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Restoried Healing For Trauma Survivors with Melissa Affolter

• Tabitha • Season 2 • Episode 27

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What happens when trauma silences your story, and what does it take to speak it aloud again?

In this episode of Hey Tabi, trauma therapist Tabitha Westbrook sits down with biblical counselor that does not suck Melissa Affolter to explore the healing power of story for survivors of trauma.

Together, they talk about why trauma often leaves people wordless, how shame gets stored in the body, and why healing requires more than insight or “right thinking.” This conversation centers on the sacred role of presence, safe community, and being witnessed without being rushed or fixed.

You’ll hear about:

  • How telling your story helps integrate body, brain, and soul
  • The cost of carrying an untold story alone
  • Why growth after trauma is not linear
  • How spiritual harm complicates healing & gently rebuilding faith
  • Restoried, a trauma-informed support group for women (and how you can participate)

This episode is for survivors who feel stuck, exhausted, or unsure how to make sense of their story - and it's for helpers who want to understand trauma with more compassion and depth.

🔗 Resources & Links
Learn more about Restoried and Melissa Affolter’s work:
👉Restoried: https://www.melissaaffolter.com/restoried-support-groups
👉Melissa's site: https://www.melissaaffolter.com/

Wanna say hi? Send a text!

At The Journey and The Process we strive to help you heal. Our therapists are trauma specialists who use evidence-based tools like EMDR, Brainspotting, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to help you heal - mind, soul, and body. Reach out today to start your healing journey. https://thejourneyandtheprocess.com/

 This book is for every Christian woman who has been harmed sexually, whether that happened in childhood, adulthood, or even within your coercive controlling marriage, and you're longing to feel safe in your body again. We talk about the hard stuff, shame, desire, faith, and even questions like, is this sin or is this trauma?

You don't have to untangle it alone. Body & Soul, Healed & Whole is for you. Get a copy here today - https://a.co/d/8Jo3Z4V

🎧 Subscribe to Hey Tabi for more expert conversations on trauma, faith, and healing.

Order Body & Soul, Healed & Whole: An Invitational Guide to Healthy Sexuality After Trauma, Abuse, and Coercive Control

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📲 Tabitha's Instagram - www.instagram.com/tabithathecounselor
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🚨 Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy and is intended for educational purposes only. If you're in crisis or need therapy, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

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The Healing Power of Story with Melissa Affolter

[00:00:00] Welcome to Hey Tabi, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here, and we are not take two verses and call me in the morning.

I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and wellbeing. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope.

Now let's get going.

Tabitha Westbrook: Hey there, and welcome to this week's episode of Hey Tabi, and I am here with an absolutely precious friend who is another biblical counselor that does not suck, and I'm going to tell you about her. Her name is Melissa Affolter and she is a writer, researcher, and editor with more than 20 years of experience in counseling and discipleship within church and community settings.

Her sense of [00:01:00] calling toward caregiving began in her teenage years. Same. Same girl. Same. Same. Though it took many winding paths to discern what vocation would look like. She's earned her undergraduate degree in history with an emphasis on Northern Africa and the Reformation, and previously worked as a teacher and curriculum writer.

She completed her master's degree in biblical counseling in 2011 and has pursued advanced trauma training through the Global Trauma Recovery Institute and the Christian Trauma Healing Network. In 2015, she founded a nonprofit counseling organization in Central Florida, and she did that for about four years before ultimately joining Fieldstone Counseling and then moving from Florida to Ohio in 2020.

Now she serves as a senior counselor and content and equipping director with Fieldstone. She was raised in the Canton area, so the move felt like a return home. Her work centers on walking alongside individuals seeking clarity and hope amid trauma, pain, and overwhelm. She approaches counseling as a sacred space, one marked by [00:02:00] safety, unhurried care, and thoughtful presence.

And man, I can tell you Melissa has beautiful presence. Here clients examine and gently untangle the false or harmful messages that they've internalized over time. In addition to her clinical work, she has contributed to PeaceWorks University and the ERLC on the topic of abuse, spoken on trauma, ministry burnout, and women's discipleship, and has created and facilitated Restoried, a support group for women who've experienced abuse and trauma.

Melissa, welcome to Hey, Tabi. 

Melissa Affolter: Thanks, Tabi. I'm happy to be here. 

Tabitha Westbrook: I'm so glad that you're here. You have had one of the most amazing careers of a biblical counselor to me. I look at it and I'm like, you have done such amazing things. So tell me a little bit about the calling that God put on your life. 

Melissa Affolter: Yeah, I think you know. I hear many counselors talk about ways that they were always maybe in a [00:03:00] caregiving type posture or environment and just didn't recognize that. And I think similarly, I always kind of had that bent and yeah, in my middle school years, being a student in a Christian school, I don't even remember what this guy spoke about, but this guy came to our Spiritual Emphasis Week, which was like multiple chapels every day.

Some of them really fun, and some of them I couldn't, could've cared less as a middle schooler. But this particular guy, it was just, it wasn't even what he did. I don't even remember what his ministry vocation was, but it was the way he talked about it. And I really sensed God sparking something in me about like, oh, I wanna spend my life caring for other people.

I just wasn't sure what that would look like at all. And then like many women went on from there and kind of was in a lot of pretty conservative Christian environments where that would've been just challenging for me to figure out what does it look like as a woman to [00:04:00] answer that call. And so I felt a lot on my own in some ways trying to figure that out.

And so that's why I think it took me so many different directions. Little fits and starts of different things and I felt very aimless at times, but always when I looked back, could see where God was using the different bits and pieces of things to shape me into where I'm at now. 

Tabitha Westbrook: That is so amazing. I think this is one of the things I personally like about different types of counselors, right? They're the folks that go straight through school. They come out, they get their masters, they start counseling, and they're in their twenties, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a place for that. But I think in my own heart, there's a special place for the second career counselor.

Those are who I tend to hire in my practice very often are particularly women who have been in a whole other career for a while and you just get a little bit of life up under you. And even though some of those fits and starts are [00:05:00] not always easy, they're kind of challenging. I think it gives you such a perspective and wisdom that you might not have had otherwise.

Melissa Affolter: Yeah, no, it's encouraging hearing someone else like reflect back to me what. This journey has looked like because when you're in it, it is easy to overlook some of those ways that God was doing something and was being really gracious and kind. But in those moments, maybe it felt confusing or I felt really alone in those things, or felt like a failure at times.

I did feel kind of aimless at times, just trying to figure out what does this even look like? What are next steps? Yeah, and I was like a classic, like in my late teens, early twenties, I would do a semester of college, then take a break, then do another semester, then take a break, because I just could not decide, didn't feel sure.

I don't love making decisions anyway. That tends to be kind of the personality and context that I've been in. And [00:06:00] so it's even encouraging just to hear someone else reflect that back about, yeah, I can look back now and I'm in my late forties now and I feel like I just started growing up in the last decade.

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah. I think I would like our 20 somethings to really hear that because this year I hit the 50 barrier here and I guess it's not a barrier. I hit the marker and. I look back and I'm grateful now for all of the things. When I was in my mid twenties, I got into graduate school in one of the top clinical psychology programs in the country, and God flatly told me I could not go.

And we argued, God and I argued about that. We had some words, but at the time I didn't realize I was in an abusive marriage. And I look back now and the trail of bodies I would have left trying to care for others while I was a mess would have been awful. And so God used an intervening 10 years to set me free to begin to work on my own healing and get me in a different place.

And [00:07:00] I just remember telling God, please let me graduate from grad school before I'm 40, and I graduated at 39 and that was a real gift from the Lord. But I in the moment, in my mid twenties was like, what are you doing, Jesus? I don't understand. And it felt like I was being taken from instead of given to.

And so for all our 20 somethings, even when it feels like a taking, it might actually be a giving from the Lord in a different way than you expect. 

Melissa Affolter: Yeah, that's good, Tabi. I love that. I love words as someone who likes to write and contribute to those various environments where there's research and writing.

So I love even when people are sharing words, so that giving and receiving I think is just a helpful or taken, I guess was the word taking that you used. I think it's important when we can give language to stuff like that so that we can look back and be able to see. Some of the way that things felt very opposite or [00:08:00] felt like they were being in tension with each other or in conflict, and yet they equally contributed to the overall growth process.

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because we look at neuroscience, right? We look at how trauma works and how it reads into our bodies. It's in the limbic system, which is the back of our brain. So I call it the feely feely part back here. And so the thinky thinky part is actually where language lives.

So our ability to process language and make words is upfront. So when you're traumatized and it's really activating to your limbic system. You sometimes lose the ability to make words. So when you're able to then put words with, this is what my experience was, these are what, this is what my body felt, then it starts to essentially integrate or assimilate or process through, we call it digesting and my practice, you're able to digest it through because it becomes an integrated whole.

That really kind of leads me [00:09:00] into the work you do with Restoried. So tell us about that because I just, I find it amazing. 

Melissa Affolter: Oh, thanks for asking. Yeah. My, my mentor, you're making me think of my mentor. Just a few weeks ago we were doing a Zoom call and she's had a really kind presence in my life the last few years, and she was asking me, what does re story mean to me in her own words?

You know, the first thing that came to my mind was I was remembering, from the movie years ago, and I don't remember the movie title, but, or Mr. Holland's Opus, that's the title. It just came to me. But I was like, I feel like that about it. Like Restoried is my magnus opus. Like it's, if there was anything that I would've never imagined God would invite me to be a part of in my life, and then that became I guess my legacy in a way, like if I was gonna give it to someone else, I don't have children, but it feels like something that I want to desperately pass along to other [00:10:00] people, and it's not because I'm this amazing person that created all this. This was just God's work in my life coming out over time.

Soori is precious to me. It is. The best part of anything that I get to do and I'm so thankful for just that calling on my life that I wouldn't have even known was a calling at the time. We started back in, it's been just about 10 years ago now, that Restoried started. I didn't have a name for it at the time.

Had not even thought about making it a thing. It was literally just a small group of women who I knew personally through some local church context. We were all shifting out of one context into a new around the same time, and several of them had some past abuse experiences and that just became a place where they, in their own ways, started asking or nudging me, could we meet regularly and just talk about these things.

And [00:11:00] so I don't even remember the first group, so to speak, how long that first group lasted, but we just would meet and talk and then after one holiday break or a summer break, they were like, let's keep going. Let's do it again. And we just kept going. And so that's actually where the material and the structure, I guess, for Restoried was birthed out of, was it just happened kind of very organically.

And then I got to a certain point and realized, oh, I have material that like I could put into a structured form and invite other women to participate. And then like most people, once 2019 and then 2020 hit, so many things went remote. Right? And so that was the same time that I was coming on at Fieldstone and they so graciously have hosted my Restoried groups from the administrative standpoint the last several years.

And so they've just stayed online because that makes it accessible to so many more women. So, [00:12:00] yeah, the material really just developed from these women. Similar to how Diane Langberg has talked about the, our counselees, our clients are our teachers, right? They're the ones that instruct us, you know, I had my own story, my own experiences with abusive context, and yet this material was really from them.

It's their story. Restoried is these women's stories. Kind of brought together under the banner of Christ's love for us and his tender care for us as his children. 

Tabitha Westbrook: It's amazing. As somebody who loves the concept of story and uses it with her own clients quite a bit, because it matters, right? I think there's a lot said about standard cognitive behavioral therapy not being enough for trauma, and that is a very true statement.

However, you need other people to hold your story with you, right? Post-traumatic stress disorder happens because there was not an empathic [00:13:00] witness. So as Gabor Maté says, it's not what happened to you, it's what happened inside of you because of what happened to you. And if you don't hold those stories with someone, then you feel alone and adrift, and it's hard to make sense of your story.

Our stories deeply matter, and they are embodied, right? Our stories are not absent the embodied nature of trauma and glory and joy, and delight, and pain. All of those things mixed together. So tell us about Restoried, like, give us the 30,000 foot view of what it looks like for a participant. 

Melissa Affolter: Yeah, so there's been a few different iterations in terms of how the structure of it is with the number of sessions and all of those things.

So I won't get into the weeds of all of that. But generally we've gone between eight to 10 sessions for a group. We try to limit it to not more than 10 to 12 women at a time. There was a [00:14:00] period where we met weekly, just very like, quick, quick, quick. Then we tried monthly just as a good option for giving more time in between.

And this next year, in 2026, we'll be trying out something different. We're gonna go every other week just because I wanna try kind of a middle ground way of giving that time for the material to be, absorbed or processed a little bit. Especially 'cause a lot of the women that participate in their groups do individual counseling on their own as well.

I have found that what we talk about in the groups then provides really good follow up for them to pair with their individual care, which is also just a great way if you're limited by finances or time, or you like seeing your regular counselor in person, but you wanna participate in an online group.

Yeah. That's a little bit about the very basic structure as far as the content, what we're doing. Each of the eight sessions, the women get a [00:15:00] prerecorded video from me that they have a time period before we have a live meeting where they can watch that video. And that video is moving from session one through session eight, through the phased work of trauma healing and not with the advertisement that go through all of these eight sessions and now you're healed. But it's just to help them have familiarity with what does it look like to be in those early stages of needing stability, safety, security, and then how do we move through the process of grieving lament, and even being able to do that with others and not just grieving in isolation, which is a huge, huge part.

I believe in what Restoried is able to offer them is a lot of these women are grieving things that they've tried to grieve maybe with other people, whether it was in their church or friends or local community options, and for [00:16:00] various reasons, either it wasn't accessible or it just wasn't a good fit. And then we're moving through that lamenting phase, so to speak, to the final couple of sessions where we're focusing on.

Rebuilding relational and spiritual health in various ways of talking about that. As you can imagine, the majority of these women, whatever their abuse history was, whether it happened in childhood, in a marriage, a one time sexual assault. Maybe it's a workplace environment. All of them have experienced various aspects of spiritual harm.

Even if it was unintentional harm, you know, where it was, maybe they tried to talk to someone in their church about this and it was dismissed or downplayed, or just not handled carefully. So a lot of the work I'm doing and the couple of people that help me in Restoried, we are shepherding. I mean, I, I was very hesitant to use that word until just the last year or two, because [00:17:00] I'm not a shepherd in the sense of like, I'm not a pastor, I'm not trying to be a pastor. And yet community has become so painful for the women that take part in these groups. And so a lot of my presence there is less about me guiding them through a bunch of formal psychoeducation or doing a Bible study or something really formal. It's more about the presence that I'm offering them and then helping them build that presence with each other too. Because that's the best part. And you know this Tabi from the work you do when you can look at someone face to face, looking them in the eyes, there's a measure of healing and hope that they can experience through just being seen in their grief or in their confusion or their doubts.

And so that's to give kind of that big overview. I guess that's the what the journey kind of looks like. 

Tabitha Westbrook: I love that so much, and I love what you're describing in terms of the [00:18:00] Ministry of Presence, and I think of the Maya Angelou quote, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

And when we are in community and we share our story and people turn their faces toward us. Instead of away from us. It's so healing because when you've experienced abuse, people have turned away or against, right? So either people have turned their faces away from you in neglect, or they have not heard you when you've said, I need help, or they've turned against you if they're the perpetrator.

And sometimes the perpetrator are people like our parents or our spouses or our churches, where these are places that we should have trust and care and kindness. And the wounding to the soul is so profound. So when you are in a group and the group of people are turning their faces toward you and you have a capable guide walking with you, which is what you're doing as the [00:19:00] leader in the shepherding of it all, then healing can't help but happen.

Honestly, there's going to be movement and stretching and healing in those places. 

Melissa Affolter: Yeah, no, I, again, I love words and so I love your description of the reminding us that it's often that people who are recovering from these kinds of harmful backgrounds or experiences have experienced people turning away from them or turning against them.

We see it in our individual counseling. You know, you think about all the times that somebody maybe shows up to a session and they have a hard time looking at you as the counselor, right? They're so accustomed to living their life. With their head down, keeping their gaze away from you or any other person.

And so even though Restoried happens, at least right now, we haven't gone back to doing in-person groups just 'cause there hasn't been the right timing or the right demand for that, so to speak. And it's [00:20:00] really accessible online. So there's times where I wonder like, oh, the fact that we're on screens, you know, with all our little squares, does that hinder the ability to have presence, and I think it could, and I think it probably does in some ways. I would much prefer to be back in a room, but I also think all these different women, 10 or 12 women at a time from all different areas, all different kinds of abuse, all different backgrounds, current circumstances.

And so what they're living out for themselves and for one another in that group is that I'm not gonna look away from you. I'm going to keep looking at you even as you're expressing anger or grief over these profound losses that you've experienced, or the injustices that have still not been set right. So I do think it's a really beautiful thing and our intention. In the groups by creating that kind of community is not to replace other communities, [00:21:00] like we don't. I actually hope and pray that it provides sort of an on-ramp for these women to then go be more courageous to maybe try out or test out some other forms of community.

Maybe go back into their local church and try out a new small group or go to a BSF group or you know, just trying out different ways that they can gently maybe reenter other places where there can be ongoing care. And so I love that we're able to do that. It doesn't mean it's easy, it doesn't mean that we get to the end.

I've had a few women over the years that have come back later and said, can I do another round of Restoried? You know? So we've had a few people that take it a second time, and that's certainly something that we are open to and it doesn't surprise me. 'cause sometimes things happen really slow.

Most of the time things happen really slow. Right? 

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah. And I think it's such a treat to [00:22:00] be able to do it from anywhere, because it can be hard to find something local to you that's drivable. If you've got kids, you know, things like that can just be harder if you're working full time and then you are like, gosh, I have to put on pants and leave the house at like 7:00 PM Like that's a hard thing.

Some days let's just be real, right? And especially if it's winter time and it's like dark at 2:00 PM or whatever it is, you know, depending on where you are in the world, it can be a tough thing. And so to have it online and accessible is so good. My very first narrative focused trauma care training, my Level one group, those were some of the best women I have ever met in my whole life.

We were all virtual from different parts of the country, and it was such a delight even in that space to be seen. I remember feeling so clearly seen by my group and like it was disorienting, even through a screen. It was so disorienting to have my goodness named, to have parts of [00:23:00] me seen that maybe others don't always see.

It was such a growing experience, even though it was through a screen and I've had the good fortune to have met in person, several of the women in this group at this point because of the travel that I do. And I think that's another aspect we don't always think about that we want local community in our everyday, for sure.

We need 3D community, however. Sometimes that virtual community is so healing and it's so accessible, and sometimes then we go places and we get to meet those people in person, you just never know what God might do. And I think it's such a delight to have something like that, that I think is sadly fairly unique in the Christian community and in the trauma healing spaces because again, someone looking at you.

Turning their face toward you in your story, in these things that you [00:24:00] hold that often bring you so much shame. We know shame is such a huge part of trauma and traumatization and we end up holding the shame that should be the perpetrators very often. And so to sit in a room, even a virtual room with other women who are going, no, no, and here's the goodness that God has created in you, and here's an opportunity for stretching.

I can see how it would make it strengthening enough for someone to go, well, let me darken the door of a church again, or let me darken the door of a small group again and try because they know their inherent worth and value in Christ. They don't need someone externally to validate it. They don't hold the curses that someone spoke over them in their abuse anymore.

Melissa Affolter: Yeah. That's so powerful how you're describing that, because I think you're kind of bringing up that reality of whether it's through group work like Restoried or other [00:25:00] forms of trauma healing and growth and recovery. I think we all come in wanting to know that when we get to the end of it, there's gonna be a really clear, tangible next step that we can take.

And sometimes we might come into that thinking, well, if I am gonna try going back into church or going to a small group environment, it's gonna go great. And so I think some of the work we're doing in ReSTOR is we're spending those last two or three sessions really highlighting the reality of. Growth is never gonna be linear.

We, we say that and we write about it in books. We see it in graphs and charts, and that helps us kind of imagine through visual demonstration, like the graphs that go up and then down and up again and down. But to experience it can be really scary for someone to enter back into that. And so I think part of what I'm hoping for in these groups is just that they're willing, kind of like Beth Broom has [00:26:00] said, I think that's where I first heard the language.

Just like, what does a healthy risk look like? You know, because it is a risk. Like, let's just be honest, it may not go well. Like you may feel the impact of it. You may for a moment feel regret, like you might be like, man, I shouldn't have done that, or that was the wrong next step. Whether it's going back into a family environment for the holidays, which a lot of people are in the midst of right now as we're talking, you know, maybe that feels like the healthy risk you're trying to manage, or maybe it is setting foot back in into a church environment.

And so the goal of Restoried in that way is not to promise some kind of certain outcome, but just say, Hey, you're not doing that alone. Jesus goes with you first and foremost, and then we as this group, we are going with you in the sense of what you've experienced here, the way you've been able to walk with other people and see that you're [00:27:00] not the only one who has these big questions.

You're not the only one that has these fits and starts or these. Places where you take a step and then it's a giant fall backwards and then maybe another step forward. And, and so then hopefully you have some tools and some strategies to take you forward in that time. And if nothing else, yeah, again, it's just, there's a way that you're able to reengage with who is Christ to me and for me in this, you know, as I take a risk or as I do something scary.

Tabitha Westbrook: And I think for so many female trauma survivors, and this I hear over and over and over, is the fear of taking up space or being, dare I say it, the B word, a "burden" and when you realize, no, I'm allowed to have presence. I'm allowed to take up space because God created me in his image and likeness. I am a [00:28:00] worthy person to be around.

That does change the game for so many, and so even if you do attempt something and you're like, oh, that didn't work the way I hoped and dreamed. You know it's not because you are the problem, it's because it didn't work, it wasn't the right fit, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's you. Now, I'm not saying that we don't have problems and we don't have ways of being that the Lord needs to work out, that we need to heal, and that maybe we have come to through the trauma that we've experienced.

I'm not saying that, but I'm saying is far and away working with traumatized women what I see is them play small. And that is not necessarily who the Lord created them to be. He created us to have a presence and a space, and we each have things that he planned before the foundations of the world for us.

And when we play small, because of what traumatizing people or trauma experiences have taught us, we have to learn something new. And that is in the experiencing ourselves differently. [00:29:00] And a lot of times we're afraid to try that because we're afraid of the what ifs and all of that. But as you strengthen, as you heal through something like Restoried and look at it differently, see your own story differently, then you have the strength and the capacity, or as we say in my practice, window of tolerance, like the openness to do the thing because you have done so much healing work.

Melissa Affolter: Yeah, it's so true because you're, it's your posture that's kind of shifting. It's not that you're going from one particular way of being to now being a totally different person who never, it's actually a beautiful kind of mixture and mingling of all of those aspects of your history and who you are that are now being you.

You know, you said it at the beginning, kind of being integrated into. Where you're at and who you are now. And God knows all of those things, like he's not surprised [00:30:00] by them. Right? And so the things that we're emphasizing in Restoried is movement, you know, going from point A to point B, but it's actually the movement that's happening all along the way.

So whether we're moving from chaos to now having greater clarity again. That's, you know, we're not selling that as some sort of, doesn't feel like the prize at the bottom of the cereal box. Like, it's just so exciting. Right. It's actually really hard. Really hard. And it's still, the clarity that you're finding is also going to have pain with it.

At times it doesn't mean, well now I have clarity. Everything's great. And similarly to move from. You know, the anger, the more raging kind of anger that sometimes can come as a result of what we've experienced into that bitter. Sometimes if we get stuck in like a bitter grief, right? Well then hopefully we're moving towards, through the lamenting process, [00:31:00] we're moving towards still engaging with the anger that rightly can be there because of righteous anger that God has too for these things.

But it gives us something to help us move rather than getting stuck like in one spot because it is so easy when you've experienced. Any form of traumatization to have that become your identity. You know? Yes. Like this is now who I am and so we want to keep our identity. I mean, you know, we're all gonna say yes and amen to this.

We wanna keep our identity rooted in who God calls us to be and who he created us to be. Like. He knows all these things that we're talking about where it feels confusing and it feels. Paralyzing and it feels like filled with terror at times. And I just always think of the psalmist, you know, like we've got good verbiage for all of that when we just interpret it through that lens.

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah, absolutely. And [00:32:00] one of the things I often say is all trauma work is grief work because there is something that you lost or didn't get because of what happened to you. And maybe even the grief of some of the things we've done because of what happened to us in our best attempts to cope and to, you know, try to survive at times and things like that.

And so there is going to be a grieving process, and I think sometimes that surprises people, right? So clarity can bring grief, like. This person that said that they loved me and that they would be with me in sickness and in health were the ones causing the sickness. Oh, ding dang. You know? And so there's a grief in that.

The grief of the loss of what you wish you had. The grief of what you actually had, the grief of what you didn't get to have because of what you actually had. And it is like, I call it like a trauma croissant where it's like layers upon layers and it's not good stuff. So you end up with this pastry of death essentially.

But the good news is that as we grieve, because grief [00:33:00] is just the other side of joy. One of my favorite allegories of all time is Hind's Feet on High Places. And I love it because Much Afraid feels so much like me. When I was at the beginning of my trauma healing journey and the Lord gave her the great shepherd, gave her the companions of sorrow and suffering, and she was like, what in heaven's holy name is this right? She said it a lot more. It was written in 1940. It's a lot more formal than that, but that was how she felt. And I get it because sorrow and suffering do feel like companions. But there is joy as we move through this process. As we heal, yes, we are going to hold grief. We are going to have to work through that for sure work through that, but. There is joy and healing brings joy. And even though scars remain the life on the other side and the other side isn't, like you said, linear, it's not like check these three boxes and now we're on the other side. It's a [00:34:00] whole process and the road is sometimes real scary looking, but the Lord walks us through it and the other side is worth the hype.

Melissa Affolter: Yeah. I just love so much that you brought up Hind's Feet on High Places, especially, 'cause we hadn't ever talked about that before, but I just gifted that book to a friend of mine this week for Christmas, the illustrated version, because I first read that book. I think when I was 19, I was on this really intense, like 10 day backpacking trip in the Adirondack Mountains, and that book was so impactful for me as a 19-year-old feeling all of those places that I described earlier about lack of clarity, like I had no idea what I was doing with my life, what was next, scary things, mistakes I had made, choices I had made that I was regretting just so many, so many mixed confusing feelings and thoughts, and that book was so helpful to me at that age.

And so I just recently last year, went back to start rereading it again [00:35:00] and someone had recommended the illustrated version to me just to give you a different perspective on it. And it's a beautiful illustrated version. And I do think that the journey being described in that book is so powerful. In terms of what most journeys look like, what all journeys look like in different ways, and it really is mimicking how God's story for us is unfolding in scripture. You know, all the ups and downs and the places where the psalmist talks about, being up on the cliffs and up on the ledges at times, but then also hiding in a cave and then being in the valley. There's just such great representation in all of those things. I think for someone who's walking this journey, wherever they're at in their journey with the trauma, the overflow of how it's impacted their life.

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah, and I think about it this way, right? Like all the great stories [00:36:00] have this controversy and why are we drawn to that? Why are we drawn to that? If it was, you know, well, I decided I was gonna go throw the ring into the fires of Mordor, so I picked up the ring, I walked over to Mordor, I chuck it in the volcano.

Nobody's going to see that movie. No one. No one at all. It is the fits and starts and setbacks and victories and all of those pieces that make a story worth reading and worth living because those setbacks and the switchbacks and the different directions are actually the road. And there's a song, I forget who it's by but the name of it is The Detour is the Road. And that's what the main lyric is sometimes the detour is the road. And it feels like a detour to us because we feel like, oh, but I'm supposed to do this just like I was supposed to finish undergrad and then I got into grad school and that's what I'm doing next.

And God's like, Nope. And noped me [00:37:00] right out of that. And I was like, wait, but that's not how this is supposed to be. Now I look back on it and I'm like, that is exactly how it was supposed to be. But I have the benefit of hindsight, and it's really hard in the middle of it when you're standing in what feels like a sandstorm, trying to grab what feels like the one right grain so that you can take the next step.

Knowing that I don't see clearly in front of me right now, I see a little bit of something and I can maybe go this direction, oh wait, maybe that's not it. Talking about Hind's Feet on High Places, at one point she's like, I'm going away from the mountains. I'm supposed to be going toward the mountains, but we are straight up in the desert going a different direction.

And I am like, yes. I feel that often, even still, even at this stage of the journey. 

Melissa Affolter: Yeah. Yeah. I think we all wanna run sometimes in the opposite direction [00:38:00] of not just where we should go per se, but even just where life is taking us. You know, we think, I'm gonna go over here because I need something calmer and safer, and sometimes we find out in hindsight what we thought was calmer and safer wasn't sometimes it wasn't, or sometimes it provided a refuge, a form of relief. Yeah, there's so many different ways that that can feel. But even you bringing up another story, since we love stories, all I could imagine when you were describing, you know. The reminders about Lord of the Rings.

I was like, yeah, but whe wherever we're at on the journey or the detour or whatever part of that, we're seeing in front of us. I just kept thinking of my favorite part when Gandalf is like coming, riding down the cliffs, you know, riding down the side of the fields. And I just always think that's what I wanna remember and I forget.

I forget, you know. Jesus is coming for me. He's coming for me. He's coming for you. He's coming for all [00:39:00] of these women that we get to serve in these different contexts. And it's so easy to forget that or to just lose sight of that because, it's not here right now. We can't see it right now, and we're on these detours and we're scared, or we're embarrassed, humiliated because we had a setback again.

But Jesus, Jesus is coming for us. 

Tabitha Westbrook: He is. And I think so many survivors wish for the actual representation of the hoard coming to save us down the mountain that we wish we could physically see something like that. And I think we need to look for it 'cause it's there in ways, maybe not like a hoard of people upon, you know, horses and dragons and trees and whatever.

Right. Like, although that would be super cool. But would be, it's in the friend that called you when you needed it most, or the people that came around you in the moment of tragedy when you're [00:40:00] like, gosh, you know the people that unexpectedly walked with you when you didn't even know you needed someone to walk with you.

And those are, I'll call them the quiet hoard. Where it doesn't look quite as dramatic as cinema, though we wish it would, but the effect on our soul is the same of you are not alone. And I'll say this, especially to women. This is something that can be such a tricky space for us, especially for single women that you know, there is for most single women, a desire to be pursued and to be wanted. And it feels awful when you don't have that. And you know, I was talking with a supervisee and we were working on a case, and the words that were used were, some clients want to be thought of first. I just want someone that thinks of me first, and I've sat with that because of my [00:41:00] own journey through loneliness.

I am a single woman, and that is something that I've thought about is, oh, I just want to be wanted. I want to be somebody's priority. And when I really get quiet, I can hold the tension of both grief that I don't have like a person, a spouse, and the real truth that I do have someone that thinks of me first, and that is Jesus.

And it doesn't feel the same when he's not like sitting beside you, making you coffee or having a breakfast with you or something like that, right? Like we wish for that. And there's goodness. That's a desire from the heart of God. But he's still with us, maybe even closer than we realize, because sometimes the veil doesn't feel super thin between what we can physically see and the realities of other things.

And so I just wanna encourage our single sisters listening who have that longing, which is not a bad longing, but it's one that can bring grief [00:42:00] that yes, hold those tensions of you desire someone physically with you and to be wanted and to be thought of first and you have someone who thinks of you first and who wants you and passionately desires you.

Melissa Affolter: Yeah, I, that's a beautiful reminder, Tabi. And whether they're single, like you and I are single in the sense of like, not married, not, you know, promised to someone. Or if there's that feeling of singleness in the sense of maybe they're in the midst of a separation or in the midst of trying to decide, but that feeling of I'm not being thought of, I'm not being prioritized.

I think these places where we've talked about like story and the imagery that we can find in some of the stories that we've mentioned and many others is yeah, we can get lost in the hero of the story and like them pursuing or coming, and yet we [00:43:00] have. We have that, we have access to that through Jesus.

And I think that's such a important place where we can receive comfort and care. And sometimes that will come in the context of other, you know, in the past few years, that's come for me through specific couple of friends and my mentor who have pursued me, like pursued me and that, that's a sweet reminder that it's easy to overlook what we don't have.

And that's like, but we have, we do have aspects of that that are being given to us in God's kindness. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah. And to hold the tension, right? The, in our practice we talk about dialectics, right? Two opposite things that can be synthesized. And I can hold the grief of I don't have a physical partner and there are women that we work with that are married and don't have a physical partner 'cause their partner is destructive.

Right. And that's a deep loneliness and loss. And I have Christ who literally does that and who sends me, people [00:44:00] who in the moments I need the most oftentimes are able to walk with me in those tender spaces. And I think that when we get to heaven, when I think about Jesus wiping every tear away. When I was younger, I used to think of that in such a different way than I do now.

Now I think he's, you know, people are, I remember being taught at one point, well he's gonna wipe away tears 'cause you're gonna realize how sinful you were. And I just wanna smack those people. 'cause I'm like, first of all, my sin was handled at the cross. I don't know if you've read the gospels, but I have.

So we'll start there. And secondly, I think he's gonna wipe away the tears because he knows our grief. He has cried them with us. He holds our tears in a bottle. And so I think it's a much more tender picture of God than maybe we give him credit for. And I also think about in Revelation, it's one of my favorite breath prayers, typically in this season right now, as you and I are recording, we're in the middle of Advent, and you know, behold I am making all things new.

That is [00:45:00] such a great breath prayer because it's a reminder of what is true even when it doesn't feel true. And this is where the great story of the gospel is the most important story for us. And I'm not saying that in any kind of trite, minimizing, churchy, take two verses and call me in the morning way.

I'm saying it as someone who literally kneels at the foot of the cross and holds on till her fingers bleed, because that is the hope that I have. 

Melissa Affolter: Amen. Tabi. Yeah, I think so much of the work that we do, even though it might be, whether it's group work, individual work, clinical work, biblical counseling, work, combinations of things, you know, I know there's so many varieties to those things.

I think you're drawing our attention back to what is going to be not only most helpful for the people that we're talking to and that we're spending time with in these various contexts. But also for us, you know, because I need a [00:46:00] shepherd, I need a companion. I need all of what we're talking about just as much as the people that I'm helping.

And so I have to remember that first and foremost, that I need to be able to access that, whether that's through prayer, scripture, reading, meditating, thinking through truths that I know doing breath prayers, all of those things, right? Getting out in nature, which I know we both love to do too. And so finding those places where can I position myself to be shepherded. To receive care and companionship from Christ?

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah, absolutely. As we close out for today, what is something that you want to say to the survivors that might be listening to us?

Melissa Affolter: I think I'd [00:47:00] most, right now in this moment, just wanna say, you know. I, and I would say you too, Tabi, we're filling a gap that I wished did not have to exist. I wished that the gap of care or comfort or concern that you're experiencing, whoever you are and whatever your circumstances are, I wish that gap did not exist.

And it breaks my heart that that gap exists. And yet I would want you to hear that even though that you might be in a place where you feel that gap really immensely right now, maybe you're either just starting to feel it, or maybe because of the holidays or because of current circumstances, it just feels really obvious to you.

The gap is the only thing you can see right now. And even though we're filling. I'm using that language of like, we're filling this gap that I wish didn't exist. Tabi and I and other helpers and caregivers we're filling it in a very [00:48:00] incomplete way. You know, we know that that gap can ultimately only be filled through Christ, and that's not a way of just trying to minimize the process to, well just receive Christ, but no, how can we as caregivers, but also how can you.

In whatever context you're in, position yourself to receive more from Christ. It's okay to ask for more. You. If you're a survivor, you have probably grown accustomed to not asking for much. You probably feel really self-conscious about having to ask for whatever you need, whatever you're desiring. But Jesus is always saying, come unto me.

Right? The invitation is not just come unto me, but it includes like. Come with whatever requests, whatever you're bringing with you. And so I just wanna encourage you, um, to, to not be afraid to ask for more, you know? And if you are afraid, start with that. Start by [00:49:00] asking for that. Say, God, I'm afraid to ask for more.

Help me increase my capacity or my window of tolerance to be able to ask for more because he is coming and he's coming with full healing and restoration one day, and we look forward to that. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Absolutely. I love that so much, Melissa. It has been an absolute delight to talk with you today. We will have all of your contact information in the description of this episode and y'all, if you are not familiar with Melissa and the things she puts out in this world, you are now and you need to just follow her, you follow her on her website through Fieldstone.

And all the socials she's on. You just need to follow Melissa. She's amazing. So Melissa, thank you so much for being with us on Hey Tabi, we are so grateful to have had you here. 

Melissa Affolter: Thank you, Tabi. Happy to be here.

Tabitha Westbrook: Thanks for joining me for today's episode of Hey Tabi. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you wanna check out the [00:50:00] show notes, head on over to tabitha westbrook.com/hey Tabi, that's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I, and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.

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Tabitha Westbrook, LMFT-S, LCMCH-QS, LPC-S, CSAT, CCTP, CCTCP

Host
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Melissa Affolter

Guest