I Used to Be ___: How to Navigate Large and Small Losses in Life and Find Your Path Forward | Chuck and Ashley Elliot

You're not an expert at experiencing grief, and that's okay. But God sees you. He knows right where you are. God wants to be in the midst of our negative spaces, and that's going to be the quickest way and the most wholesome way to move back toward a positive space. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . Losses, big and small, are part of every life.

How do you navigate those and find a path forward? Today, the husband and wife team of Chuck and Ashley Elliott talk about that. They have a creatively titled book called I Used to Be, and no matter what you used to be that has put a mark on your life, you're going to find encouragement and a whole lot of hope today. That's our hope.

If you go to buildingrelationships.us, you'll see that book right there. Gary, this topic of loss is universal, isn't it? Absolutely, Chris.

If you're going to live life, you're going to lose some things along the way, and some of them are very, very painful. So I think our listeners are going to find this program and this book very, very helpful. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to talking with our guests, Chuck and Ashley Elliott, and hearing Gary interact with them. They are content creators who have partnered with YouVersion, RightNow Media, and an array of other national organizations. They're frequent speakers, popular workshop leaders. Chuck's a pastor at Bethel Church in Evansville, Indiana, and Ashley's a licensed counselor at Auxilium Psychological Services.

You can find out more of them and our featured resource, I Used to Be, at buildingrelationships.us. Well, Ashley and Chuck, welcome to Building Relationships. Thanks.

Yeah, we're excited to be here. Thank you. Well, let's start with your love story. Give me both versions, Ashley, and you first, and then Chuck. Well, Gary, thanks you so much for your work. And we'll get into it a little bit, but Chuck and I have been using your material for over 15 years, especially the love languages. And it's an honor to be here, and it's an honor to use your work, and even to be sharing the platform with you today.

So we just want to say thank you. But as Chuck and I have came together and get to know one another, we met at Lee University, and that's where we both went to school. We both were in the rec center, and so I was working the front desk one summer and had so much fun getting to know different people who had come out. But Chuck, he was walking through and struck up a conversation with me whenever I was working there. Yeah, I remember it a little bit differently, not to jump in too quickly, but I remember this really pretty redhead would walk by the racquetball court, and she would cup her hands on each side of her eyes so she could see through the glass and just look at me.

And it happened all the time, so I figured, you know what, I should probably ask her out. So that's kind of what I remember. That's not exactly how I remember it.

Maybe not completely true. No, I'm not quite, but you did pursue me. You asked me to play racquetball. We sat around afterward and talked about ministry dreams, some of which are being fulfilled even now in recent years. And so it was such a great time to get to meet one another and to see that we could wait on the Lord. I had been single for several years and just waiting for God to bring that right person into my life. And love is such a tricky thing. The enemy comes in and tells you that you're not enough.

He comes and tells you you should settle or don't wait. But we found that waiting was really worth it. And even all of these years later, life is not a bed of roses.

It's filled with lots of used-to-be's, lots of struggles. But I'm so thankful that we've gotten to journey together. I think that's mostly correct.

Maybe the part that I have is a little bit exaggerated. But I did pursue her. And you know what, Gary, Chris, you'll probably like this. I still have Ashley's phone number when she gave it to me the first time, and it's framed in my office at church. So I have it up on a shelf right there, and I have her phone number.

She wrote down her cell phone number, and it was written on a piece of paper that was behind the counter at the rec center at Lee University. And I've had it ever since. And you know what, I'm still trying to convince her to go out with me as often as I can. And I've been crazy about it ever since. But we knew that we wanted ministry to be a part of what we do, because we love working with people. We have a shared love for the Lord, and it's all come back to relationships and how we can help people. Well, however you all got together, I'm glad you did. So let's talk about this book. Why did you decide to team up and write this book? I used to be. Ashley and I, through our work with ministry and counseling and coaching, we really saw that when somebody lost something or someone that they really loved, it would just shake their identity.

It would shake their identity at this core level. And in the book, I used to be, and then there's a blank after that, and you fill in the blank with who it is or what it is that you used to be. And we found for ourselves, and we can go into that in a little bit, but when we lost and when we had difficulties in relationships, we were wondering, okay, now who am I? Because I used to be this. I used to have this. I used to be married. I used to be a business owner. I used to be a son, a daughter, a mother, a father.

Now what do I do? And as Christians, we sometimes would struggle at our identity in Christ whenever we would face some sort of loss. You know, God, I thought you called me to whatever it is, but now I'm questioning.

Maybe I'm not good enough. Am I disqualified because of my grief or my sin? And as we saw that we struggled in some of these ways and our counseling clients and people at church struggled, we saw that there was an identity piece that was really impacted that isn't really talked about a whole lot, especially in regard to grief. And then we don't just say grief as something that's such as a death, but the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one due to divorce. These are things that we grieve. And even really small losses, if you have a friend that moves away, it can be something that affects us at the identity level. I thought that I was loved, and now I don't feel quite as loved. Yeah.

It was just last night. My wife and I had dinner with a lady who lost her husband. And you know, that's a huge loss. And she's thinking, you know, I'm a widow.

Where do I go now? So yeah. Now you guys are, you're vulnerable about your own stories as well. And one of the painful struggles that you've been through is miscarriage. Walk us through that particular trauma in your own life.

Yeah. Our first loss was in 2015 and then we faced another loss in 2016 and again in 2017. And throughout those times, we felt some really similar ways. And we also felt some pretty different ways. And so the first time we faced a loss, we worshiped in the ER. And then the second time we felt like, again, and it just took a little bit more of a blow, maybe to our psyche, our relationship with God a little bit, at least for me, that I felt like, man, Lord, I prepared myself. I took a year to try to pray and get strong, get on my armor spiritually, and I just didn't feel prepared for it. And as we struggled through these times, I often coped by barreling through. I went to work the day after I had one of the miscarriages.

I continued to lead and to serve on the worship team at church. And I remember one time just breaking down crying after worship service. And it was interesting because I felt alone. But then once I cried, which I kind of wish that I wouldn't have, I had someone put their arms around me and they asked what was going on.

And I shared that I had a miscarriage. And even as I shared, it just became a little bit more obvious to me that it's okay to struggle. But sometimes as a ministry leader and a counselor, I'm used to pouring out to other people. And it made it harder for me to feel like it was okay to receive help. And so that messiness of feeling like I've got to keep working, I've got to keep taking care of my kids or whatever it is that we have to do, mixed with this vulnerable state of needing support and help, it can be just overwhelming to bear. It really is overwhelming because we want people to see us. We want people to know what's going on in our lives. But at the same time, we don't like how it feels when people look at us or tell us what we look like or give us advice or have those little anecdotes that don't seem helpful in the moment. And it can be like, okay, I'm going through this difficult thing. I want people to know, but I don't want them to know. So I almost feel like I'm hiding, which really puts another strain on identity. And we just saw that people and ourselves included, when we went through loss, we're trying to find out, okay, how much do I share? How much don't I share?

And what do I do to navigate? Chuck, did you and Ashley process your grief differently? Yes, sir, we did. I had a hard time talking about it because I knew that through these miscarriages, I did not experience the same thing that Ashley did. I did not have the baby in my body. I did not have the same kind of connection.

I am not a woman. I am well aware of this, but I was still hurting. I was still feeling things that were coming out as anger. I felt like a failure. I felt like I was insufficient. I felt like I didn't do what I needed to do as a father. And I knew that I wanted to communicate those things, but sometimes I'd feel like if I say something to her, I'm going to add stress to her when I already know that she's caring so much.

And that's one of the things as a couple and as a married couple, when you go through something together as a couple, it puts strain on the relationship and unfortunately divorce rates go up after miscarriage and loss of a child because you don't know how to communicate through those things. But what I found was if I would tell Ashley that I'm having a hard time, it didn't put a wedge between us. It didn't make her feel like she had to carry more things for me. It let her know that I was feeling things too, and she wasn't alone. And that was something that was really powerful that I feel like I've taken over into other areas of our relationship.

Because if there's one of us who's going to communicate more in the relationship, it's Ashley. I'm more likely to hold back and not say something. But I've learned through grief that if I communicate more, things do get better, even when I'm resistant and I don't want to. And I felt so thankful that he shared and I acknowledged that it made sense the way he was coping. But it was something that was a need for me to hear from him. Even if he did feel differently from me, I needed to hear it. And whenever I heard he was struggling, like he said, I didn't feel as alone because I felt less stable. I felt less interested in listening to other people's stories. I had a harder time, you know, keeping my attention on my students.

I worked at a university at that time for 11 years. And, and I just struggled sometimes with wanting to invest in students and kind of mentor them. And I would feel like, What's wrong with me? And then I'd come home. And if Chuck was quiet, I'd feel like, He seems to be fine. When in reality, he was quiet to cope. And so whenever he would share, it helped me kind of regulate like, Okay, we're both in this together. And it's okay to struggle. But I would barrel through. And I would I would get short, maybe not not be as friendly or loving or asking questions, but I would barrel through.

And then I would feel alone. And so when we both would share, even when it was different, it really helped us feel connected. Well, and I find that across the board for marriage and in our relationship, I don't have to have all the answers, thank goodness, because I never can. But if I just tell Ashley, I'm having a hard time. And I don't know what to say. I say that when I'm having a hard time personally, when I feel like there's tension in our relationship, or we had a disagreement or we're having a disagreement, and letting her know that I care. But, Ash, I'm sorry, I really don't know what to say. But I feel kind of upset, kind of mad.

And I'm just processing through it. That does a lot to let her know that she's not alone in working on the relationship. Thanks for being with us on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Our guests are Chuck and Ashley Elliott, authors of I Used to Be.

You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Well Chuck and Ashley, we know that many times in our grief, we cry out to God. And sometimes it seems like He's silent. And that can be painful for us. Have you all experienced that? Or what would you say to that?

Certainly. I want to start though, by thinking about how I feel whenever I am connected to God, because that's helped me in this process. So I typically feel connected to God whenever I read the Word, and it starts to come alive. And maybe I'll want to reread a passage, I'll sit with it, I'll maybe want to write something down or send a verse to someone. And in our loss, especially after our second loss, I experienced pain, particularly with a few types of verses. But one was Psalm 34 18, and it says, The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. And I had sent that verse to people, I had believed it. But in this loss, I really felt a distance and I took it and I often will read and I'll kind of pray a little bit. I'm like, Lord, I'm holding on to your word that says you're near, but I don't feel you near. And so I would kind of struggle in the tension. But then I wouldn't feel like it came alive.

I wouldn't feel like writing it down or sending it to someone. And so I felt a distance or a struggle that at the time I couldn't articulate even as well as I did just there as I'm stumbling through. But I realized I wanted to dig more. And so I said, Lord, I go to your word, not because it makes me feel better in every moment, but because it is my guide and it is worthy and I am going to align my life to it even whenever it doesn't make sense. And so I kept going back to God's word and I saw David. He questioned God in multiple Psalms, but at the end of the Psalm, he'd kind of wrap it up and say, Yet I will praise you.

He says, Why have you forsaken me, God? Yet I will praise you. And that struck a chord with me. I said, Lord, I want to be that way.

Even though I'm grieving, even though I don't feel you, I want to praise you. And then as I read through Job, I was drawn to Job. I wasn't drawn to his wife. His wife said, Honey, why don't you curse God and die?

And I didn't want to be that way. I wanted to draw near to God and I wanted to be faithful. And I saw that we get the scripture where we could see the enemies attack in Job's life. We could see that God still loved Job, even though he was silent in Job's life there for a season. And then we saw that God was worthy throughout all of it. And so a phrase that God kind of put on my heart during one of these seasons whenever I was pursuing him, and it was more dry, it felt like it was more quiet. But I came upon this phrase, God is worthy before. God is worthy before I get an answered prayer. God is worthy before my morning seems turned into joyful dancing.

And he's worthy before I even feel good enough to proclaim his goodness. Chuck, if you were speaking to our listeners directly who are having this sense that, you know, I've cried out to God and God's not answering. It just seems like he's a million miles away.

What would you say to them? God sees you right where you are. He sees you if you're at home right now listening to this and you're by yourself and your life has changed in a way or in ways that you couldn't have possibly imagined. He sees you and he loves you and he cares about you. He wants you to recognize him in these moments when you're sobbing and when you're not liking the way that you look. He wants you to recognize him and call out to him right now in this moment, just as much as if you're at church and you're sitting on the front row and they're playing a worship song or a hymn or something that you really connect to. He wants to connect with you in these moments just the same way.

And he does show up. It doesn't always feel like the ways that we want it to. And I echo what Ashley said just a few moments ago, that we see in Scripture when we continue to go back to him like David did, like Job did. He's there with us and he loves us and he sees our pain and he still loves you.

He hasn't forgotten about you. It doesn't mean that you're done. It doesn't mean you don't have a next step, even though it might feel like you don't know what that next step might be. Even though we feel like God is a million miles away, we're not less spiritual. That's a normal process in the Christian life.

I think sometimes we don't talk about it. We just wait until we talk about the testimony. And I think there is a testimony to just saying, God, I'm going to keep walking.

This morning I was walking for a little bit and I was walking slow. Sometimes it's okay to just show up anyway, even if your prayers aren't as passionate. Even if the Scripture doesn't come alive quite as much, there is blessing and just showing up before the Lord because he is worthy. But it's also okay that it's hard and it's not always the same picture of beauty and excitement. Feeling God's presence is not the only evidence that God is with us.

That's one of the things I hear you saying. In the book, you talk about grief lies. That is how grief lies to us sometimes.

What are those lies and how can we overcome those lies? One of the big ones we see with many people and ourselves is that it tells us that we should isolate, that we don't need to be around community. The community wouldn't understand. The people in my church wouldn't care.

My family members wouldn't show up if I called or texted them. Or even that we will be better off. They will be better off because I'm unstable and I might be a ticking time bomb. Isolation is better for everybody. It comes with so much to do with community. We talk about that a lot in the book, that we need people around us, but we have to also understand that the people around us may not be perfect.

Honestly, they're not going to be perfect. Neither are we, but we still need community. Grief can convince us that things are worse than they are. It can convince us that we don't have a future.

It can convince us of a lot of things. Grief lies and says that no one understands what we're going through. No one understands. Then going back to that cycle in the circle of, I should isolate.

No one cares. That's our negative space talking. Whenever we can bring God into that and say, No, Lord, I am going to go to this one person.

I'm not going to accept that. That can be helpful. But especially realizing that grief has some themes, our negative space has some themes, can help us pull out of it. Absolutely, that God doesn't care about us and that God isn't a good God.

He doesn't see what's going on in our lives. These are lies that come at us and we want to be prepared for them. We want to have an answer to be able to say, No, I have this scripture that I've memorized. One is God's way is perfect. All the Lord's promises prove true.

He is a shield to all who look to him for protection. Sometimes we need a shield from our own thoughts. We can call on the Lord to say, This doesn't sound right, so I'm going to bring it to God and I'm going to bring God's word to my mind to help bring me comfort.

Interesting to believe God's word rather than the lies that are flashing through our minds. It's a part of what I hear you saying. You have an interesting term in the book, switch theory. What is that and how can it help us navigate our grief? We call it switch theory because we switch back and forth between this positive and negative space. So in most relationships, we begin in a positive space where we have positive thoughts, feelings and behavior. But in life, we all have unmet expectations. When that happens, we can tend to move towards a negative space with negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It's normal to switch back and forth between this positive and negative space.

That's why we call it switch theory. But then it is everyone's goal to be in a positive space. Sometimes we'll do some really negative things like turn to alcohol or avoid or whatever it might be to momentarily feel like we're happy or we're in a positive space. But we really want to think long term. We want to think about God and what God wants us to do because God wants us to be in a positive space, but not just in the short term. He wants us to build a life in His presence and a life that's filled with joy and peace. And hope, ultimately, because we want to live in this space where we have hope, where we're positive about our faith, our goals and the relationships around us. A positive space is deeper than just a good mood. People have asked us, why don't you just call it like a positive mood or mindset?

But it's deeper. It's not just our thoughts and feelings, but our values are kind of wrapped in there and our beliefs. In a positive space, we'll tend to believe, I can reach my goals. God is good.

I love church. Then in a negative space, we'll tend to feel like, I am too tired. I am never going to be enough.

I can't do it. God isn't there. God isn't true. So we'll break down and we'll defeat ourselves. If we start to recognize, especially in our grief, I'm in a negative space, that's less personal than that identity attack that comes that says, I'm not enough.

When we recognize I'm in a negative space, there are some practical things that we need. We need God. Oftentimes we're like Adam and Eve. We go and we hide in our shame, but we can call out to God because what we see with Adam and Eve is he came and pursued them and says, Where are you? God is asking us that question as well.

Where are you? Why aren't you calling out to me because I will help you? But we end up recognizing God if we're in a negative space, calling on Him and He can help us move back to this positive space. But sometimes we just get so stuck there that we don't think to pray. That's been one of the big things I've noticed recently in my counseling and my speaking work. So many of us don't pray all these spaces all the times. We have certain areas where we will pray, but especially if there's shame around the issue, we won't pray.

We'll get stuck in that negative space. And this is where anxiety and depression and lack of sleep really creeps in and starts to take away from our mental health. Chuck, as a pastor, what encouragement do you have for people who are stuck and who do feel that they can't move forward after a loss? For example, just recently, I talked with a lady whose husband committed suicide. And even though it's been three years or so, she just feels like still she's stuck. She just feels like there's no future for her. How do you respond to people who really feel like they're stuck and they can't move forward? Well, I want to start off and say that people should have empathy for themselves and realize that something major in your life has changed. You loved somebody deeply and now you don't have them.

So not putting pressure on yourself to feel like you need to be able to go and do whatever you think you should be able to do or whatever society tells you that you should be able to do. So being patient with yourself and understanding it's okay that it still hurts. If something changes in your life, you lose somebody even three years later, 10 years later, it's changed you.

Unfortunately, people will wait until things go back to the way they were before they experienced a loss. And it doesn't happen that way because you're a different person. But if we were going to be practical and I was counseling or coaching an individual who had something similar to what you just said, I'd talk about what does it look like for you to be healthy?

What does it look like for you to be motivated, to be the strong person that you know that you are and you want to feel like you are? And we'd set up some goals. So if that means I'd like to be socializing, I'd like to go on a trip, let's talk about what that looks like. Let's think about when that could happen. It doesn't mean that it all has to happen right now. But we're going to say, okay, you'd like to be able to go on that trip you always wanted to go on with your spouse.

But now there's this block. Okay, what if you invited a friend to go with you who loves you and wants to be with you and you made this part of your memory for that loved one? Or you feel like you can't go to church and sit in that certain section because it reminds you of something that you loved or someone that you loved and lost.

You don't have to go through all of the steps. But what we do is we help people to think deeply about what they loved about the relationship or the position that they have that they loved. And we're going to talk about what does it mean to incorporate those things back into our lives, even though we know we can't go back and change the situation. And we notice when people are stuck in that negative space, in that place where they just don't have hope, that they have a lot of pattern thinking and behavior. And so we do use Switch Theory to help people understand what their patterns are like, what are those repetitive negative thoughts that have them down. And then we try to help them reframe finding scriptures to help them, finding connection or community to help pull them out of some of those thinking patterns. And we hinted to this a little bit earlier. We try to tell people that they can feel weak and be strong at the same time. It doesn't mean that you are incapable of taking steps just because you feel weak.

Both of those can happen at the same time. And we draw from that when we think about what does it mean to make a game plan. We hope today's broadcast is encouraging you. Tell a friend about our program with Chuck and Ashley Elliott. You can find more ways to strengthen relationships online at buildingrelationships.us. Dr. Gary Chapman is our host, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . And our featured resource is the Elliott's book, I Used to Be... Blank.

Just go to buildingrelationships.us. Ashley as a licensed counselor, you've helped a lot of people navigate through serious grief and loss. But you know, there are people who are very reluctant to go see a counselor. What do you say to people who hesitate for whatever reason, in terms of actually reaching out to a counselor for help? Well, we like to encourage people to be curious.

That's a phrase that I say frequently. And if we're curious about why we don't want to go to counseling, then we can explore those needs. So for example, if someone says, I don't really want to go to counseling because it's scary. I don't want someone to know my business, then we can kind of work through that.

Like how do we navigate that in a more private way? Okay, so for example, I offer virtual counseling. So this is helpful for people who don't want their car to be seen at a counseling office. But if someone is worried, you know, about just the counseling relationship and how much they share, then reminding them that they get to choose what to share, and we can even prepare some statements for them.

So it might be, Hey, I'm really not comfortable talking about that today. And so that empowers them and helps them to kind of work through that. But again, then we're looking at the good of counseling, that it's OK that it's scary. And it's scary because it's vulnerable, but vulnerable isn't always a bad thing. And it might be something that we need. And so when we talk about the positive and negative space, when we get in this negative space, we tend to feel like we're out of options. And so for someone who hasn't tried counseling, if we get a little bit back toward that positive space and we see, Hey, this is an option I haven't tried, maybe this will help give hope.

And if you try it and it doesn't work, it's like a lot of relationships. You know, just the first person we talk to may not be the best for us. And so it's OK to move on to a different counselor or a different pastor or a different type of service so that we can keep trying to make progress. I think if we recognize that we all have different gifts, different training, you know, and counselors, I think you have to be gifted to be a counselor and as well as being trained. And so often the counselor will have ideas and concepts and help you think more clearly than would, you know, just someone who doesn't have that heart and doesn't have that training.

Yeah, for sure. Now there are people who want to help, you know, some friend or some family member has gone through a loss and they're grieving and they want to help, but often they don't know how to help. So what are some of the things that they might do and what are some things maybe they should not do in an effort to help friends and family who are grieving? That's a great question. You don't have to fix it because you can't fix it.

Sometimes when people show up after a loss, they show up to the family member or the friend's house and they think they have to have these eloquent words that are just going to soothe them and it's going to take away the pain. You can't. You're not going to just change it. You're not just going to take it away.

So taking that pressure and that expectation off the table is a great thing to do before you even start engaging. Another thing is sometimes we think that people don't want to see us. They don't want to hear from us. And if I reach out to them and ask how they're doing, I'm going to bring something up and make it even more difficult.

We found that not to be true. People want to be seen. People want to know that even if they're having a pretty good day, you remember the loved one that they lost. There's some real practical things you can do as well.

That's kind of the big picture of the way to look at it. But many times when you lose somebody, people will come to you and they'll say, Hey, let me know if you need anything. And my experience in our years in working with people, people don't respond to that ask and say, Oh, by the way, I need you to go to the grocery store for me. Oh, by the way, can you do this? Can you pick up my kids?

That doesn't typically happen. But if you tell them that there's several things that you could do for them and you make some suggestions or some offers, what if somebody just lost their parent who had been in the hospital for a while and they were in hospice, but that individual also has little kids. What if you offered to babysit those little kids, that five, six, seven year old kiddo who takes a lot of energy, but maybe that parent could use a little bit of a break and you babysit or you bring a gift card for food instead of food itself, because that gives them the freedom and the ways that they can say, okay, I don't want to have the pressure of a fridge full of food, but I do have to eat. How do you do some of those practical things to meet their needs and make suggestions that way they don't also take on the job of how to make you feel good about the help that you're offering?

Yeah. For me, I often just said, thanks. If somebody says, Hey, is there anything I can do? Like, Oh, thanks.

I'm good. But I wished secretly that they would know my need and ask for something that would be really helpful. So for us, especially it was babysitting early on with some of the miscarriage, but whatever the friendship is, you know, you know that person, you know what you can give and you know what they might need. And that's a beautiful relational thing.

And so you can pick if you're in a really busy season, the gift card is a great go to, but if you have time, then that's something that you can do that's beautiful. And so I heard someone recently say, a friend of mine literally got on a zoom call and just sat with me while I cried and it was beautiful. And I think how wonderful to just be there and say, I'm not there to listen to you talk if you don't want to, but I'm here to just be. And so if you can physically go to their house or if you can do something that you know that's probably a burden to them, then that will speak so much more than you trying to say the right words. Because often when we try to say the right words, we're trying to say spiritual words, which then end up making the person feel bad. So we might say, God's got a plan or God's got this or the Lord's near to the broken hearted. And that person might be like, but I don't feel like He's near. And not to say we shouldn't use scripture, but just knowing that sometimes we're trying to meet our own needs.

I need to feel good. So I'm just going to say, let me know if you need anything so I can feel like I helped or I just gave them some spiritual wisdom. But if we really lean in and think about what the person may need, they probably need connection more than anything.

And if you can give them that in a unique way that shows them that you see them, it's going to be really powerful. What are some things we really should not do and or maybe not say? You've alluded to some of that. Sometimes we say scriptures and we have good intentions, but it may not be the right time for that particular scripture.

I don't know. Do you have other thoughts on that? Yeah, one of the things that someone said to me was, you know, God must have needed an angel. And I just found that perplexing theologically. Like, I'm not sure that's how it happens. Actually, I'm pretty certain that's not how it happens. But in the moment, I started to realize that you hear people's wonky spiritual views and also they're trying to help you and they may not even think through what they're saying completely. And so on top of my grief, I felt like I was questioning like, okay, God, did you get me pregnant to kill my baby and turn it into an angel? Like, I don't think so.

I don't think that's how it happens. But if I weren't spiritually mature enough to filter through that, I think that I would just be confused in my theology. And I think that's something that makes it even more delicate for me. I want to be careful when people are wounded not to try to sound so spiritual that I'm giving them a spiritual band-aid that actually might pull off the skin and impact their fragile faith.

Well, and Ashley and I were processing this just about a week ago. Sometimes people will say everything happens for a reason. That can be difficult. Okay, so there's a reason to this, but I don't really know what it is. But it's true that God can take a pain and take a hurt and not waste it and do something with it. But it doesn't mean that, well, there's some reason out there, you just have to accept it.

And so many of those responses and that input isn't really helpful. And people say everything happens for a reason. I think what they often truly mean is God makes everything happen for a specific reason. And we know from scripture that God's grieved by sin. And so we can imply that God is not pleased with everything that happens. But when you're grieving and someone said everything happens for a reason, God allows things, then we start to say, okay, God wanted this. And so for us, we kind of filtered through and said, yes, we can acknowledge God did allow this because God is sovereign and He could have stopped it. But I know that God is good, even though this doesn't feel good. But it doesn't mean that God wanted this particular sin or pain or whatever the loss is. And so I don't have to ascribe to that thought. And so whenever we give ourselves the permission to be curious about it, like, hmm, what is it that doesn't settle with me?

We can survive with our faith intact. And I've seen so many people that said, I just didn't agree with that. And so I'm just not into organized religion. And when I'm listening to them, I go, I don't agree with that either. I think that was discernment.

But let's just not throw out your faith because some Christian said something that was underthought or underdeveloped and not super spiritual. Yeah. So in the book, you give a mental stability activity. Why did you give that exercise and why is that so important?

Absolutely. Because whenever we lose somebody or something that we loved, it makes us feel unstable often. So what Ashley did is she developed this exercise. I'll let her tell you a little bit more about it, but it helps people to identify what do they look like when they're mentally stable and what do they look like when they're mentally unstable. And so on one side of a piece of paper, you could write mentally stable and on the other side you could write mentally unstable.

And so basically that gives you a picture. You're going to look at yourself and how you think and behave differently when you are at your best, when you're most mentally stable and compare that to when you're at your worst, when you're less mentally stable. Now, people don't always like to think about themselves as mentally unstable, but we throw it out there that all of us are more mentally stable and less mentally stable from time to time. So we're not trying to diagnose or to say that anybody is terrible through this. But there are some remarkable differences that we can notice whenever we look at ourselves. One of the things that I found is that people will sometimes take fewer showers when they're at their worst. So when we look at the basic hygiene and the things that we do, we notice that there's some differences. So if someone says, Oh, I shower daily whenever I'm at my best, but I actually skip a shower whenever I'm at my worst, then that gives you insight like, Oh, I never drew a correlation between me taking a shower and me feeling bad. And so it helps us to understand, Oh, maybe I'm in a negative space whenever this happens and depersonalizes it a little bit. So it's not so attaching to that identity level and go, Okay, here I am again, I'm in this negative space. I'm starting to feel worse.

What can I do? And so we can look at whether you're taking a shower or how you eat and exercise, your spiritual practices, your sleep, all of these different practical things and look at the differences. And once you have your list completed, you can step back and laser focus out and decide one thing you can do whenever you're in that negative space, when you feel a little bit less mentally unstable.

What's that one thing that's maybe the easiest that you can do? Oftentimes people say, I'll go ahead and take the shower and see if it helps. And so if it makes one slight adjustment toward that positive space, then that can help us build momentum and find our way back toward that place of stability. And it builds agency when people often feel like they're a victim of the things that are going on around them. One of the things for the mental stability, instability work that we do is people often isolate.

So if you know that I'm not making phone calls or text messages or doing those things when I'm mentally unstable, so what if I tried to reach out to somebody just a little bit, just respond to the text message that you haven't responded to yet and see what that does, because it shows that there are things that you can do to move to being stable, moving to a positive space. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Our guests are Chuck and Ashley Elliott. They've written our featured resource, I Used to Be.

You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us. You know, sometimes Chuck and Ashley, individuals when they face a loss, feel a lot of anger as an emotion. Can you explain what you call the anger wall?

Whenever we go through a loss, it just presents itself in different ways and anger is definitely one of the ways that it shows up. So in the book we talk about this anger wall. So imagine a wall that is made of bricks and across the front of that wall, real big and angry lettering, that says anger.

So what's underneath that? If you were to pull out one of those bricks and you could see through the wall now and there'd be something written on the other side of where that brick used to be, what would it be? For me, when I was angry because we lost little ones, I could say insecurity.

I could pull out another brick and maybe it would say I felt like a failure. A lot of times we put up this wall because anger makes us feel strong. Whenever somebody or something that you loved is violated, taken, hurt, abused, whatever it might be, you want to feel like your strength can come back and anger is a quick way to feel powerful.

But long term, it actually builds a wall between you and other people. So if we can identify what's on the other side of that anger wall, what's behind it when we take out one of those bricks, we can address that and then we can have better relationships. And then when we name our feelings, we gain insight. And so you can just say, I'm angry and I feel powerful. But if you say, I feel embarrassed, why do you feel embarrassed?

I feel embarrassed that you blank, blank, blank. And so then we can say, could you please do this differently? Sometimes when we feel angry, we just feel powerful. And even if we were to talk to someone about an embarrassment, we're gonna say, I feel angry.

You're such a jerk when you always, and then we're having a power struggle. And so we get into the anger wall and we feel powerful. We put our walls up and we want to keep everybody out, but that causes disconnection. And so we want to build our relationships.

We don't want to build walls that will tear down that connection between us and our loved ones. Because anger is complaining about something, but it's not asking for what you want. Often Ashley and I will say that in the marriage workshops that we do, that complaining is not the same thing as asking for what you want.

Because I complain, I feel strong. But if I ask for what I want, I have the opportunity to be told no, which makes me feel vulnerable again. Well, talk about the power of being vulnerable.

Uh, what does that accomplish? It's where relationships really thrive. Cause if we're just putting up this front of what we think that the person needs from us and we're not being honest about what we're feeling at transparency just isn't there. And Ashley and I both know we can feel it from the other person whenever we're not being vulnerable, whenever we're shut down. And it impacts so many things. It impacts how we're a parent.

It impacts how well we speak or write, or we do at our jobs or whatever it might be. But vulnerability really is a superpower. It's a strength. And I know, especially for men and even women, the people that I, that I work with, they see vulnerability as weakness, but it's just being honest about the things that you're going through. And when you're honest about it, then you can really build some strength that you're proud of. And you don't feel like you're hiding.

You don't feel like people don't know the real you. And we've had a lot of people tell us that our book is super vulnerable. And because of that and the vulnerability that we share, it's scary. Sometimes it's scary to have people talk about our book and bring up the stories and be like, Oh, it's kind of painful. And you'd think, Oh, we're just these people that want to always be vulnerable. But I think that's a myth too, because anyone who's vulnerable is kind of baring their soul.

And it's a little scary, but it's also connecting. And so for us, even yesterday, I was having a little bit of a hard time being vulnerable and being needy. And I have to keep coaching myself to do that. So we don't want to, you know, cause listeners to think, Oh, there's these people out there who they find it easy to be vulnerable.

I think that's a myth. And it is a hard thing, but it is worth it. And it's, it's for our relationship that we can be vulnerable. It's a constant that we're working on because one of the things I love most about Ashley is about how strong and independent and smart that she is. And that's part of who she is. But her being vulnerable can be difficult for her. So I have to kind of help with that and say, it's okay to need me and asking for what you need in those moments helps. Yeah. Is that like yesterday when you were telling me that I needed you and I didn't want to need you? I was trying to convince you.

And I think you might've turned around and walked away for a couple of minutes, but yeah. It might've almost come to an argument that we had like, I know I need you and I don't want to need you. It's hard. So it's important to be vulnerable, but it's also okay that it takes effort.

It takes self-control and it takes self-regulation to even push ourselves to go ahead and be vulnerable because it's so easy to put those walls up. In chapter nine, you write about the need for developing new skills to face loss. Uh, what are some examples of the skills that you've had to learn? Well, there's different types of losses. So the skills are going to be individualized. But for example, you mentioned earlier that a woman was a widow. And so this would be a new unwanted title. Like no one is 14 years old and thinks, oh, one day hopefully I will be a widow or divorced or some other negative or unemployed, something that feels really hard for them.

And so they will have some unexpected new skills needed for whatever role that is, whatever title that they've been given that's unwanted. And so for someone who's a widow, they may find it difficult to balance a checkbook or to fill up their gas tank. And I had a friend recently that she was sharing the story about how when her husband died, it was a couple of the really small things that felt so huge for her. It was so hard to mow her lawn. And even though she had enough money to hire a lawn person, she still just found it overwhelming. And it wasn't because it was the physical task of getting the lawn mowed that she needed the skill of picking up the phone and making a phone call. It was that vulnerability that was left, this hole that her husband had filled, a role that he filled in her life that now left her lacking and left her feeling sad and feeling that there was a void. And so acknowledging that those skills that we need are attached to some pain helps us to understand like, okay, I'm not an idiot for feeling like I don't know how to call a person to mow my grass. It's something that's deeper.

It's tied to my grief, my identity. And so many times we have friends for a long period of time. What if you had a childhood friend who had been your go-to person for a long time, and they lived in the same city as you did, and then they move across the country?

Okay. It's not the death of a loved one, but it's a change in the relationship that you're grieving. So you might have to develop some new skills to ask somebody new to go to lunch or to go to coffee or to see what they're doing. And if they have dinner plans and you have another couple that you want to connect with. So sometimes we don't give ourselves permission to recognize that it's difficult and we're going to have to adapt and learn some new skills, anything from mowing yards to developing new relationships to whatever it might be.

Well, we're coming to the end of our time together on the program, but let me ask this question of each of you. If our listeners could take one nugget of truth away from our conversation, what would you want them to remember? I want them to know that they can feel weak and be strong at the same time. That they don't have to have it figured out.

They don't have to know exactly what this is going to look like because it's new. You're not an expert at experiencing grief, and that's okay. But God sees you.

He knows right where you are. And I'd also want to remind people that they're not just doing this for themselves when they process their grief and work through things in a healthy way. They're doing it so they can be open up to relationships, maybe for their kids, their spouse, their coworkers. Because when we do this work, and it is work, we're more emotionally available, and we're not shutting down parts of our heart that people really need. And if we can bring God into the middle of it, God wants to be in the midst of our negative spaces.

And that's going to be the quickest way and the most wholesome way to move back toward a positive space. Well, I want to thank you both, Chuck and Ashley, for being with us today and for writing this book. And I want to challenge our listeners not only to reflect upon what they've heard today, but also to get the book, work through it. I thank anyone who has suffered loss, not just of death. We've talked a good bit about death, but all kind of losses, and we're trying to struggle with that.

You'll find this book to be very helpful. So let me challenge you to do that. So Chuck and Ashley, thanks for being with us today. It's been an honor. Thank you so much. Thanks. So vulnerable, so real, and the featured resource is exactly like that.

It's titled, I Used to be Blank, by Chuck and Ashley. You can find out more about it at buildingrelationships.us. The subtitle is How to Navigate Large and Small Losses in Life and Find Your Path Forward. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. And next week, how do you give your children a stronger spiritual legacy than you received when you were a child? Don't miss the encouragement in one week. Our thanks to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.