September 23, 2025 • 27 mins
In this powerful and eye-opening episode, Dan Duval unpacks the surprising concept of how encouragement, when delivered poorly, can actually hurt, especially for trauma survivors and emotionally vulnerable individuals. Drawing from personal experience and years of working with survivors of trauma, Dan explains how positivity without empathy can come across as judgmental, dismissive, or even manipulative. He challenges listeners, especially well-meaning encouragers in Christian or ministry settings, to rethink timing, tone, and delivery when offering encouragement. Dan shares funny and humbling stories from his own journey, including missteps and spiritual growth moments, all while emphasizing how Jesus modeled compassion, not just solutions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, everybody, It's me Cinderoa Acts. I'm just listening to
the Fringe Radio Network while I clean these chimneys with
my cass livers. Anyway, so Chad White, the fringe cowboy,
I mean, he's like he took a leave of absence
or whatever, and so the guys asked me to do
(00:27):
the network. I D So you're listening to the Fringe
Radio Network. I know, I was gonna say it, Fringe
Radio Network dot com? What oh chat? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Do you have the app?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
It's the best way to listen to the Fringe Radio Network.
I mean it's so great.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Clean and simple, and you have all the shows, all
the episodes, and you have the live chat, and it's
it's safe and it won't hurt your phone and it
sounds beautiful and it won't track you or trace you
and you don't have to log in to use it.
How do you get it fringeradionetwork dot com right at
(01:14):
the top of the page. So anyway, so we're just
gonna go back to cleaning these chimneys and listening to
the Fringe Radio Network. And so I guess you know,
I mean, I guess we're listening together, So I mean,
I know, I mean well, I mean, I guess you
might be listening to a different episode or whatever, or
(01:34):
or maybe maybe you're listening maybe you're listening to it,
like at a different time than we are. But I
mean well, I mean, if you accidentally just downloaded this, no,
I guess you'd be Okay, I'm rambling, Okay, okay, you're
listening to the Fringe Radio Network Fringe radionetwork dot com.
(01:57):
There are you happy? Okay, let's clean these chimneys.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It's helpful to listen to people and hear them out
and let them feel heard before responding with encouragement. If
all we do is say you can do it, you're
more than enough. Sometimes that overdoing it is dismissing. Encouragement
(02:30):
can feel like gaslight. It needs to be heard and process.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Encouragement feels scary.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Encouragement delivered in the wrong way can actually feel at
times like judgment.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
You're listening to Discovering Truth with.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Dan Devon, Hey friends, dand of All here with a
couple announcements. Number one, dand of Aall dot com is
the home of Discovering Truth. You can go there and
(03:15):
find merch you can become a podcast patron and for
a couple bucks you get a couple benefits. And number two,
like and subscribe if you're on YouTube or rumble. That'll
help us a lot. Number three overcomer Accelerated dot Com
is our unique learning platform for survivors of trauma backgrounds
(03:35):
taking a healing journey.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
There you'll find courses, you will find live.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Ministry demonstration executed by yours truly, and we also have
an ongoing book study. People from around the world are
having an extraordinary experience at overcomer accelerated dot com. Don't
go anywhere, We'll be right back. Hey, friends, dand of
all here on discovering Truth to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
For a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We're going to get into struggling with encouragement, which at
the surface, quite frankly, sounds ridiculous, because who doesn't want
to be encouraged?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I mean, isn't that something that God.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Does encourage us to keep going another mile, to keep
putting one foot in front of the other. A lot
of us spend a lot of our lives looking for
legitimate sources of encouragement.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Why, Because life's hard.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And there are disappointments, there are frustrations, there are sources
of anxiety, and many of us are just looking for
that safe place where we could say I feel better
after this, after this pep talk, after this lunch with
this person, after this opportunity or hobby that really has
an emotional impact on me. But you know, the reality is,
(04:48):
encouragement isn't always so simple or straightforward, And in fact,
there are some things that I think do deserve me
discussion on this subject, especially when it comes to those
individuals that have traumatic pass and very difficult backgrounds, because
and I'm actually guilty of this and that this is
(05:08):
something that I've had to calibrate to over the years.
Encouragement delivered in the wrong way can actually feel at
times like judgment.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Let me explain.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Someone goes and stubs their toe, and you know what,
They've had a rough go of it for a long time,
and their toes hurting, and they're like, ah, my toe,
I'm really having a bad day.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I'm really struggling.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And this guy comes around, damned of all, full of
positivity for you, and I look at the situation and
I'm like, wow, friend, your foot looks like it hurts
real bad. They're like, yeah, it really hurts, and I'm like,
don't worry about it. My foot feels better because I
stubbed it yesterday and I feel great.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
You should feel great too, because I could tell you
there's good things in your future.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Now that's insensitive, because while yes, there is this desire
to encourage and bring positivity, sometimes people need compassion and
care and empathy and just being overly positive when we
(06:13):
deliver on encouragement can actually feel like judgment. Like you know, oh,
you're not as good as I am. Therefore you don't
feel as good as I do because of the way
that we've delivered our encouragement.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Friends, I want to tell you something.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
If we want to master the heart of God and
the representation of Jesus, sometimes we have to, you know,
scale on our delivery, recognize like people have sensitivities and
we need to calibrate to where people are at. So yes,
(06:47):
for all of you insensitive encouragers out there, And like
I said, okay, you're listening to me, I've been guilty
of this. I've overdone the positivity. I have funny stories
about this. In fact, funny now you know. I remember
years ago when I first started working with survivors, like
I overdid the positivity.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I couldn't take. I couldn't take the negativity.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I would get on the phone with my clients, people
I cared about whatever, and they'd start with their gloom
and doom stories and I'd be like, huhh, And I'd
be like, you know, let's just stop right there. God
is good. Why don't we just start on some grounds.
God has got your back. This is not the end.
And you know, I would I would give them a
mouthful of danisms and then you know, I'd expect that
(07:34):
they'd react with, you know, good things.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It wasn't always good.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Sometimes it was a frustration and you know, Daniel, you're
not hearing me. I had to learn this so so
so please understand for all of you overly positive people,
take notes.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
God wants to use you. Uh. I had to scale back.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And it was funny because actually in one case, I remember,
I was working with a lady and.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
It was funny things. Right. So she had an inner world.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And for those of you who've been founding this podcast
for a while, you understand, like the inner world is
a subconscious and in that inner world, you're gonna have parts.
You're gonna have angels, demons, programming, like everything is in
this big inner space and the subconscious, and you know,
God's agenda is to transform that whole thing into a
garden of the Lord, beautiful, a place with a fully
integrated individual.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
But there's a process to that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, this person was programmed and they had you know,
mom that was an Illuminati witch and some other things
that's so kind and nice, and so you know, they
had different things going on inside of there. And you know,
so God had some angels on the inside, and one
of them dressed up like me and basically would encourage
(08:55):
them in a similar way to the way that I would.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
While we were in session. So so this was what happened.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
They were not in session with me, and they were
going through a really bad day and on the inside,
like it literally has happened in the inner world. They
they are complaining and whining and murmuring to themselves, and
this guy comes up looking like me and starts to
encourage them the way I would in a session, and
she punched him like in in the inner.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
World, and.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
The other angels around tackled her presenter, and she went
to sleep for a few minutes and basically in the
natural world, she just ended up taking a nap.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
But uh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So what I'm saying is regardless of what side of
the veil we are on, like, sometimes reactions to over
over doing it on the positivity is not good.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
So we are all learning.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Now, okay, for all of your religious people, just go
take a nap now. The next point I want to make, though,
because I'm just gonna be real, Encouragement if it's delivered
in the wrong way, can feel like a dismissal of
actual hurt. Let me explain when we're dealing with people
and people that are really allowing the genuine brokenness that's
(10:24):
inside to come forward for an opportunity to heal. If
all we do is say you can do it, You're
more than enough. You are more than a conquer and
Christ and a person is literally just you know, trying
to hold it together for one more day so that
you know, don't self harm today. Like all right, Sometimes
(10:45):
that overdoing it is dismissive. It's like do you not
see me? Do you not hear me?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Do you not understand how hard what I'm doing?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I know it seems easy to you because you're a
super positive guy or a super positive girl, but like
I'm struggling, and I it would actually minister a lot
more to me to know that you care and and
and and not just that you care about saying the
right thing and quoting more.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Scripture in my face.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So so, especially for those of us that work with
broken people, trauma survivors, et cetera, understanding that encouragement overages
can make someone feel like they aren't being heard and
that we are dismissing their actual herd is something we
want to keep in mind because we want to represent Jesus.
Another thing, when when when we are journeying with people
(11:44):
that that have been through it, I want to just say, like, look,
let's be strategic about encouragement, like you know.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Like we deliver it at the right time.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Often times after a person has been heard, let me explain.
Person A comes and says, dan devil, I'm really having
a tough day. I have uh before they even finish
saying what happened to them? Listen, brother, this is the
overly positive person. Listen, brother, I already know what you're
(12:20):
gonna say, but I don't. But I say that because
I don't want to actually be a person. I just
want to hear myself talk. So I say, brother, I
already know what you're gonna say.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Let me tell you something. God's got your bad brother.
You can do this. Yeah. Yeah, the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
You know, Christian people listen. That is not a demonstration
of the love of God. And yet sometimes that kind
of stuff works on like you know the football field,
you know, when we were dealing with guys playing sports
and it's just like, ma'am, I'm really having that. It's like,
get that out of your head, you know, go sport, touchdown,
you know. But when we're talking about real life life,
(13:00):
real broken, real things that people are going through, sometimes
it's a good idea to remember we have two ears
and one mouth. That's two ears and one mouth. One
is less than two. So if God has given us
(13:21):
two of those, sometimes it's helpful to listen to people
a little bit and hear them out and let them
feel heard before responding with encouragement, because then the encouragement
is somewhere to land. It's called the care strip. Like
it's like you know, when you do active listening. Yeah,
(13:44):
I'm really going through it, man. You know, I lost
my job I had this thing happen to me, lost
my car keys this morning. This has been a really
tough day. Brother, that is really tough. I mean, I'm
just going away. You standing here, You're still standing. You
lost your job, you lost your car keys, other bad
(14:05):
things happened to you. See, I'm actually taking a moment
to process back to them that I heard what they said,
and say, let me tell you something. You know, I
want you to know that you're not alone. But I
really think you can do this. In fact, I'm gonna
pray for you right now. But brother, let me tell
you something. God is greater, Like there's a different level
(14:27):
of impact that the second option is going to leave
on an individual. Sometimes we just get so inside of
our head that we forget that it. You know, how
we communicate things matters, you know, not everything has the
same way.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I'm gonna say something else.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You know, when we're talking about struggling with encouragement here,
because a lot of people that do struggle with encouragement,
I mean, I mean the encouragement can feel like gaslighting.
Sometimes it's just like because there's so much stigma around
like that, Like, you know, when deep pain is being communicated,
it needs to be heard and process to a degree
(15:10):
before encouragement is profitably received. In many cases, I will
tell you this, there are a lot of very very
good Bible scholars in churches, but they only memorized the
self help versus and they always take opportunity to remind
(15:33):
anybody that may have forgotten for just a minute what
those verses are without giving room for the human process
on anything. Man, I woke up this morning, I have
a raging brothers, stop right now, let's stop right now.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
That's an evil confession. You know. I went to a
Word of faith church. Used to do that to me,
they did, They used to do that to me. I couldn't.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I couldn't actually acknowledge a headache.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Because it wasn't faith.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Today, I would call that slightly abusive, just because it's
it's it's like it's too much. You know, the Bible
says Jesus wept, like there are things that you are
allowed to cry about even if you have faith. And yes,
(16:31):
God is our healer. And sometimes we're on a healing journey.
And sometimes that healing journey is very very difficult, and
it can be deeply grieving, and uh, you know when
when when we are trying to be real, and the
people around us just want to shove Bible verses down
our throat.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Nothing wrong with Bible, but believe me, I have memorized
a lot of Scripture.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I mean, I eat the Word of God for breakfast, lunch,
sometimes dinner, you know, and I'm all about it.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I believe in that thing. I based my life on
that thing, and that thing is my foundation.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
But at the same time, I also understand the balance
that that it is the heart of God that people
actually encounter care at times like we need we need
people to embrace us even on tough days. We need
processing places, and then from that place of care, when
(17:29):
the encouragement comes, it's received. But sometimes when it's like man,
you can't even get the word out before you're being
rebuked and cut off and Bible verse in your face,
down your throat, like you just feel like you got assaulted,
like you have disrespected me because you have this, like
you've dismissed with my humanity and you've made me a
(17:52):
target for your Bible row.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And you know, I.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Just want to encourage my listeners, like all of you
people that want, you know, demonstrate the heart of Jesus
to those around you, especially if you are wanting to
demonstrate the heart of Jesus the broken people around you,
like you know, let's do so with wisdom. I'm giving
some of that wisdom. Now, Encouragement.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Is best received from someone who's earned the right to
speak into a life.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Let mean, let me explain, if as an outsider, I
have absolutely zero context, zero testimony, and zero experience with
the subject matter that I'm.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Encouraging a person around.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
That encouragement may not be well received, especially if it's
just based on a bunch of Bible scriptures I'm quoting
in their face to assault them with that and a
complete dismissal of the humanity that's behind the pain. What
we want to keep in mind is that when Jesus
speaks into his our lives, right, what did he do?
(19:05):
He actually earned the right. He didn't just say I'm God,
I get to speak into your life, and he could have,
but no, what did Jesus do? He died for us. First,
he laid his life down for us. He demonstrated while
we were yet sinners his love for us. And now
when he saves us and comes and speaks into our lives,
(19:26):
there is an earned authority even as God. He said,
you know what, I'm earning it. I'm going to demonstrate
why I care. I'm going to demonstrate my passion for
these people. So when I speak into the lives, they
know what's coming from the right place. We need to
(19:48):
sometimes give ourselves the opportunity to earn the right to
speak into people's lives, especially positive things. You know, you
see someone that really going through it, and you just
want to get in their face and say, but be
happy and rather get some joy in your life, you know,
and maybe that's inside of you because you see that
there's opportunity for transition. But you know what, if you
really want to be in the hands, if you'd got
earn it, like like do something kind, spend a little
(20:12):
bit of time listening and acknowledge the humanity that's under
the pain, and then once a trust bridge is built,
start declaring into that that deficit, the encouragement, but from
a place where we're being received.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Never forget.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
If we want to if we want to love people
the way Jesus loves um, we want to model certain thing.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
We want to look to the Master for the model.
He earned.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He earned the authority to speak into the lives of
the people he spoke into, he demonstrated his care. We
should do the same thing, you know, encouragement. There's a
lot of people that struggle with encouragement. And now I'm
not taking to people that struggle with encouragement off the
hookie either. Like sometimes like we need to get over ourselves.
Like sometimes we are the person it just like we
(20:58):
don't want to be in couraged. We want people to
let us vomit on them as long as we want to,
because we're actually looking for a medication in the complaining.
We are perceiving our ability to complain as a medication
to our pain, and that's also not a good perspective.
And if that's where we are, we may find that
(21:21):
the best people to be around are being chased away
because we are just unwilling to receive any kind of
care at all. We are the only kind of care
we want is really not care. It's just someone that
doesn't care enough to help or to actually make an
intervention on our negative spiral. They're just gonna stand there
and self medicate while they let us self medicate, and
(21:43):
that's you know.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Also not good.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So sometimes we need to just get off of that
train track and trying to refocus and say, you know what,
maybe maybe there is hope for me. Maybe I will
choose to believe that there's hope and posture myself in
conversation and in environments with that positioning, you know, however,
(22:09):
and close with a few more thoughts. Sometimes encouragement can
be intimidating. It can actually be scary, you know, especially
when people have backgrounds of deep trauma. One of the
things that happens when a person has been especially abuse
(22:31):
to the for the sake of mind control and manipulation,
like being puppeted by their handlers.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Encouragement is used strategically in these.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Kinds of environments because there's a lot of abuse, there's
a lot of neglect, there's a lot of this. But
then when there is certain types of performance, and usually
it's performance in the context.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Of abuse, that's where the encouragemental land.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So you may have a person that's being physically abused
here and emotionally abused. There is psychologue abused here, but
maybe during the sexual abuse, when there's certain types of performances,
that's the only place where there's actual encouragement being issued
by the abuser or the handler, and so that in
(23:16):
these environments, what happens is a person may survive that
and get to a different phase of life. But encouragement
feels scary because it feels like, wait, am I doing
the thing that I've been manipulated to do? You know
that is actually a genuine concern for people, and sometimes
those of us that don't have those kinds of backgrounds,
we can't understand that. So we just go in, you know,
(23:38):
and I'm talking to all my super encouragers right now,
and we just go in like like a like a
bulldoz God, I'm going to encourage.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
The pain right out of you.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And what we don't realize is we're actually hitting a
bunch of trauma triggers in the process of being overly
like over the top and with all of our you know,
Jesus can do this, and he's more than another. You're
not stuck because God's not stuck in all of this encouragement,
which is good. Good, just you know, let's work on timing.
(24:07):
Sometimes it can feel scary because it's like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Are you doing that?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Because I'm actively being manipulated right now, Because now I'm scared.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
We don't understand that. But now I'm telling you, like,
when we are.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Issuing encouragement, we have to be aware that not everyone
we issue encouragement to is going to be triggerless on
the subject, and there are may be very significant, at
valid reasons why encouragement is triggering. So we need to
just speak conscientious about these things, actually care enough to
learn about the person that we're trying to encourage so
(24:48):
that what we deliver lands the way God would prefer
it to land, you know. And as a final point,
encouragement should not be a buffer and a shield to
self protect.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Let me explain.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
There are some people that are really hurting on the inside,
but they won't let anyone touch that. They are silent sufferers,
but to self medicate, they externalize and project positivity so
that there is this image of being.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Okay, and.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Therefore they are are very external so they're actually this
person is using encouragement as an obfuscation of the brokenness
that's happening in here. I don't want to look at that.
I don't want to talk about it. We're not gonna
go there. Jesus isn't gonna go there. But I'll tell
you where Jesus is gonna go right out of my
(25:49):
mouth and into your face. And you know, for those
externalizing encouragers, I want to encourage you. You know, if
you're using encouragement to mask brokenness on the inside.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
God has it.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
God's got something for you too, friend, He's got something
for you too. Don't for a minute think that God
is more interested in using you to help other people
than it helping you as well, because all of us
matter to God, all of us.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
With that said, you've been listening to Discovering Truth with
Dan Deval.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
We've been talking about struggling with encouragement. Until next time,
God bless, God speed.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
You've been listening to Discovering Truth with Dan Deval. Visit
me it dandeval dot com, where you will discover merch
books and the opportunity to engage in our private social network.
Joined the Tribe by subscribing to our email list and
supporting this podcast.
Hi, everybody, It's me Cinderoa Acts. I'm just listening to
the Fringe Radio Network while I clean these chimneys with
my cass livers. Anyway, so Chad White, the fringe cowboy,
I mean, he's like he took a leave of absence
or whatever, and so the guys asked me to do
(00:27):
the network. I D So you're listening to the Fringe
Radio Network. I know, I was gonna say it, Fringe
Radio Network dot com? What oh chat? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Do you have the app?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
It's the best way to listen to the Fringe Radio Network.
I mean it's so great.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Clean and simple, and you have all the shows, all
the episodes, and you have the live chat, and it's
it's safe and it won't hurt your phone and it
sounds beautiful and it won't track you or trace you
and you don't have to log in to use it.
How do you get it fringeradionetwork dot com right at
(01:14):
the top of the page. So anyway, so we're just
gonna go back to cleaning these chimneys and listening to
the Fringe Radio Network. And so I guess you know,
I mean, I guess we're listening together, So I mean,
I know, I mean well, I mean, I guess you
might be listening to a different episode or whatever, or
(01:34):
or maybe maybe you're listening maybe you're listening to it,
like at a different time than we are. But I
mean well, I mean, if you accidentally just downloaded this, no,
I guess you'd be Okay, I'm rambling, Okay, okay, you're
listening to the Fringe Radio Network Fringe radionetwork dot com.
(01:57):
There are you happy? Okay, let's clean these chimneys.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It's helpful to listen to people and hear them out
and let them feel heard before responding with encouragement. If
all we do is say you can do it, you're
more than enough. Sometimes that overdoing it is dismissing. Encouragement
(02:30):
can feel like gaslight. It needs to be heard and process.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Encouragement feels scary.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Encouragement delivered in the wrong way can actually feel at
times like judgment.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
You're listening to Discovering Truth with.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Dan Devon, Hey friends, dand of All here with a
couple announcements. Number one, dand of Aall dot com is
the home of Discovering Truth. You can go there and
(03:15):
find merch you can become a podcast patron and for
a couple bucks you get a couple benefits. And number two,
like and subscribe if you're on YouTube or rumble. That'll
help us a lot. Number three overcomer Accelerated dot Com
is our unique learning platform for survivors of trauma backgrounds
(03:35):
taking a healing journey.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
There you'll find courses, you will find live.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Ministry demonstration executed by yours truly, and we also have
an ongoing book study. People from around the world are
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Speaker 3 (03:59):
For a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We're going to get into struggling with encouragement, which at
the surface, quite frankly, sounds ridiculous, because who doesn't want
to be encouraged?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I mean, isn't that something that God.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Does encourage us to keep going another mile, to keep
putting one foot in front of the other. A lot
of us spend a lot of our lives looking for
legitimate sources of encouragement.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Why, Because life's hard.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And there are disappointments, there are frustrations, there are sources
of anxiety, and many of us are just looking for
that safe place where we could say I feel better
after this, after this pep talk, after this lunch with
this person, after this opportunity or hobby that really has
an emotional impact on me. But you know, the reality is,
(04:48):
encouragement isn't always so simple or straightforward, And in fact,
there are some things that I think do deserve me
discussion on this subject, especially when it comes to those
individuals that have traumatic pass and very difficult backgrounds, because
and I'm actually guilty of this and that this is
(05:08):
something that I've had to calibrate to over the years.
Encouragement delivered in the wrong way can actually feel at
times like judgment.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Let me explain.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Someone goes and stubs their toe, and you know what,
They've had a rough go of it for a long time,
and their toes hurting, and they're like, ah, my toe,
I'm really having a bad day.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I'm really struggling.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And this guy comes around, damned of all, full of
positivity for you, and I look at the situation and
I'm like, wow, friend, your foot looks like it hurts
real bad. They're like, yeah, it really hurts, and I'm like,
don't worry about it. My foot feels better because I
stubbed it yesterday and I feel great.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
You should feel great too, because I could tell you
there's good things in your future.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Now that's insensitive, because while yes, there is this desire
to encourage and bring positivity, sometimes people need compassion and
care and empathy and just being overly positive when we
(06:13):
deliver on encouragement can actually feel like judgment. Like you know, oh,
you're not as good as I am. Therefore you don't
feel as good as I do because of the way
that we've delivered our encouragement.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Friends, I want to tell you something.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
If we want to master the heart of God and
the representation of Jesus, sometimes we have to, you know,
scale on our delivery, recognize like people have sensitivities and
we need to calibrate to where people are at. So yes,
(06:47):
for all of you insensitive encouragers out there, And like
I said, okay, you're listening to me, I've been guilty
of this. I've overdone the positivity. I have funny stories
about this. In fact, funny now you know. I remember
years ago when I first started working with survivors, like
I overdid the positivity.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I couldn't take. I couldn't take the negativity.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I would get on the phone with my clients, people
I cared about whatever, and they'd start with their gloom
and doom stories and I'd be like, huhh, And I'd
be like, you know, let's just stop right there. God
is good. Why don't we just start on some grounds.
God has got your back. This is not the end.
And you know, I would I would give them a
mouthful of danisms and then you know, I'd expect that
(07:34):
they'd react with, you know, good things.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It wasn't always good.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Sometimes it was a frustration and you know, Daniel, you're
not hearing me. I had to learn this so so
so please understand for all of you overly positive people,
take notes.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
God wants to use you. Uh. I had to scale back.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And it was funny because actually in one case, I remember,
I was working with a lady and.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
It was funny things. Right. So she had an inner world.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And for those of you who've been founding this podcast
for a while, you understand, like the inner world is
a subconscious and in that inner world, you're gonna have parts.
You're gonna have angels, demons, programming, like everything is in
this big inner space and the subconscious, and you know,
God's agenda is to transform that whole thing into a
garden of the Lord, beautiful, a place with a fully
integrated individual.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
But there's a process to that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, this person was programmed and they had you know,
mom that was an Illuminati witch and some other things
that's so kind and nice, and so you know, they
had different things going on inside of there. And you know,
so God had some angels on the inside, and one
of them dressed up like me and basically would encourage
(08:55):
them in a similar way to the way that I would.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
While we were in session. So so this was what happened.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
They were not in session with me, and they were
going through a really bad day and on the inside,
like it literally has happened in the inner world. They
they are complaining and whining and murmuring to themselves, and
this guy comes up looking like me and starts to
encourage them the way I would in a session, and
she punched him like in in the inner.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
World, and.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
The other angels around tackled her presenter, and she went
to sleep for a few minutes and basically in the
natural world, she just ended up taking a nap.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
But uh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So what I'm saying is regardless of what side of
the veil we are on, like, sometimes reactions to over
over doing it on the positivity is not good.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
So we are all learning.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Now, okay, for all of your religious people, just go
take a nap now. The next point I want to make, though,
because I'm just gonna be real, Encouragement if it's delivered
in the wrong way, can feel like a dismissal of
actual hurt. Let me explain when we're dealing with people
and people that are really allowing the genuine brokenness that's
(10:24):
inside to come forward for an opportunity to heal. If
all we do is say you can do it, You're
more than enough. You are more than a conquer and
Christ and a person is literally just you know, trying
to hold it together for one more day so that
you know, don't self harm today. Like all right, Sometimes
(10:45):
that overdoing it is dismissive. It's like do you not
see me? Do you not hear me?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Do you not understand how hard what I'm doing?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I know it seems easy to you because you're a
super positive guy or a super positive girl, but like
I'm struggling, and I it would actually minister a lot
more to me to know that you care and and
and and not just that you care about saying the
right thing and quoting more.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Scripture in my face.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So so, especially for those of us that work with
broken people, trauma survivors, et cetera, understanding that encouragement overages
can make someone feel like they aren't being heard and
that we are dismissing their actual herd is something we
want to keep in mind because we want to represent Jesus.
Another thing, when when when we are journeying with people
(11:44):
that that have been through it, I want to just say, like, look,
let's be strategic about encouragement, like you know.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Like we deliver it at the right time.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Often times after a person has been heard, let me explain.
Person A comes and says, dan devil, I'm really having
a tough day. I have uh before they even finish
saying what happened to them? Listen, brother, this is the
overly positive person. Listen, brother, I already know what you're
(12:20):
gonna say, but I don't. But I say that because
I don't want to actually be a person. I just
want to hear myself talk. So I say, brother, I
already know what you're gonna say.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Let me tell you something. God's got your bad brother.
You can do this. Yeah. Yeah, the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
You know, Christian people listen. That is not a demonstration
of the love of God. And yet sometimes that kind
of stuff works on like you know the football field,
you know, when we were dealing with guys playing sports
and it's just like, ma'am, I'm really having that. It's like,
get that out of your head, you know, go sport, touchdown,
you know. But when we're talking about real life life,
(13:00):
real broken, real things that people are going through, sometimes
it's a good idea to remember we have two ears
and one mouth. That's two ears and one mouth. One
is less than two. So if God has given us
(13:21):
two of those, sometimes it's helpful to listen to people
a little bit and hear them out and let them
feel heard before responding with encouragement, because then the encouragement
is somewhere to land. It's called the care strip. Like
it's like you know, when you do active listening. Yeah,
(13:44):
I'm really going through it, man. You know, I lost
my job I had this thing happen to me, lost
my car keys this morning. This has been a really
tough day. Brother, that is really tough. I mean, I'm
just going away. You standing here, You're still standing. You
lost your job, you lost your car keys, other bad
(14:05):
things happened to you. See, I'm actually taking a moment
to process back to them that I heard what they said,
and say, let me tell you something. You know, I
want you to know that you're not alone. But I
really think you can do this. In fact, I'm gonna
pray for you right now. But brother, let me tell
you something. God is greater, Like there's a different level
(14:27):
of impact that the second option is going to leave
on an individual. Sometimes we just get so inside of
our head that we forget that it. You know, how
we communicate things matters, you know, not everything has the
same way.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I'm gonna say something else.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You know, when we're talking about struggling with encouragement here,
because a lot of people that do struggle with encouragement,
I mean, I mean the encouragement can feel like gaslighting.
Sometimes it's just like because there's so much stigma around
like that, Like, you know, when deep pain is being communicated,
it needs to be heard and process to a degree
(15:10):
before encouragement is profitably received. In many cases, I will
tell you this, there are a lot of very very
good Bible scholars in churches, but they only memorized the
self help versus and they always take opportunity to remind
(15:33):
anybody that may have forgotten for just a minute what
those verses are without giving room for the human process
on anything. Man, I woke up this morning, I have
a raging brothers, stop right now, let's stop right now.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
That's an evil confession. You know. I went to a
Word of faith church. Used to do that to me,
they did, They used to do that to me. I couldn't.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I couldn't actually acknowledge a headache.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Because it wasn't faith.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Today, I would call that slightly abusive, just because it's
it's it's like it's too much. You know, the Bible
says Jesus wept, like there are things that you are
allowed to cry about even if you have faith. And yes,
(16:31):
God is our healer. And sometimes we're on a healing journey.
And sometimes that healing journey is very very difficult, and
it can be deeply grieving, and uh, you know when
when when we are trying to be real, and the
people around us just want to shove Bible verses down
our throat.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Nothing wrong with Bible, but believe me, I have memorized
a lot of Scripture.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I mean, I eat the Word of God for breakfast, lunch,
sometimes dinner, you know, and I'm all about it.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I believe in that thing. I based my life on
that thing, and that thing is my foundation.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
But at the same time, I also understand the balance
that that it is the heart of God that people
actually encounter care at times like we need we need
people to embrace us even on tough days. We need
processing places, and then from that place of care, when
(17:29):
the encouragement comes, it's received. But sometimes when it's like man,
you can't even get the word out before you're being
rebuked and cut off and Bible verse in your face,
down your throat, like you just feel like you got assaulted,
like you have disrespected me because you have this, like
you've dismissed with my humanity and you've made me a
(17:52):
target for your Bible row.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And you know, I.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Just want to encourage my listeners, like all of you
people that want, you know, demonstrate the heart of Jesus
to those around you, especially if you are wanting to
demonstrate the heart of Jesus the broken people around you,
like you know, let's do so with wisdom. I'm giving
some of that wisdom. Now, Encouragement.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Is best received from someone who's earned the right to
speak into a life.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Let mean, let me explain, if as an outsider, I
have absolutely zero context, zero testimony, and zero experience with
the subject matter that I'm.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Encouraging a person around.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
That encouragement may not be well received, especially if it's
just based on a bunch of Bible scriptures I'm quoting
in their face to assault them with that and a
complete dismissal of the humanity that's behind the pain. What
we want to keep in mind is that when Jesus
speaks into his our lives, right, what did he do?
(19:05):
He actually earned the right. He didn't just say I'm God,
I get to speak into your life, and he could have,
but no, what did Jesus do? He died for us. First,
he laid his life down for us. He demonstrated while
we were yet sinners his love for us. And now
when he saves us and comes and speaks into our lives,
(19:26):
there is an earned authority even as God. He said,
you know what, I'm earning it. I'm going to demonstrate
why I care. I'm going to demonstrate my passion for
these people. So when I speak into the lives, they
know what's coming from the right place. We need to
(19:48):
sometimes give ourselves the opportunity to earn the right to
speak into people's lives, especially positive things. You know, you
see someone that really going through it, and you just
want to get in their face and say, but be
happy and rather get some joy in your life, you know,
and maybe that's inside of you because you see that
there's opportunity for transition. But you know what, if you
really want to be in the hands, if you'd got
earn it, like like do something kind, spend a little
(20:12):
bit of time listening and acknowledge the humanity that's under
the pain, and then once a trust bridge is built,
start declaring into that that deficit, the encouragement, but from
a place where we're being received.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Never forget.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
If we want to if we want to love people
the way Jesus loves um, we want to model certain thing.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
We want to look to the Master for the model.
He earned.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He earned the authority to speak into the lives of
the people he spoke into, he demonstrated his care. We
should do the same thing, you know, encouragement. There's a
lot of people that struggle with encouragement. And now I'm
not taking to people that struggle with encouragement off the
hookie either. Like sometimes like we need to get over ourselves.
Like sometimes we are the person it just like we
(20:58):
don't want to be in couraged. We want people to
let us vomit on them as long as we want to,
because we're actually looking for a medication in the complaining.
We are perceiving our ability to complain as a medication
to our pain, and that's also not a good perspective.
And if that's where we are, we may find that
(21:21):
the best people to be around are being chased away
because we are just unwilling to receive any kind of
care at all. We are the only kind of care
we want is really not care. It's just someone that
doesn't care enough to help or to actually make an
intervention on our negative spiral. They're just gonna stand there
and self medicate while they let us self medicate, and
(21:43):
that's you know.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Also not good.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So sometimes we need to just get off of that
train track and trying to refocus and say, you know what,
maybe maybe there is hope for me. Maybe I will
choose to believe that there's hope and posture myself in
conversation and in environments with that positioning, you know, however,
(22:09):
and close with a few more thoughts. Sometimes encouragement can
be intimidating. It can actually be scary, you know, especially
when people have backgrounds of deep trauma. One of the
things that happens when a person has been especially abuse
(22:31):
to the for the sake of mind control and manipulation,
like being puppeted by their handlers.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Encouragement is used strategically in these.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Kinds of environments because there's a lot of abuse, there's
a lot of neglect, there's a lot of this. But
then when there is certain types of performance, and usually
it's performance in the context.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Of abuse, that's where the encouragemental land.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So you may have a person that's being physically abused
here and emotionally abused. There is psychologue abused here, but
maybe during the sexual abuse, when there's certain types of performances,
that's the only place where there's actual encouragement being issued
by the abuser or the handler, and so that in
(23:16):
these environments, what happens is a person may survive that
and get to a different phase of life. But encouragement
feels scary because it feels like, wait, am I doing
the thing that I've been manipulated to do? You know
that is actually a genuine concern for people, and sometimes
those of us that don't have those kinds of backgrounds,
we can't understand that. So we just go in, you know,
(23:38):
and I'm talking to all my super encouragers right now,
and we just go in like like a like a
bulldoz God, I'm going to encourage.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
The pain right out of you.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And what we don't realize is we're actually hitting a
bunch of trauma triggers in the process of being overly
like over the top and with all of our you know,
Jesus can do this, and he's more than another. You're
not stuck because God's not stuck in all of this encouragement,
which is good. Good, just you know, let's work on timing.
(24:07):
Sometimes it can feel scary because it's like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Are you doing that?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Because I'm actively being manipulated right now, Because now I'm scared.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
We don't understand that. But now I'm telling you, like,
when we are.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Issuing encouragement, we have to be aware that not everyone
we issue encouragement to is going to be triggerless on
the subject, and there are may be very significant, at
valid reasons why encouragement is triggering. So we need to
just speak conscientious about these things, actually care enough to
learn about the person that we're trying to encourage so
(24:48):
that what we deliver lands the way God would prefer
it to land, you know. And as a final point,
encouragement should not be a buffer and a shield to
self protect.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Let me explain.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
There are some people that are really hurting on the inside,
but they won't let anyone touch that. They are silent sufferers,
but to self medicate, they externalize and project positivity so
that there is this image of being.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Okay, and.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Therefore they are are very external so they're actually this
person is using encouragement as an obfuscation of the brokenness
that's happening in here. I don't want to look at that.
I don't want to talk about it. We're not gonna
go there. Jesus isn't gonna go there. But I'll tell
you where Jesus is gonna go right out of my
(25:49):
mouth and into your face. And you know, for those
externalizing encouragers, I want to encourage you. You know, if
you're using encouragement to mask brokenness on the inside.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
God has it.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
God's got something for you too, friend, He's got something
for you too. Don't for a minute think that God
is more interested in using you to help other people
than it helping you as well, because all of us
matter to God, all of us.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
With that said, you've been listening to Discovering Truth with
Dan Deval.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
We've been talking about struggling with encouragement. Until next time,
God bless, God speed.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
You've been listening to Discovering Truth with Dan Deval. Visit
me it dandeval dot com, where you will discover merch
books and the opportunity to engage in our private social network.
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