Healthy Sexuality: Personal Dimension 1

Mark Laaser

It's one thing to go back and, you know, have a lot of what ifs. Maybe that was our trigger of the week. It's all you know about what ifs. You know what if this had happened? What if that had happened? What if I'd gone to medical school and that whatever. You know, we can we can spend some time dwelling in the path that will lead to anger and resentment and, you know, lots of other things.

Mark Laaser

I think it's really more important these days to think about, okay, you know, it's never too late. What is God calling you to do today? How to even some of your misdirected life experiences or even your failures in life? I mean, how has that even gifted you to know what God would call you to do in in the future?

Randy Evert

Welcome to the Faithful and True podcast. I'm Randy Everett, your co-host, and today we have another legacy presentation featuring doctor Mark laser. This is one of the continuing Healthy Sexuality episodes. And today's episode is Personal Dimensions. Part one I hear now is doctor Mark laser and the Faithful and True podcast.

Mark Laaser

Today we're going to move on with our conversation about the Faithful and True Workbook. The units in it. The dimensions of healthy sexuality. We're working on a healthy sexuality model. We're challenging the people who listen to this show, Randy, to think about all the various dimensions that are involved in being a healthy person, having healthy sexuality, lots of things.

Mark Laaser

In fact, one of the things we've discovered is that there's so much material in this workbook, some of which I've forgotten about, that even in going over it again for myself, it's reminding me of some really interesting things.

Randy Evert

You have forgotten just how much you know.

Mark Laaser

When you read stuff that you wrote 20 years ago. It does kind of remind you about your own spiritual, intellectual, clinical development in the field. And, you know, it also has been reminding me that some of the stuff that we teach is an incredibly consistent over the last 25 years, as we've discovered things that are really helpful to people, they continue to be helpful to people.

Mark Laaser

Today, we're going to talk about the personal dimension. For those that maybe are just tuning into the show for the first time. The healthy sexuality model has five dimensions. Spirituality is kind of a central part of that physical dimension of sexuality is what we all tend to think about. But then also there's a relational dimension, a behavioral dimension, meaning that accountabilities and contracts and things in our life today, we're moving on to the personal dimension, which is all about your individual identity, your individual healing, your character qualities.

Mark Laaser

The there's there's a lot packed into this dimension.

Randy Evert

What do you feel is the best place to start?

Mark Laaser

Well, we could start with lesson one in this unit about Personal Engine is about your ability to trust, which is interesting because we we ended the last week's show in the relational dimension about the ability to trust your spouse. But this first dimension talks about or this first lesson I'm sorry, talks about, do we have the ability to trust?

Mark Laaser

Have we been somehow wounded in our childhood? So in other words, we could go back and talk again for a long time about trusting in a relationship. But one of the things we find is that while spouses have violated trust and created damage and and trauma with with infidelity, a lot of the people who are struggling to trust also bring a certain woundedness about trust into relationships.

Mark Laaser

So what that what that means in kind of the short amount of time we have to talk about this on the radio program is they were somehow perhaps violated or had some kind of traumatic experience growing up. Think about the people. For example, we're currently going through another round of clergy sexual abuse crisis as we're taping these shows.

Mark Laaser

But think about the fact that if if you were somehow betrayed, some religious authority in your life, betrayed you, sexually offended you, did not treat you well, betrayed your emotional trust or whatever. Think about the problems you would have trusting religious authorities, moving into the future. And obviously, if your father or your mother sexually abused you, physically abused you, emotionally abused you, and and one or both of them were elders in the church or deaconesses in the church, or leaders in the church or Sunday school teachers in the church.

Mark Laaser

In other words, they were in church all the time or regularly participant in the life of the church. But then at home they drank, they smoke, they they overrate, they they swore, they cuss, they they hit, they slap, they molested, whatever they did. Think about the messages there. That kind of what we call make you crazy. It's like they say they're believers.

Mark Laaser

They say they trust God. They say they believe in God, and yet they don't act like it. There's a there's an incongruity there that that some of us grow up with some confusion about who do we trust and can we trust God? Now we add to that our own spiritual formation and development in this personal dimension. And I know one of the issues that was present for me was that I had a rather immature view early on of prayer.

Mark Laaser

The God that I had been taught about, I think was a God that always answers prayer, and there's certainly scriptures about that. But I had kind of a magical way of thinking about it, such that if I prayed something, God was just automatically going to do it. And when I discovered early on that I didn't always answer the prayers in the way that I wanted him to, it called into question my ability to trust God.

Mark Laaser

Lesson one of this unit is basically asking you to to think about wounds in your life, healing those wounds, and how that's impacted your ability to to trust, to trust relationships, to trust yourself, and certainly to trust God.

Randy Evert

Well, this this is an an invitation, if you will. For the listener to think back to their childhood and think of those times that your trust was betrayed when someone you looked up to and, like you said, whether that was a family member or a clergy member or a family friend, someone you looked up to for care and they somehow disappointed you, they let you down or they hurt you.

Mark Laaser

That's right. So we know that there's a lot of groups that are listening to the show as a group, and I would just pause the recording and talk with each other, tell each other maybe a story from your past about how you were wounded, how you were hurt, how your trust was violated, how how confused you've been sometimes even about your belief in faith in God.

Randy Evert

It's interesting that you mentioned prayer because, I was raised, went to a parochial school for the first eight years of my schooling, happened to have been a Catholic school, and there was an emphasis on memory, memorization of prayers. So you really as a young child, you're not really that connected to what you're saying, to what you're praying, you know?

Randy Evert

And it wasn't until many years later where I moved on from those memorized prayers to really opening my heart and praying from the heart.

Mark Laaser

Yeah, that's a whole conversation in itself about meditation and prayer and that kind of thing. But we're we're basically, I think, in any of our shows here, encouraging the individuals, listening, the groups, listening to get into conversation with themselves and others about, you know, the topics that that we're presenting here. Let's move on to one of my favorites.

Mark Laaser

It's talents in the personal dimensions. We we want to look at what is our giftedness, what are our talents. And then later in lesson three here we're going to be talking about okay, if you understand your talents then what is your calling? What's your vocation? What is your mission in life? What's your vision and purpose in life? The personal dimension is all about what gives you meaning, purpose, passion, creativity, and how to use your talents.

Mark Laaser

One of my favorite parts of that lesson, as I was looking back over it, was that, there's the, you know, the parable of the talents. It's a couple of different places in the Gospels, and this was one of my father who was a pastor. It was one of his favorite stories to tell. I I'm not exactly quite sure what that was about, but he would always tell the talent.

Mark Laaser

The parable of the talents and his, as many of our listeners would know, you know, it's about three men, all of whom receive different talents. And that's actually, the designation of coinage. And in Israel at the time that Jesus was, was teaching. So, you know, one was given ten talents, one was given five, one was given two.

Mark Laaser

Well, the guy with ten was evidently quite talented. He went out and made ten more. The same with the guy with five. He went out and made five more. But the guy with two was so afraid of losing his talents that he buried it in the ground. Now, when the three guys go back to the master who's giving them the this money, these talents.

Mark Laaser

The first one says, here's the result. And he said, well done, good and faithful servant. The second one comes back, I made, you know, I doubled the money. Well done, good and faithful servant. The the third guy comes back and basically all these men has been protective and but the master's reaction to him is you, you vile and wicked servant.

Mark Laaser

You you didn't try to use your talent. I think, the the meaning that I made out of this from my dad is that you've got you've been given gifts from God, and you darn well better use them. If you don't, that's going to be hell to pay. So. So it was quite frightening, actually, and there was just a lot of pressure.

Mark Laaser

And part of that was that dad would point out what he at least perceived my talents to be. So.

Randy Evert

And how you should be using them.

Mark Laaser

No, I should be using them. And I think I got kind of programed into, certain kinds of activities. For example, my dad thought that I was good at speaking, and he had been a debater in college. He had been on the debate team. He thought that I should use my talents to be on the debate team. Well, I joined the debate team because dad thought it was a good idea.

Mark Laaser

My freshman year of college, I actually made it to the semifinals of the National debate tournament. So evidently he was right. But, you know, I looked back on that and say there was so many other things that I would have preferred to do in college. And yet, I mean, there are times when those debate skills that were honed during that a couple of years I did it, you know, have come in handy.

Mark Laaser

So, you know, none of this is black and white, you know, but we're talking in this lesson about getting some even feedback from others. One of the things to think about in your accountability networks is, you know, ask people if you're if you're struggling to know what are your talents, you know, ask other people what they perceive you to be good at.

Mark Laaser

You know, when they notice that you're you're feeling creative or passionate or seem to have joy and commitment and energy, what what do they notice that you're doing at that point? And, this gets to one of my favorite stories. You know, I'm a big fan of movies, and I have probably a list of the top ten movies.

Mark Laaser

Certainly on my top five list is the movie Chariots of Fire. That's an older movie. Now, obviously it was actually produced by the guy that was killed with Princess Diana in the, in the car crash in Paris. That guy is the guy that produced that movie. So you know, that's interesting. And it also reflects the fact that, you know, he was very interested in English culture, I think, and and becoming accepted in English culture.

Mark Laaser

And, you know, that's kind of the background of the movie. But the movie is the story of two runners that are going to wind up running in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. One is an Englishman, Harold Abrams. The other one is a Scotsman, Eric Little. And what the movie begins to portray is that they have different motivations for running.

Mark Laaser

Harold Abrahams is born into English culture. He is Jewish. And, you know, one of the early scenes in the movie talks about the fact that he's never really felt totally accepted in English culture, and he's always turned to racing to be the world's fastest man so that he can run all of his opponents into the ground. Well, the movie portrays his anxiety, his struggle, his whatever it is to, you know, to have a the reason he's running is for his own personal competitive advantage and and to deal with his shame.

Mark Laaser

Basically, I think if we're doing anything to try to deal with our shame, that may not be the right motivation. Well, of course he does go on to win the gold medal, and one of the most poignant scenes of that movie is when he gets off the train after the Olympics and his girlfriend greets him. It's like it hasn't achieved, you know, the goal that he wants.

Mark Laaser

He's he's kind of sad. He's kind of dejected. You know, the high of the experience is over and it really hasn't produced for him what he saw. Now the other runner on the other hand is a Christian. He's from a missionary family. He's going to go on after the Olympics to return to his missionary work in China.

Mark Laaser

In fact, during World War Two, he's going to die in China. During the course of the movie, one of the things that one of the plot lines that comes out is that as he's, you know, in Edinburgh training, getting his missionary or his theological studies to go back and be a missionary, his sister is there to help him and to, you know, kind of be his, his right hand person to get some of the missionary work, even of of whatever they're doing in Edinburgh.

Mark Laaser

She is also a warrior. She's kind of an Aussie D type, it seems to me, and she is bothered by all of this running activity of his, all the training. So one day, one of the great scenes that I just absolutely love, I replay it in my mind all the time. He takes her out on the hills overlooking Edinburgh and he takes her by the hand and he said, Jenny, I know that the Lord made me for China.

Mark Laaser

And he says he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure. That's the line that I think is so key. You'll know you're in sync with God when if you're doing something, you feel his pleasure. Now that's something that I don't think clinically, objectively, psychologically. In other words, I don't think that can fully be described.

Mark Laaser

But I think when you're in sync with what God has gifted you with, in you're doing it, you will feel a sense of God's pleasure. Now, in the lesson, by the way, in the workbook, there are some boxes to check about. You know, things that you might be feeling, which would be indications, by the way, that maybe right now you're not doing what you were cut out meant to are called to do.

Mark Laaser

And some of those boxes are do you deal a lot with anger, resentment, frustration, feeling stuck, boredom, feeling like a failure, a sense of meaning, a meaninglessness and a lack of purpose. If any of that stuff is familiar to you, you can. You can believe that maybe you're not quite in sync with whatever God has gifted you with.

Randy Evert

Well, I like that you take it a step further with an exercise in which you invite the participant to, to write down the last time that I felt I was, joyous or at peace or experiencing happiness. What was I doing right?

Mark Laaser

That's right. Happiness can. Contentment. Fulfillment. And you have a feeling of being productive, right?

Randy Evert

Right. Exactly.

Mark Laaser

So for me, I you know, one of the things that's fascinating is that, I could go back, by the way, I could do, you know, in one of the earlier lessons here, we were talking about some of the woundedness and some of how you might have been misdirected. Some of your parents agenda might have been in this, you know, that's all.

Mark Laaser

All true. And what I want, I want to, you know, say to those listening this today is that it's one thing to go back and, you know, have a lot of what ifs. Maybe that was our trigger of the week. It's all you know about what ifs. You know what if this had happened? What if that had happened?

Mark Laaser

What if I'd gone to medical school and that whatever. You know, we can we can spend some time dwelling in the path that will lead to anger and resentment and, you know, lots of other things. I think it's really more important these days to think about, okay, you know, it's never too late. What is God calling you to do today?

Mark Laaser

How to even some of your misdirected life experiences or even your failures in life? I mean, how has that even gifted you to know what God would call you to do in, in the future?

Randy Evert

So and basically what you're saying is, once you realize what you're calling and your mission will be according to your talents, your mission will be meaningful to yourself and to others. And on giving honor and glory to God.

Mark Laaser

That's exactly right. And for me, what I was saying there was I noticed one of the times when I'm feeling that the most is actually when I'm writing there are there are things that I can write about when I feel totally in sync with, God's calling, plan and purpose for my life. It's just that there's something that I'm supposed to be writing about that is using whatever talents I have with words, whatever talents I have to write, whatever organizational writing ability I have.

Mark Laaser

You know, it's God's God using my life experience, my my, my sins and even my failures, you know, oftentimes form what I'm writing about. So all I'm saying is that when I'm when I'm in that zone, sometimes, you know, you can you can actually feel that you're in kind of it's like you're in sync incongruence in, in the flow of, of God's energy for you.

Randy Evert

Of what God intended you to do as well. This kind of flashes back to the parable that you shared earlier is once you have identified your talents, which helps you identify your mission, then your challenge is to develop your talents and to use your talents.

Mark Laaser

That's right. And that that's where the the parable comes in and is a little bit frightening in that if you're able to identify your talents and able to have some idea of what you're supposed to be doing with them, then you know you're going to need courage at points, because this may involve making some significant changes in your life.

Randy Evert

Any closing thoughts that you want to leave our listeners with today?

Mark Laaser

Well, I'm always conscious of those people that are listening that I have community in their life that have groups maybe, as we saw so often have said, there are groups listening collectively to this show. I would imagine that there's there could be some really powerful conversations in those groups. How have you noticed in your group each other's talents?

Mark Laaser

How have you noticed each other's giftedness? How have you noticed when some of the other people in your group seem to be more content joyous? Excited? By the way you pointed this out, even with me during the course of recording the show, and that there's something about this topic which really excites me. So, you know, the energy level of my voice.

Mark Laaser

I think even in whatever goes up when I get into this topic because, it's so powerful to me. Those of you that are listening, look for that in yourself, pointed out in in those that you care about, in accountability and for the spouses listening kind of the same thing. It's part of perhaps your struggles in recovery is looking for God's calling, plan and purpose in your life.

Mark Laaser

And what are your talents and what helps you feel creative, productive, and passionate? I can't tell you, by the way, the number of women that Debbie works with who have gone back to school to get their college degree or their advanced degree. I don't know what it is with her, but she has that ability to to really encourage women.

Randy Evert

She is a gifted encourager, which which we have spoken about on previous shows. Thank you for joining us today on the Faithful and True podcast. Doctor Mark, laser and myself always enjoyed these episodes. We hope that this legacy presentation will be beneficial to you as well. We'd also like you to visit our website, Faithful and true.com, where you'll find lots of additional resources that will be helpful to you on your healing journey.

Randy Evert

That's faithful and true.com. In the meantime, we hope this coming week will be a week for you that is filled with many blessings and with great vision.