god was they always remembered who they were god you're the one who split the red sea you're the one who provided manna for the desert and in a cloud by day and a fire by night when they remembered who god was then all of a sudden their identity wasn't in question they didn't think oh me oh that i was back in egypt you know they they changed their mindset when they were still and remember that that he was god and you know psychologists say that we are the sum of our memories like we are the makeup our our entire makeup is from our memories and so when we get busy what do we tend to do we tend to forget we leave our keys in the fridge we uh are looking for our sunglasses for two hours and they're on our heads you know and so that causes our memory to erode and when we don't take time to be still in sabbath and know that he is god we forget who we are because we've forgotten who he is and so i think in those moments um after you do this work it's good to be still and hear from hear from the father himself straight from the horse's mouth what does he think about this how does he feel about you and what's he saying to you now like what is god doing and what does he want you to hear from his heart right now and that always brings strength and that always brings boldnessL. AMANDA: 'm wondering if you could use a really similar thing that if there's something you're facing that you're experiencing fear in right now not a past but a present situation whereas um what kind of examples could i use i'm trying to think it's like my 16 year old daughter just got her driver's license you know i'm like oh or for me personally when my kids go back and forth to their dad's house versus mom's house i think a lot of um co-parenting families maybe i'm like are they going to like him more are they going to want to stay over there or just is these lies that you're experiencing in the moment or fear of maybe you want to accomplish something in life you're like i want to go back to school and get my degree in something but you have a fear of what if they don't accept me so in a way you could almost use the same exact process to maybe process through that fear so you don't like the israelites wander in the desert for 40 years you actually go back to college and do it because you think where is jesus in this moment of fear i do it all the time still i still go through this process and i think you know it's interesting you just spoke to a couple things where you know your daughter getting your driver's license that's a healthy fear god made emotions for a reason and there's a healthy fear that we have that we need to have we need to have a fear of heights to a certain extent you know a fear of certain things but there's also an irrational fear that is based on insecurity like you're like your kids going to their dads it's like it's like i think writing those fears down can really help you retrace and find okay where is it coming from where is it starting because psychologists say our systems are set between five and six so like the stuff we deal with now we have triggers that are current but the trauma of that started way farther back the enemy got a hook in our lives way farther back and so usually this reminds us of a scenario earlier in life so what are the things that we can look out for to say okay when i'm feeling insecure about this situation that's because i have a lie i'm not worth getting to know like when i have a fear over this type of thing it's because i have a lie i'm not good enough i'm not strong enough i'm not this or that but i think writing down what are you actually afraid of when they're going to their dads like what are you actually afraid of and where is that coming from getting to the roots of things i think for years and years and years i couldn't feel like i was getting to the root even through counseling because i wasn't going to a counselor who used you know the processes that i needed to really get to the bottom of things and so getting to the bottom of it is so so important and writing it out and admitting it because that takes the power of shame away when you admit it and you're like this is how i'm feeling and this is i'm ashamed that i'm even feeling this but when you admit it it's bringing it to the light and it's taking the power away AMANDA: I like the idea take the power away from fear maybe that's the title to this podcast take them you just said that take the power away from fear but also in that moment because this whole get your brave on thing is all from one day me just really diving into joshua and going oh wait a second have i not commanded you declares the lord to be strong and courageous i've heard that i know it's a command even though i don't i don't think i'm obeying that command all the time and then but the second part was and i'll go with you wherever you go so those moments of those things you're afraid of right now to say well where is god in this moment of fear he is with you he steps in to your fear and it is you do not face it alone and then i i think he says just keep going he doesn't want us to stop i haven't found anywhere where it says you should live extra cautious and be like super safe and don't go through things i've never found that in anywhere in my bible i don't know have you seen it in your bible well in fact in the new testament it doesn't say any of that it says quite the opposite it says in this world you will have trouble but know that i have overcome the world and it's interesting uh a quote from joyce meyer came to mind when i was listening to you talk just now she would just yell do it scared do it scared and how many things in my life because courage is not the absence of fear you know and so how many things in my life have i just done scared i just do it anyway even if i'm scared and i trust god you're gonna show up because if you call me to do this like going back to school like what's the worst that could happen think about the absolute worst thing that could happen and it's probably not as bad as we think i think too sometimes when AMANDA: i'm facing a situation like okay this is freaking me out right now i don't know how to handle this like wait a second all those things in my past god got me through those he's gonna get me through this when you face that moment of fear allowing god into it what is one thing that you can remember the most recent thing that you were afraid of and you did it anyway that you just moved forward and how did it work out that's going to be really vulnerable this past weekend was the k-LOVE fan awards and i was up for an award and i was so scared to go to the to the event and i was so ashamed that i felt scared because i think it hit on a nerve from childhood of in elementary school when we were playing red rover on the playground i knew that i had really strong arms and i was never the kid who got picked and so like well first of all it's totally irrational that i'm even having this fear of going to the award show because i was nominated so in itself i am being picked you know what i mean but there is this sometimes award shows and stuff like that like they say the winner is it breeds comparison and insecurity and so i i found myself in this place gosh i'm a grown woman who is a mother who is a pastor a worship leader i run a business like all these different things i am so strong on so many levels and yet i am afraid of going to an award show and i i realized i was like okay those are the moments where you realize i'm not done yet i'm not perfect and i'm not done god you want to heal that red rover memory of elementary school and so through this whole weekend um this past weekend of the awards i i totally journaled and did digging and i bawled my eyes out because it wasn't about the show at all it was about a memory from childhood that god was using this trigger to bring it up and so that's a recent thing that i'm even i even told my husband i said i'm even ashamed to say that that i felt insecure or weird about it because i don't want people to think that i think that it's about this you know what i mean because i know it's about jesus i know that the what the world applauds isn't always what god applauds the people who are serving at the back of the church are gonna have bigger mansions than me do you know what i'm saying like let's be real about what actually matters in the kingdom and yet that touched on a trigger and so i think i think as i voice that it takes the power of shame away and it it causes me to walk in a new freedom and boldness because i'm not weighed down by that i know exactly what that is now i can put it in its place i can go through this process and say this is why that was coming up in me and when i go to the next thing that's going to be handled and maybe if it's not i'll have a head start on how how to allow the lord to heal the next layer of that onion i'm really glad that you shared that because also it makes women like me going okay she's normal and then it makes me go okay when we share the things that we're insecure about and we have it it does you're right it takes the power away and it makes you so much more relatable we all get afraid of going to certain events or going to things and feeling like everybody's looking at us and what if i don't win and the camera's on me am i going to have to have that weird face it just reminds you that you're not alone and that there are you know in scripture when it says that jesus has felt everything that we've felt i think it's important to remember that there's such a vast array of emotions that we all feel but we're too scared to talk about but when we talk about it it brings freedom and when you bring something to the light there's no secrecy there's no you you can't be bound by it anymore it's like it just shatters the shackles i mean like when you bring something to the light and and shine god's light on it it it fixes everything like i said i might have another episode of feeling insecure of of not getting picked or not being known you know um because i think the thing that hurt me about that red rover situation is that they were kids that i really wanted to be friends with yeah and the fact that they didn't know me well enough or anything to to call my name or whatever like that was so hard so hurtful to a little kid and so um we all are just little kids inside trying to figure it all out AMANDA:i know what that's like you know here we're doing this podcast during this conference for christian music broadcasters and all these radio stations and i walk in and there's this big my big head is on this poster and i was like oh you can see your pores and then every and i was like do i look like that everyone's gonna be looking at that thing and then they're gonna know me and then walking around but which is the point to talk about the podcast and the show and all of those things and i i had a very similar feeling going and people were like are you gonna take a picture by your side i'm like no that seems really weird why would i do that like i'm avoiding standing by it so um i really appreciate your vulnerability it's extremely powerful so if you could leave our podcast our listeners with one last call to decide to take away the power of fear to choose to live a strong and courageous life to JOYCE MYERS it and to do it scared if you could give him just like a rallying cry you can do this because remember you're not doing it alone what would you say to that woman is going i don't know you don't know what i'm dealing with right now could you give her one final message you know david says in the psalms you o lord are the lifter of my head i think far too often we rely on ourselves to be the lifter of our head we think we have to do it all on our own and that's just not true like god wants to meet you in that place where you are he wants you to go back to school to step out in faith to to not worry about kids going to their their dad's house you know like god wants that freedom for you even more than you want it and so i think knowing that god is the lifter of your head it's not all up to you but also there are some things that are really tough about digging deeper especially when it comes to trauma sexual abuse and things of the like it is very difficult sometimes to go there but it's worth it i'll just say that again it's totally worth it the freedom that you experience on the other side is worth every second in every ounce of pain because sometimes it gets worse before it gets better and that's not always a bad thing and so it just means that stuff's coming up and stuff's getting brought to the surface to be healed and so you oh lord are the lifter of our heads AMANDA: isn't she the best taking power away from your fears if you want that book it's called boundless by tasha layton you can get it on amazon her website tashaleyton.com her music i love her latest single look what you've done it's nearing number one on the charts check her out on spotify wherever you like to listen and please be a hero to a friend and share this episode with them if they're struggling to conquer fear in their life i think this could help a lot of people just copy the link and paste it in a text to them you know if i could ask a favor of you um if you could be my personal hero could you leave a review and rate this podcast if you love it i would love to know if i could make it better i would love to know every week now i'm going to give a shout out to a fellow brave babe that's listening and comments i got this note from sonya wins that's her avatar she says the podcast so good encouraging uplifting authentic just listen to the first podcast i'm so encouraged i really appreciate her authenticity and vulnerability i can't wait to hear more hey sonia thank you so much i can't wait to give you more thank you if you could just leave a review and a comment to give you the next one i highlight thank you so much for sharing your time with me and being a part of this community i love my brave babes if you're not one yet sign up at get your brave on dot info send you all kinds of helpful information on how to live a strong and courageous life including a free download of 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