RYH and Communities

Posted on January 21, 2019January 21, 2019 by Nancy Higgins

Restoring Your Heart was designed to help people grow towards spiritual maturity by experiencing emotional healing. The process was aimed specifically at individuals.

However, as more people participated in RYH groups, their families began to change. People learned that their past, though over, was still having an impact on their present life. They also learned what makes a healthy family and then applied those principles to their children. When husbands and wives both participated in RYH groups, the benefit was even greater. Marriages improved as people better understood themselves and could talk about their hurts with their spouses. Communication improved. Both spouses learned about healthy families and became better parents.

The natural outcome of healthier families is healthier communities. We have been so encouraged to see this happen over and over again. It makes participating in a RYH group all the more valuable. Not only are you receiving your own personal healing, the benefit spreads to your family and friends.

We believe the implication for communities is huge.

We’d like to share a testimony from a person who participated in a RYH group simultaneously with her spouse.

“A friend of mine took Restoring Your Heart and described to me how powerful and life defining it was for her. I became intrigued as she talked about how it led her to take a personal & spiritual inventory of her life. I will boldly confess before you today that as engrossed as I was in her story – literally hanging on her every word – the woman lost me when she told me the length of the group, and I felt myself shut down when I learned the cost. 17 weeks and $30 was a bit more of a commitment than I was accustomed to surrendering for a Wednesday night group.

She laughed at my shock and awe. And told me that if I put in the work and attended the group, she guaranteed I would get at least $30 worth of restoration.

I talked to my husband about it and we thought it would be neat to do the group together. We could discuss our answers and get to know each other a little better. There’s always more we can learn after 16 years of marriage, right?

There are two types of Restoring Your Heart groups. One focuses on the losses in our lives and the other on understanding emotions. I signed up for Understanding Emotions and my husband signed up for Processing Pain. It turned out to be the best thing for us individually and as a couple. We were still able to share our answers, but not cover the exact same content.

We started talking about Restoring Your Heart so much that the title got to be too long so we just referred to it as RYH. If something happened in our family, we’d be quick to say, “Oh! This is a RYH moment!”

In RYH, I learned how to handle and process emotions that I had long suppressed. I had cracks in my spiritual pottery that I didn’t know about! Or the cracks I did know about, I didn’t worry about repairing. I studied emotions from a Biblical perspective and took a look back at circumstances in my past that were driving how I respond to life today. I learned that how I respond to situations in my life flows through the very spiritual cracks lined with decades of past, unresolved emotions. So how you respond to stress, strife or struggles in your life is directly related to your past unresolved hurts. There’s no way around it.

I had THE best small group in the world. Together we chose to let the light of Jesus shine through our spiritual cracks and made ourselves available for Him to refill them with the Holy Spirit. We’ll never forget our journey together. “

So now that I’ve completed one group, I’d like to write a public service announcement for RYH. If RYH was a Visa commercial, the announcer would say…

RYH Group $30

Time Investment 17 weeks

The Spiritual Transformation & Freedom PRICELESS

We start with one person and God, then the benefits of healing fan out to everyone around them. When will you start to heal your community by healing yourself?

Created with Needs

Posted on May 15, 2018May 15, 2018 by Nancy Higgins

Throughout all of Scripture, God promises He will meet our needs for value, security, acceptance and connection

Throughout all of Scripture, God promises He will meet our needs. In the second chapter of Genesis, God says that it is not good for the man to be alone. That’s because when God formed the man from the dust and blew His breath into him, He blew in the needs for value, security, acceptance and connection. And by creating a woman for the man, God was meeting those needs. He was at once revealing Himself to the man and drawing the man close to Him.

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When I was a kid, my family lived in Dallas, Texas. It so happens that Dallas is the hometown of the famous department store, Neiman Marcus. In the 1950’s, Neiman Marcus was THE place to shop in Dallas. There was only one location, and it was downtown, since the shopping mall had yet to be invented. A visit to Neiman Marcus was a special adventure.

My daddy, who was a family-oriented kind of guy, was pretty involved in my life, especially for activities that were outside the home. So, around the age of 5, when I needed new “dress shoes”, my daddy took me to Neiman Marcus downtown to get them. The only details I remember about that outing were actually being in the shoe department of the store and spying THE shoes. They were soft black suede Mary Janes with rhinestones all around the front edge. I instantly fell in love with them and saw no need to look at any other shoes. I remember trying them on and my daddy saying, “Now are you SURE those are the ones you want?” They were indeed the ones, so he bought them for me. Although I don’t remember many details of the outing, I DO remember the feeling of being loved by my daddy. He wanted me to have the shoes I liked and was taking the time to make sure I was satisfied. And not only that, he was glad to be with me as I picked out something he otherwise would have no interest in at all. He wanted to be with me and he wanted me to be pleased.

In just that one simple outing to buy new shoes, my daddy met my needs for value, security, acceptance and connection.

Why do I remember that one random outing with my daddy?

When that memory plays back in my head, I instantly feel valued, secure, accepted and connected. Since those are the emotional needs that God Himself created within me, when I remember that day, not only do I feel all those things from my daddy, I also feel them from God. Remembering makes me smile.

When we are children, our parents (or other caregivers) don’t always adequately meet our emotional needs. When they don’t, we as children will figure out some way to get them met, and it usually won’t be a very healthy choice. When our needs aren’t validated by an adult, we might assume that our needs are wrong, or that there is something wrong with us for even having needs.

The beauty of the RYH process is that it helps us understand and accept those needs. We learn to look to God and also to healthy relationships with people in order to get our needs met. In the process, God reveals Himself to us and draws us close.

The Freedom of Forgiving

Posted on January 3, 2018March 16, 2018 by Nancy Higgins

Forgiveness is a lovely thing to witness. Having led more than a few Restoring Your Heart (RYH) groups, I’ve had lots of opportunities to watch the forgiveness process as it unfolds in people’s lives. The following is one such story.

I know we have all experienced forgiveness at one time or another. Maybe by giving it or receiving it ourselves. Or perhaps been a witness to someone else giving it or receiving it. We’ve all learned about it, studied about it and most likely, struggled with it.

One of the most encouraging and unexpected times I saw forgiveness in action was in a RYH group I led many years ago.

Margie was about 45 years old when I met her. She had joined a RYH Processing Pain group that I was leading in a local church. Margie, myself and five other women met together for two hours each week to go through the RYH Processing Pain workbook and share emotional hurts from the past. The purpose of the group is to better understand our childhood, grieve our hurts and come to a place of forgiveness. It’s a healing process. During the three months of meeting together in a safe environment, the group members generally form a close bond with one another. Margie’s group was no exception.

A little history on Margie. Margie grew up in a strict home. Her parents were cold and stoic, and as we went through the lessons together Margie told us how they frequently called her stupid and ugly when she was a child. She was neither, by the way.

Not surprisingly, Margie married a man who didn’t treat her much better. She was accustomed to being put down and although she didn’t like it, it was “normal” to her. One day, when Margie’s sons were close to high school age, Margie’s husband left her…for another man. And although in many ways Margie was glad he left, the way he did it confirmed everything her parents had told her about who she was, ugly and stupid.

When we started the RYH group, it was clear that Margie had an enormous amount of animosity towards her ex-husband. The lessons in the first half of the workbook are focused on childhood but Margie had a hard time staying with her childhood issues. She wanted to vent about her ex-husband at every session. About a third of the way through the workbook, Margie realized the process was moving towards forgiving those who had hurt us. She became very agitated and announced that there was one person she could never forgive…her ex-husband.

Everyone in the group validated Margie’s feelings, confirmed that she had been mistreated, and comforted her in her hurt and anger.

Fast forward to the end of the workbook, just past the forgiveness part. Margie walked into the group session that night and she looked radiant, seriously glowing. She was happy and excited. She looked like a different person.

“You will never believe what has happened to me!”

Of course, we all wanted to know. Margie looked so beautiful we wanted whatever had happened to her, to happen to us as well. “What? What?”

“I have forgiven my ex-husband! I don’t know how it happened! I never thought I would forgive him! But I have and I feel SO FREE!! God is so awesome!”

During the process of Margie acknowledging her pain and grieving her losses, she was able, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to forgive. It not only changed the way she felt, it literally changed the way she looked. That night I actually saw the beautiful face of forgiveness.

If Margie’s story has encouraged you or perhaps touched something deep within your own story, and you would like to see and experience the healing power of forgiveness in your life, learn more about the WDA Restoring Your Heart Ministry at www.RestoringYourHeart.com.

Conquering Shame

Posted on February 24, 2016February 25, 2016 by Nancy Higgins

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” Brene Brown Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

There are eight of us women, sitting together in a circle of comfortable chairs, sharing our hearts with each other. The topic, however, is anything but comfortable. We are talking about our shame.

We are remembering how, as children, our moms or dads made statements or comments to us that were shaming. How our friends and fellow students put us down and we felt “less than”. How even the shame carried by our parents was unknowingly placed on our own shoulders and became our burden.

Shame is subtle and sometimes difficult to name, much less to remove. This is our hope as we sit together for these upcoming weeks. To make at least a start at ferreting out this most painful of emotions. We are looking for the beginnings of freedom from shame.

The author of the WDA RYH Conquering Shame Workbook, Lee Tolar, has this to say about shame:

“In my 25 years of leading RYH groups I have found that shame is much more common than most of us think. There will always be some people who have an obvious struggle with shame exhibited by “a poor self image”. However, many of us mask our shame behind perfectionism, defensiveness, a false self, emotional numbness or low-level depression. Thus our shame is not so easily recognizable to ourselves or other people.”

“Shame originated with Adam and Eve. After the fall, they felt guilty about having committed a sin and shameful of whom they now were (sinners). They came up with the original defense mechanism: hiding from God. This desire to hide our shortcomings has been passed down to us with our sin nature.

“25 years of leading RYH groups has helped me to see how extensive the problem of shame is in other people but it has also helped me to see and understand my own shame. As I have recognized my own shame, I have been able, with God’s help, to release a lot of it, become less defensive, face and deal with my shortcomings, and to appreciate who He made me to be.”

WDA’s Conquering Shame Workbook helps people recognize what caused their shame, what their particular symptoms of shame are, and most importantly how to release and recover from these toxic beliefs and emotions. It is based on Biblical principles. My favorite chapter deals with recognizing each person’s strengths.

Like our other RYH workbooks, Processing Pain and Understanding Emotions, it is designed for use in a confidential small group setting with a trained RYH facilitator.

A recent participant in a Conquering Shame Group had this to say about her experience:

“I want to express my gratitude to you and to those who have contributed in writing the manual for the ” RYH Conquering Shame group”! I have been dealing with shame issues since I was a young child. This group was able to clarify what shame is all about, and I clearly understand how damaging living this way is. Shame affects every part of your being and it greatly affects your relationship with God. I believe the group dynamics and interaction, really enhanced the discussions.”

“The biggest breakthrough for me, was telling/hearing our shame stories!”

“Being able to verbalize what has been inside of me, in that dark place and bringing it out into the open (the light) with “safe” people was so healing. Actually, it was the first time I had been able to tell a group this story. After hearing and telling my own story, I felt a great release in my spirit. It’s freedom from the bondage of shame! I have a changed mind-set about my shame- yes, that stuff did happen to me and it’s very sad, BUT that’s not who I am. The lies that I have believed about myself for so long have lost their powerful hold on me. Restoration is a process that takes time, and in my case many, many years. Little by little, the Lord has nudged my spirit to take another step in the healing process. God always knows what I need and at just the right time. One day, I will have total restoration when the Lord returns for, “HIS CHURCH” and that will be a glorious day!”

As our group concluded the 17 weeks together, dealing with our shame issues, we all felt lighter. I think most of us suffer from shame to one degree or another. Sometimes we feel shame but don’t even recognize it for what it is. We just have this nagging feeling that something is wrong with us but we don’t know what or why. Sometimes just being able to name shame is a powerful, freeing experience. It is definitely the start of conquering shame.

Our hope is that as the RYH ministry grows, more people will be able to benefit from participating in a Conquering Shame group. I certainly learned a lot about myself and gained some freedom while experiencing it.

Do you have areas in your life that have caused you shame? Maybe this article while be an incentive to start addressing those areas and begin to heal from them.

To learn more about shame, we recommend any of Brene Brown’s books. She is a leading expert on shame and vulnerability and her books are eye-opening, informative and honest. Link to Brene Brown’s Ted Talk talk on shame.

Note: We do recommend that anyone who would like to participate in a RYH Conquering Shame group has first gone through our other two RYH workbooks, Processing Pain and Understanding Emotions.

It’s not a destination, you are already there.

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by Nancy Higgins

One of the circumstances of getting older is that I have begun to do things slower. It’s not that I intentionally want to, it just happens. In the fast-paced world we live in today that could be a cause for anxiety. But since I am slower, my anxiety doesn’t have the power it used to have.

Actually, there is a great blessing that comes with moving slower. I call it “living in the moment”.

When I was younger I remember always waiting for the “next thing” to happen. I can’t wait till my daughter sits up, crawls, walks, talks, etc. I can’t wait till this pregnancy is over and I can meet my baby boy. I can’t wait till we get a bigger house. I can’t wait till I finish school and get a better paying job. Sometimes it was big stuff I was waiting on to happen and sometimes it was little everyday things. I can’t wait till it’s bedtime for my kids. I can’t wait till I finish cleaning the floor. I can’t wait till the mail comes. I can’t wait to get out of this car I’ve been riding in for two hours.

You probably know what I am talking about.

As I have gotten older though, one thing I have noticed is that time passes by at an alarmingly fast rate. When I was a child, the summer seemed to last forever. It was agony waiting for Christmas to arrive. The school day seemed to never come to a close.

Now, I sometimes feel like I can literally see time flying by me.

A few years ago I found an interesting little book that helped me change my thinking about how I was living my life and viewing time. It’s called The Practice of the Presence of God . This little book was written by a monk named Brother Lawrence who lived in France in the 1600’s. Brother Lawrence was a humble and lowly kitchen aide in his monastery. He was so humble that if he had not spoken in depth with a French nobleman of the time, we would probably never have heard of him today.

Praise God for French noblemen!

One of Brother Lawrence’s jobs in the monastery was peeling potatoes. Every day, he peeled mounds of potatoes. Although this could be a monotonous and tedious job, Brother Lawrence adopted the specific attitude of peeling every potato as though he were peeling it for God. This helped him find joy and purpose in even the lowliest, most tiring aspects of his day. When I first read Brother Lawrence’s writings, a light bulb went off in my head. The example Brother Lawrence set could be used in my everyday life as well. I would not have to be missing the present moment by waiting on the next better thing to come along.

Living in the moment.

Perhaps you have already had this little revelation in your life. If you haven’t, I hope you will consider this. Life is not a destination, you are already there. Pay attention to each moment and open your mind and senses to what is happening right now. Don’t miss out on the moment while waiting for the future to come.

In C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters Satan writes letters to his nephew, a lessor demon, and explains to him ways to keep “his human” away from God. In one of the chapters, he advises his demon nephew to keep the human’s mind either on the past or on the future. He tells him that the future is the better choice because thinking about the unknown future can cause anxiety. The main thing is, it will keep the human apart from God. God lives in the present. The present is the closest thing we have to eternity here on earth.

Maybe this is old news to everyone but me, but realizing this concept has impacted my life in a dramatic way. Living in the moment, practicing the presence of God. It makes time go by at a less frantic pace and it calms my spirit. It is not a destination, you are already there.

Here are a few ideas I have about how to better live in the moment:

Turn off your electronics
Go outside
Give someone your full attention with kindness
Breathe
Notice your thoughts and feelings
Engage your senses in a really intentional way (taste, smell, sight, sound, touch)
Accept what is and don’t fret about what isn’t
Slow down
Express thankfulness

There are countless other ways to live in the moment. My prayer for you is that this might encourage you to consider applying the concept of living in the moment and practicing the presence of God in your own life.

If you have already done this, what are some of your ideas for living in the moment?

*Editors Note: This blog is from our archives and was one we wanted to repost! Enjoy