Healing Church Hurt: A Powerful Journey of Hope with my guest, Elizabeth Bennett McKinney

Healing church Hurt: A powerful Journey of hope with my guest, Elizabeth Bennett McKinney

About Elizabeth Bennett McKinney

Elizabeth Bennett McKinney grew up in South Carolina and is a graduate of Clemson University with a Master’s in Guidance and Counselling services. In 2001, she stepped forward in her bullying work and is a pioneer, expert and keynote speaker in the field. She has been recognized by the National Who’s Who for her development and work, as she helped to lay down the bullying problem throughout the United States. Currently, she is a pioneer in Church Hurt, where she coaches and speaks on the subject.

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Introduction

Good, beautiful day, beautiful, beautiful souls! This is Charla Anderson, host of the Charla Anderson Show~Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (& EVERYONE is Fascinating!), especially you. 

Church hurt. I guarantee you the vast majority of you have been there, relate to that topic, or know somebody who has, like I do. My guest today, Elizabeth Bennett McKinney, is an expert on living through it, healing from it, and helping you heal. 

…BUT FIRST…

We’re gonna have my little 22-second mini vacation. We’re gonna breathe in some calm for seven seconds. We’re gonna hold for four seconds. We’re gonna breathe out gratitude for 11 seconds and take a be still and know moment. Here we go. Will you join me with some calm? Here we go. Hold. Relax. Release. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

Wow, don’t you know, I say it every week, but shouldn’t we do that multiple times a day just to get some?

I’m so excited to have Elizabeth Bennett McKinney, my guest today. That is, you know, she’s a bully expert, and that’s not necessarily something you want to have the experience of being, but she is, and she’s helping others through it. So Elizabeth, would you please give us a little bit about who you are in this world, and then we’ll talk about what you do.

I’m Elizabeth, and if you want to talk about my identity, it’s in Christ. First and foremost, I am a child of the King. He created me. He planned my life for me. It’s really His. You know, I’m just here for the ride. And I have experienced a lot of things. And one thing she mentioned the bullying and I am a pioneer in the field. On December 15th, 2001, my website, which was research I’d done when I was at Clemson, my website was the first informational website on the subject to go live in the United States. Yeah. And for 15 years, I worked on this. I worked with families. I did coaching. I spoke throughout the nation. I helped lay the groundwork out there. Some of what I’ve done is out there. I’ve seen it. And I was really dedicated to the cause. And I had to step away in 2017 for personal reasons.

And over the past few months, I’ve been building my ministry, but I am still being led back into this to a degree. I don’t know, I’m praying about it. So yeah, I know all things, believe me, and you know, I lived it myself. I lived it myself. And so I see how the Lord lined all that up, you know, the things I went through, I was able to go through and help other people. I found myself, I met kids who were where I was, teens, and I’m like, I’ve got this, and I would give them, help them set goals towards working towards overcoming it. It can be prevented. It’s just a matter of doing the right steps and doing the right thing.

So we’re talking, basically, we’re talking about bullying, and your expertise is about the church hurt of bullying being heard in the church. And I will get into some of that, because I certainly had some of that in my family. You know, and I’ll just say this, because I say it a lot in my conversations, because bullies are victims too. Bullies can, you know, it’s like abused people are victims too. Yes. And God loves every single solitary person on the face of the earth, whether you’re in the gutter, whether you’re, you know, a murderer. I mean, God is love. He can’t not love. So, you know, I’m going to frame it around that because they come into it with experience, typically. I mean, it usually is handed down from somewhere else. I don’t think people are born necessarily bullies. So I feel like that’s a piece that we can just kind of toss out there now and have consideration as we’re moving through this topic, because it’s a tricky topic.

It is. You have to look at it case by case, though. You know, some, you look at the problems that develop from bullying. Okay. A lot of bullies, a lot of times, they become narcissistic, but so do those who were bullied. You know, pathology plays into this. Psychopaths, sociopaths, both sides of the coin. You know, there are bullies who have anxiety. There are bullies who are depressed. You know, you can’t really put it in one box. You know, you can’t. And each case, when I was doing this, I learned each case was unique. Whether it was, you know, two bullies, three bullies, one was depressed, one was, I mean, whatever, you know, it’s a case-by-case thing. And a lot of these, a lot of times when you look at the bully, some of them have been hurt, they learned it. It is a learned behavior. But also, some do it because they can’t. Some do it for entertainment. This is where it gets pathological. 

Some do it for entertainment. Some do it because they really are hurting. I, you know, when we got on Facebook, I would say about 15 years ago when it first came and everybody from school started reconnecting and this and that, you know, I would hear things here and there, how people grew up and, A lot of those who were bullies as children, they carried a large amount of guilt for the most part. But then there were one or two that were not sorry. They did everybody a favor. That’s when it gets dangerous. That’s when it gets dangerous because someone’s operating without a conscience when they do that. So it’s a mixed bag. You can look at the characteristics, the traits, but it’s a mixed bag.

It really is. Well, and there’s, you know, because there’s no two alike, you know, there is no cookie-cutter on all that. But, because the term has gotten so popular, you know, and well, they’re bullying me there, but so I, you know, my grandkids and my, and I’m like, you might consider something and perhaps, you know, looking at them as they don’t love themselves enough to love others. So somehow or another, there’s a missing piece. And so, yes, I know that there’s some seared consciences out there, however, you say that. But I do believe that all of it stems from not loving themselves enough to know how to treat and love others. A lot of it stems from that, and or something, and I don’t know where it comes from, from that deep.

 I can get to that. First of all, if two people are fighting, it’s not bullying. You know, I hear it all the time. I’d hear it when I go speak in the schools, someone would touch someone, you’re bullying me. No, you’re not. Or this person said this. And then this person said this, but this person says, no, you’re not. You’re having an argument. There is a difference. If two people are going back, I go, that’s not bullying. That’s just drama. And a lot of these kids will go around and you bullied me, you blah, blah, blah. But no, no, no, two people fighting is not bullying. It really isn’t.

 Well, that’s a good point. So when I was a little eight or nine-year-old getting bullied, we’ve taught a lot of people to be victims instead of standing up for themselves. And so I’m like, consider that perhaps they had a bad day. Perhaps they didn’t mean it. Perhaps something’s going on so deep at home that they don’t know how to treat each other or treat other people. And perhaps you could just, well, like my friend, like my daughter’s boyfriend, actually, he said, yeah, somebody came and not punched him out and did all this stuff and just beat him up. And he’s like, the next day, went up and shook hands with the kid and goes, You know, man, that was tough yesterday.

But, you know, and they became friends because the guy didn’t know how to become a friend. Right. So, you know, I’m trying to teach my little ones to consider. Don’t take it. First of all, don’t take everything personally. That’s that’s the that’s the victim mentality. You’re taking it personally, making assumptions and taking it personally and adding drama to your life instead of Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think some grace occasionally and not become a victim around it Don’t you mean and so in this tiny book split say I mean a candy bar hugs It doesn’t take much to make a difference one of my lines in here. One of the things I say about unconditional love is God loves unconditional love unconditional forgiveness not unconditional boundaries. You don’t want to be a victim and not have some boundaries.

I have concerns that because bullying is out there, because we do take up for the victim so much. I wonder if sometimes I’ve stepped after I stepped out of the field for a little while. I wonder, did we add to that victim mentality in some of these cases? I have to wonder because we don’t want victims. We want overcomers.

 We won’t overcomers and just, you know, stand in your, who you are and have enough confidence to, to stand in. And you shouldn’t take abuse. I’m not saying that because I used to say unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness like God does. And then I was like, somebody might take that to think that they can be caught to protect yourself too.

 You know, there are cases in my own life where, people went too far. I forgave them, but I also saw the toxic in them. And I had to keep my, I’m like, we’re not going to be friends because you’re just too much, you know? And sometimes you have to do that. You have to, cause you got to take care of yourself. And I think, I think the Lord understands we’re not going to like everybody. We’re not going to get along with everybody. Not everybody’s going to like us. You know, it’d be nice if that happened, but it’s not going to.

 And a little unrealistic, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

 There you go.

 Yeah. But so tell us, I want to know, I mean, you know, your story started at six years old and a 43 year old, some Christian started bullying you.

 And I don’t, I mean, that just seems out of, it’s called child abuse, plain and simple. The word here, here’s what I want to clear something up to stop. I wish people would stop using the word bullying over the word abuse is starting to replace that word. And it’s minimizing the problem. I don’t even call bullying, bullying. I call it peer abuse because that’s what it is. Plain and simple. So anyway, everything started at six. I got saved. I got saved. It was during the Jesus movement and it was in an evangelical church. It was on a Sunday evening, soon after I turned six and I was growing in God. I was growing in him. I loved him. 

You know, I was learning more and more about him, all of this. I was in church, you know, my Nana, my grandmother, she was very influential in my growth. You know, I had friends along the way and this was going on. I got a little older. I started getting confused in some areas with my faith because, you know, I had the world around me, but yet I had this. And, you know, we were always taught the world is bad. Christians, you know, don’t belong out there. But yet people were bringing the world into things. And, you know, I’m like, I want that too. I mean, it’s just part of my carnal makeup. And so I started getting a little confused. 

But when stuff really started happening was when I was 12. I turned 12. A woman and her daughter that my mother and I knew. My mother knew her growing up, but they weren’t friends and they became friends when they got older at this point. And this woman, she wanted to be popular in school, and she tried everything, but it just wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t going to happen. So her goal was to make her daughter popular and it became an idol to her. And her daughter didn’t really like me. My mother wanted me playing with this little girl, but the little girl didn’t want to play. So I was trying to get someone to like me. They just didn’t, you know? And one thing, one big thing I learned from all that, don’t try to make someone like you.

But this woman, you know, I was getting stressed out. The whole thing was stressful because I was trying to get along with this child. She didn’t want to talk to me. And my mother wanted me playing with her. And so, my mom went down to her house one night. She said, you know, cause this woman was going, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. We thought she was a total Christian woman. And my mother went down to her house one night and the woman, you know, mom went down there, you know, it says in Matthew 18 to go to your brother, if there’s a problem. And mom did that. And she, in her heart, she’s like, let’s go pray about this. 

This woman wasn’t interested in prayer. When my mother got down there, she screamed her out of the house. She said, my daughter’s perfect. Your daughter is this bad, horrible child, this kind of thing. I’m like, where did that come from? So soon after, you know, I was relieved when that happened because I didn’t have to try to make this child like me. You know, cause I’m like, if someone, you know, I was, I felt so much relief. But it was just getting started. This woman started spreading lies about me. 43 year old woman spreading lies about me. Well, I tampered with her item. There you go. And not only that, I realized later as I got older, she was narcissistic. And this is very characteristic of a narcissist. They love smear campaigns. And this woman, she should have known better, but in her sick mind, she did it. And she spread lies about me. I don’t even remember what half of them were to tell you the truth. It was getting back to my mother. People were like, what is going on with her? You know? They started spreading. They spread through two churches and three schools. 

And it got out of hand. It really did. And it was turning people against me left and right. I mean, here I was two months earlier singing Jesus Loves Me with these kids that were spitting spitballs in my hair two months later. I mean, yeah, it was intense. And we couldn’t stop it because my mother knew if she went back to her, it would have gotten worse. Her daughter was perfect. I was this bad. And she told everybody. And this really affected me, Charla. It really did. I developed depression, anxiety, PTSD. I was overly stressed. I was a very stressed out little girl. I really was. And this stayed with me. Gosh, through school. And I want to say when I was 24, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. And see, I have it on my father’s side of the family. It’s my paternal grandmother’s family is full of depression. 

So I carried the gene. And it got triggered by this. And I was put on medication. I was told for the rest of my life in 2017, I was taken off because I was healed. The Lord restored me. You know, I remember it was an article I was looking at when I did my bullying work that someone did for a newspaper. And I read in there, I looked at it and said, she knows she’ll be on medication the rest of her life. But I’m not. I haven’t been on it since. And, but you know, it, this was a real, I was bullied relentlessly because of all this, relentlessly. And I tell you, let me, you know,

This is sad. I mean, it’s really sad and, and, and, we don’t have the tools, your mom didn’t have the tools to teach you how to stand in your own strength. And we talk a whole lot about Christianity and, you know, I just, I just like to say this, this show is so much about relationship with, and not religion and religion as God in a box. And so, and my rules, you know, yeah, so I, I had heard the term religion definition is return to bondage. And when I heard that, I was like, God in a box and has, he has no box. This is about love and relationship. And the reason we’re in this, um, it’s the place where you’re talking about this, where, you know, my, my rules are better than your rules. I’m, I’m closer to God than you are. I, you know, I go to confession. 

So, or whatever the, I started thinking about this when I was laying over as a flight attendant in Rio, the most sinful city with the Cristo over and I’m like, Hmm. Something’s odd here, and really, going by religion is not my rules, manmade rules. God and relationships and when we can just be in that relationship which is nothing but filling you know you with with hope and love and that’s that’s that my show is not about has nothing to do with religion or even Christianity necessarily it is let’s offer hope Let’s offer overcoming stories, which yours is, and that’s why you’re here. And that’s why we talk about these things on here. 

And that’s, and if you, you know, faith is huge and i believe that who i am is bold faith no fear and i’ve said it for so many years who i am because in my other book split second transformation change your words change your life 31 daily practices every word matters every word matters and so we we curse ourselves when we say that i am and repeat something that God doesn’t see in us. And so off on that tangent, but I do like to recognize, I mean, I talk to anyone who has been an overcomer. It doesn’t have to be a person of my faith. So this is just something to pause and put in here just for a second to let, because it’s important to me that I love, I want to love as God loves, you know, I just love, and boundaries are important.

 Yes, they are. Yes.

 There we have it. So you’re telling a story of overcoming this little kid being bullied by an adult that is so insecure that, um, you know, I’m guessing that her daughter didn’t turn out to be the most genuine loving person on the face of the earth.

 Her daughter, I remember this woman, grinned at her for popularity. It was pathetic. And she managed, in her investment, she got some, you know, some reward for it. You know, this child was popular in middle school. When she was in high school, she fell off her throne, didn’t have anybody. I had more friends than she did at that point. But you know, this little girl, you look at people who are considered popular, they’re usually born leaders.

 They’re either born leaders or they’re, they’re kind of insecure, so that they- One of these, yeah.

 Well, I’ve had friends that were popular. I’ll say that. I’ve been around people who were popular. I know people who were popular, but, you know, I look at all of them. They’re just, you know, a lot of them are just born leaders. A lot of them don’t even think of themselves that way, the ones that I know. And it’s, you know, to me, popularity is just, is so, so insignificant. I just did on my Facebook page, I did a post about that this morning, you know, in my own life, because I’m writing my own story on there, sharing it with people. And, you know, when I was in the fifth grade, my best friend in my class was the most popular girl in school. But you know what, Charla, that’s not why I even liked her. I like it because we got along.

 A good leader would get along with most people and have that boundary. So speaking of, your name is Elizabeth with a Z, Bennett, two Ts, and McKinney, just M-C-K-I-N-N-N-E-Y. you can find we want to let people know where they can find you and your facebook page is church hurt in america church hurt in america so that’s kind of our topic here church hurt and people can find you on linkedin they can find you um on facebook when church hurt in america and your website name is churchhurt.net churchhurt.net. Okay. So I wanted to get that in there in case. So don’t forget at the end, you know, so I have a story too. Why? I mean, I mean, I, my, my, Oh, I, we went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, church camp, all those things and very active and very, my mom was so loved. She did. She was divorced. My dad left when I was six and, um, uh, and then she ended up getting remarried.

 Okay.

 And his ex-wife, they were all the same church, his ex-wife, I found out later, and this is what I think happened, I don’t know, I was young, I was about 12, I guess, and his ex-wife was spreading all kinds of rumors stuff about them. Now, my mom was the most, everybody loved my mom, and she was beautiful, and she was happy, and she was, you know, just genuine good people. And actually him not so much, but that’s another story. Regardless, they got married, and the church decided to make, it was one of the biggest churches, bigger churches in Houston, and the church decided to make them the example. about two divorcing and then remarrying and all that kind of stuff and and oh my god let me say it was really sad it was really hard and when you know to get disfellowshipped when you you know you’re just trying to live your life and they why exactly these late these

That’s where I’d say it’s not about religion as those man-made interpretations, man-made rules and regulations, and a God in a box, and He has, there is no box, and He, I mean, anyway, He’s us, right? He lives in us. I am. He’s the I am in us. We, you know, we didn’t, I didn’t know all that then, but it was really sad and it was really hard and it turned a lot of people upside down.

 So did my, my situation was like that. So I get it. I’m just sorry your mom went through that. I really am Charla.

 me too and because she was so she just was so sweet i mean she just and then so there was a lot of hurt there i got they let me choose i kept going they would take me to that church because i was where all my friends were and i can’t even imagine that now you know and so they went we ended up in another church and you know all else from that, but you know, what, you know, so I’m guessing that most people that have, that have, you know, most people probably do have some church hurt or know people that do.

 I think to a degree we all do, because we’re imperfect humans.

 Well, and so church, let me just define church. Church is people. It’s not a building.

 It’s not a building. It’s people, exactly.

 Church is people, and they’re adding one of us. That’s perfect. And those people that feel like they have this power over other people in these organizations, you know, not legitimate.

 gets problematic and you know, you look at people and a lot of times we hurt people. We don’t even know we’re doing it because a lot of times us ourselves are not really trying to do it. You know, I look back at my situation. I think this woman was acting out of her own narcissism. I really do. You know, she just, this is what she had become. And with her thinking, you tampered with my idol, because her daughter was her idol. You tampered with my idol. We can’t have that, because you look at people in idolatry. You tamper with their idol. They’re mad. They’re furious.

 And that poor child having to live up to something that they don’t, you know, it seems a little bit, a little challenging.

 Well, her daughter, I don’t think had the personality to maintain popularity. You know, it takes a certain personality. It’s usually someone that’s outgoing. They take initiative. They are positive. Like we’ve been talking about, you know, and this little girl, she, she was very, She was a science nerd at the end of the day. You know, I don’t like to use the term nerd, but she was into science. You know, she might wind up getting a degree in biology. You know, that’s where her heart was. And I can only imagine what she went through with her mother, with all this, you know?

 What a sad, I mean, there’s no winning there when you’re in that thing.

 When you’re in that thing and someone’s trying to get their desires met and they’re hurting their body in the process, there’s just no winning.

 vicariously through their child and that’s a very dangerous place to be.

 That’s what she was doing. Yes. And, you know, I look at this little girl and she, she wasn’t a born, she wasn’t even a people person. If you look at her at the end of the day, you know, she just wasn’t, you know, she was happy with her animals really, but it was sad. And I think, you know, as people, like I said, we’re going to do stuff. We’re human. It gets problematic when it gets out of control like that. And when people start getting hungry for power or people start playing God themselves.

 Well, I want to shift a little bit to something that just came to mind. But first, if you don’t mind, we’re going to take a mini moment to talk about one of my most favorite things, which is cellular health. Cellular health. Are you hard and crunchy cells or soft and squishy cells? So we’re going to have a little mini break about that. So let’s just take a breathing moment here. OK, we’re back. We’re back. And I’m going to just take my liquid gold, my one second shot a day of my liquid omegas.

 They’re hilarious.

 and get my omegas back in balance charlaanderson.com/zinzino z-i-n-z-i-n-o charlaanderson.com/zinzino because i didn’t put it in the commercial and and you know if you can’t be you unreal what’s the point so so i’m um We had, we were talking, you know, you’re talking about this bullying, all this kind of stuff. So how, what are the solutions? Let’s aim, this time goes fast. So let’s get towards the solutions on how people can literally, how they can find you, what you offer, how, and I know you said, reach out, you, we don’t have to do this alone. You’ve got, you’ve got a plan to help folks. So can you, you want to talk a little to that?

 Now that school’s starting back, this is the perfect opportunity. First of all, when they’re upset, you need to listen. I don’t mean sit there and play on your phone while you’re like, listen. Really listen to what they’re saying. These people are hurt. They’re really, really hurt. They’ve been violated. They need love. They don’t need judgment. They don’t need criticism. They need love. Document, document, document, document everything. Date, time, who was there, what happened? If your child is being bullied, do not call the bullies parents. Because as you see in my case, this woman had precious darling syndrome. That’s a little term I use. A lot of these parents have that. They don’t want to believe their child can do wrong. And you need to get a third party involved. You really do. And what else?

 So like I was saying also, I don’t think I completed this idea, but also give them some tools to consider seeing a different perspective and to not take everything personally and to go, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe they just don’t have, you know, they don’t, like I said before, don’t love themselves enough to love others, but they also, what if you could kind of, I don’t mean take abuse at all, I’m not saying that, but see that perspective that they don’t, they just don’t know how, and offer a bit of empathy if it’s not escalating, if you can possibly manage it so you don’t become a victim and thinking they’re doing this to me instead of, you know, maybe I mean, I have what I used to call a forgiveness release. I guess I still do. 

But, you know, we’re all five-year-olds, little hurt five or seven-year-olds that, you know, I’ll never let that happen to me again. And we start building these layers. So all of us have something in there, right, that was hurt. And most of us, you know, manage to live a life, you know, decent life regardless. But I think we all have a lot of that in there. I would say first, I love that you’re saying document, document, document, if there really is, you know, something going on, but don’t, this is my thought and you’re the expert. My thought is like, don’t just assume that your child is perfect too, right? I mean, they may be wanting a little revenge about something or maybe a little, You know, they’re not there. None of us are. And they might be the bully. If you know, so really, if you have discernment. Yeah. And you look at both sides and you listen to both sides and get and let’s give these kids tools. and words. 

And I’m a mindset coach. So, you know, what if you have a, I told him you wear this, this eggshell around you that, you know, that when people say things, just let it bounce back to them. The vast majority of things people say and do have so little to do with you, really. You just happen to be in their way, the one in their, in their shot. And so what if you can wear this protective layer and just let that stuff if they’re not hurting physically or, you know, just well, a lot on strong power. So there’s so many, like you said, there’s so many different situations we can’t judge. But B, if I was listening to somebody tell the story, I’m going to go, you know, thinking, well, I wonder what their part was. You know, I mean, we we want to give benefit of the doubt and be discerning.

 Yeah, we do. And One thing that I’ve always recommended to parents, get them in therapy because these therapists are going to sit down and they’re going to go over everything that they’re dealing with. And they’re going to know how to handle this. You know, you, you want someone to be happy and well adjusted, get them help immediately. You know, I, when I’ve talked to parents, you know, they’ve told me the signs and symptoms that their children are having and, I’ve told them, I said, get them immediately into some kind of therapy where they can set goals and work through the trauma. 

Because some of these people are severely wounded, they’re traumatized. And a lot of times I think when a person keeps having layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of bad experience, that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I can tell you where, you know, we can talk about tools, but I’m going to tell you where your healing is. Cause this is what healed me. It’s in the scriptures. That’s where you need to go to find your answers. We can talk self-help books. We can talk experts. We can do it all. But in this is what I’m doing in my own stuff. I am going to the word with this going to the word and depending on the situation, looking towards scripture that fits the situation. So, you know, that, that’s where, you know, when you talk of these things, that’s where I’m going, because really that is where your healing is going to happen.

 So do you offer one, do you offer coaching specifically? I do. Okay.

 So, um, I am right now, I am, um, shepherding some people, a couple of people and I, you know, kind of you know they asked me quite I try to help them you know I kind of see where they are you know I’m not doing it formally right now because I’m planning to launch in September that’s when I’ll be going full-throttle I’ve been building a lot of this up so nice that’s only so we’re recording the end of July so yeah that’s only a month away looking to do it in September But when I go back to my bullying work, when I did it before, a lot of the times I identified the psychology that was going on with the person. 

And I would tell them, this is what it sounds like you have. You need to get in therapy. You need to get in therapy. You need to talk to someone, a psychotherapist. You need to be in something. And if they needed medication, they needed to get on it. I was on medication. I got healed. And God will heal you. Just ask Him. Pray. Get people to pray. It will happen. It’ll happen in His timing, but it’ll happen. It really will. It’ll happen. I can speak. He’s in the restoration business.

 Absolutely. he’s love and he wants you to feel loved and know you’re loved. There’s nothing, I mean he loves you if you’re Like, did I say this already on this show? I don’t know if you did or not. If you’re a murderer, he loves every creation, every person on the face of the earth, and wants us all restored. And there’s a lot of things. There’s a lot of drama. So I gave up attachment to drama in 2013. Oh, I don’t want it. Go, go. I don’t. I try to. you know, just kind of skirt my way around or just kind of ignore it, drama. And, and if you watch a lot of television, you’re going to have drama and they encourage it. So I would, I would, I would just, we both discourage watching much television for sure. Especially, but yeah, there’s a lot of divisiveness there they’re promoting and, and, and, and victimhood, that there’s a lot of that. And that media world is not in our, they’re not our friends. They’re not telling us who we are, because who we are is perfect in every way. I mean, none of us are perfect. Cancel, cancel what I just said, but You know, God sees us as He just loves us. If He is love, 

He can’t be not love. And there’s nothing that you can do to be loved more or less by God. There’s nothing you can do to be loved more or less by God. Now, there are certain things that you can do to have a better life and to show up. And if you don’t like where you are, you can’t change how you got here, but you can change your next step where you’re headed. Those are words I say a lot. People listen to me, they hear the same messages a lot.

 No, you’re funny.

 It’s the truth.

 But it’s the truth. It really is. It really is. And I was going to say something and I lost my train of thought.

 You said one of your quotes is, sticks and stones may break my bones, but I will not be bullied.

 You got that right, sister.

 I know how to stop a bully, that’s why. We can shift just a smidge to the narcissistic personality, because you will never, ever, ever win. if someone is truly a narcissist, there’s no possible way that you can have the last word. And that’s, I hate that. It just is so sad that so many people seem to have become more, so inward focused, right? So, and the way, one way in a relationship that somebody is, you know, just you’re trying to have a car, you know, trying to get your point across. You will never get your point across. They will never agree with you. So, so one of the things is doing and I did this, you know, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And just keep doing what you’re doing. 

Just keep doing what you’re doing. Keep doing what you’re doing. Yes. And I’m still going to the store. Yes, I’m still going out or yes, I’m yes. And is my my one of my key phrases is like, yes, I hear you. and I’m still doing this, or yes, I hear you and you’re still grounded, or yes, I’m, you know, whatever it is, yes, and are powerful words. And I do a whole chapter on that in my little book.

 Well, you’re mentioning a narcissist. When I was in college, it was considered a personality disorder. Now, narcissism is a full-blown character disorder and it’s prevalent in our society today. It is out of control. I would say at this point, maybe one in three people are narcissistic. It’s about the narcissist is about image. It’s all about what’s on the outside. It’s all about the pocket book. It’s all about the status. You know, that’s what they look at. They don’t, they don’t empathize because they don’t know how they have no empathy. You saw what happened with this woman. A normal, well-adjusted person has a well-adjusted amount of empathy. They would not even go there with someone else. But say you were dealing with someone without empathy, and this is what they do. This is what they do. 

You don’t tamper with them. They’re always right. Oh, and their narcissistic rage is scary. They can go off and shred a person apart. Shred a person apart. I have crossed paths in my life. You know, people come and go in our lives. And some of the people that have come and gone in mine, I’ve looked back and realized, were they narcissistic? I think they were.

 and they were so image conscious. They were so worried about status. I can’t go to lunch with you, but I can go with you.

 The selfie mentality, right?

 I think that adds to it. This is why I don’t like to have my picture taken. You get on Facebook, you see the perfect life of people. They make it look larger than life. And a lot of these people are narcissistic in some cases, you know, and this is why today I don’t take pictures because I’m more concerned about what’s inside. I don’t care what you got going on out here. I care about what you got going on in here. That’s what I’m looking at. And you know, it’s just, it’s out of control, but this goes with, along with the last days, we were warned about a lot of this. You know, it’s false prophets are rising up. I think this is adding to the church problem. 

You know, you got a lot of them getting into the church and they’re fooling everybody. You know, they’re, they’re larger than life. They’re, you know, too adorable to not touch, you know, whatever. And they’re, you know, they’re in there and they’re tearing the body of Christ up is what they’re doing. And,

 you know there’s so much more i can say on this so what we do you and i are very confident i’m very confident that you know god has already won and so i’m outrageously optimistic that we get to You know, we’re watching this, and this time’s looking in such chaos. But if you can maintain your peace, that has His understanding, that be still in there, you can maintain and walk in this confidence of God has already won. And we’re just watching Satan having his last ditch effort.

 And he’s working overtime because he knows his time is running out.

 Yep. Amen. And he’s so, so there’s, it’s, this is what we’re witnessing is not politics. It’s good and evil, a war between good and evil.

 It has come down to good versus evil out there now. It truly has. You know, I was talking at my church. I have a group of girlfriends and we, we have a lot of conversations about this stuff and we have come to the, the bottom line here is it’s come to good versus evil, Satan versus God. That’s where we are.

 And these, you know, I don’t know, predators or, you know, the politicians defined, you know, so many of them have been, I think, compromised, but somehow along the line, we’ve got the power in them. And so that is coming to light and they’re protecting their image, like you’re saying, is coming to light. And I believe a lot of the more crazy you know, ideology that has just surfaced in the last 20 or 30 years. It was like, you know, this is so off this topic, I think, but oh my goodness, you know, I believe that the, you know, somebody, the media, the powers that be, whoever’s creating all this Somebody’s got to have an agenda behind it. Oh, there is an agenda. They will never fall for those more than two genders. They’ll never fall for more than two genders.

 It’s out of control.

 Yeah, they did.

 We can keep doing this or we can get right with God.

 Yeah, and just be, just, I believe we really don’t need a lot of laws. We need to be. We need a lot of Jesus. The golden rule. We need the golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Be treated exactly. Be kind and love one another and have empathy like you were just saying. And we’ve got to, we need to turn the world back. We need Jesus. And pick up after yourself. I always have to add that one. It was just still part of being kind, right?

 You don’t know what someone’s going through. Just be nice. What do you get out of being ugly, really? I don’t get it.

 You know, as a flight attendant, I’ll just say this, we’re going to have this winding down. So think of your last call to action or whatever you want to share. But, you know, I remember getting on the employee bus to go home, to go to the car. and after a flight and the agents were on this employee bus talking about this one passenger and the flight attendants had been dealing with and talked about this one passenger and this I mean this this ripple of you’ve got 30 people that you’ve probably witnessed many many more than that of this how horrific behavior adult behavior that people literally rippled through many, many departments and people. And, and I was, 

I don’t remember the story, what he did, but it was who, who wants to be that. And what if, and, you know, obviously he’s a very, tortured person to treat other people like that. And, and so what, you know, I want to be known as the one that, you know, man, they, they just want to stay in. I’m literally, this happens in my home, you know, people, they want to be in my presence. They don’t know why, but they want to go in. I attract friends because my goal is to be the light in the dark place. My goal is to step out and be the light. And people want to be in your presence and your energy. You get service people that want to come and just kind of hang a little, linger a little longer.

 I have no trouble as an adult making friends. The Lord has put many people around me.

 And I think grocery store I have, you know, you know, I try to be a light, just try to approach people in love, you know, and know that they’re going through hard things and the hardest. This is another thing another thing I quote out of my little candy bar hugs book is like, and the harder they are to love, the more they need it. So this is even, I mean, bullies need love too. We all do. We really do. We need our distance or our discernment, but you know, sending them love. And another way to do that is just, may you be blessed, may you be blessed, may you be blessed, and keep your distance if that’s necessary.

 But you know who the real bully is at the end of the day? Really? No, no, no, no, no. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Really? The Lord has shown me so much here.

 I pointed up and then I know, so I’m pointing down, but so people tend to listen to this on podcasts more than watch it. So, you know, sometimes you want to describe it.

 But yes, he’s the real bully. He fuels all this. The Lord over the past few years has shown me every ounce of this. When I stepped out of the field, he started showing me a whole other Just looking at it from a whole other perspective, I’m like, oh my gosh, he really is at the bottom of this. Really and truly. Don’t feed him. Don’t. That’s what I say. Don’t feed this boy.

 Take a deep breath and listen to the still small voice and I guarantee you the answers to almost anything you can ever, ever ask.

 Yeah, just be still and listen, ask, you know, ask, believe, receive, you’re going to, you know, and ask, but you don’t beg, you know, you don’t have to beg him, but just, you know, 4610 in Psalms is the perfect, perfect starting point and stopping point. Just be still. You’ll hear that voice. He will direct you. He will guide you. He will give you confirmations. He will talk to you through other people. He will prompt you to do things.

 You know, just listen to it and step towards it, even if it feels completely opposite of what’s advised or whatever. I would almost guarantee, and I don’t know how I would do that, but I mean, I feel like almost any time that if you really listen inside to your still small voice, be quiet. So we don’t ever have quiet around us, right? We’ve got noise all the time. Something’s going on. We’re always looking at these machines. I can’t stand it. In my home it’s quiet because I don’t turn anything on. Mine is completely silent. Mine too. Oh my gracious. I don’t want background noise. I drive. I’m driving on a five-hour drive. I drive in silence. I don’t need all of that. And I’m going to take a 12 hour trip and I’m like, I’ve got 12 hours of silence, man. I very seldom.

 But I’ll do it because I can hear what he’s telling me. I don’t want all that. I want to hear what he’s telling me. Whether it’s I’m hearing it inside, whether it’s I’m hearing it from another person. you know, whether it’s a confirmation, whatever, you know, whatever.

 The noise level in our society is, oh, I just, I just leave it on for the background noise. I’m like, no, turn it off. You can’t hear the right, you can’t hear anything else if you have that. So we’re ending up here. This is amazing. Do you have your last thoughts or anything else you want to add to this? And we, we will, uh, I have to call it a day.

 Talk to me. You can find me on my website. You can find me on Facebook.

 Repeat your website and repeat these things.

 Churchhurt.net. You can find me on Facebook at Church Hurt in America. And if you’re looking to collaborate, look for me on LinkedIn, Elizabeth B. McKinney. And let’s talk. Talk to me.

 Find somebody to talk to if you’re having that kind of issue. And it’s great that we have, you know, found each other through, through, is it Bree? Bree, yes, we have. I would have to mention Terri Lee. Oh, she’s precious.

 She is precious.

 A lot of my guests come from her.

 She is precious. She really is.

 She’s a speaker coach. She’s a speaker. She’s a Christian. She’s trying to get Christians that want to speak. Yes. Giving them the tools to do so.

 She has been a blessing to me. She truly has.

 Yeah.

And this was a blessing too. Thank you, Charla, for having me.

 Oh, thank you. Well, it’s been a great quick hour again, and I’m so grateful for you. Please go to charlaanderson.com/podcast, /Zenzino, but slash podcast. And it’ll be a blog, and this will come out on my website as a blog. Then when you watch it, you can watch it on YouTube. Please like and subscribe on YouTube and go back and look. You know, it’s it’s time for me to start building this up a bit. So I’m so grateful for you to have been my guest in our time today. Thank you. I look forward to getting to know you better. Yeah. Thank you, Charla. You have a blessed day and always, always, always choose joy.

Important Links

• Website:  http://www.churchhurt.net 
• Facebook-   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575620554408
• LinkedIn-  https://www.linkedin.com/in/churchhurt/
• E-Book- “Peer Abuse Know More! Bullying From A Psychological Perspective”

Connect with Charla Anderson:

For more insights and to follow Charla’s creative journey, check out her website and her other projects:

• Website: CharlaAnderson.com
• YouTube: Check out her channel for beginner art tips, life wisdom, and more!

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About  Elizabeth Bennett McKinney

She has been recognized by the National Who’s Who for her development and work as she helped to lay down the bullying problem throughout the United States. Currently, she is a Pioneer in Church Hurt where she coaches and speaks on the subject. She lives a quiet yet vibrant life in South Carolina where she is active in her church in heading up the singles group, sings in the choir, a greeter and serves in the Wounded Spirits Ministry helping those who struggle with PTSD. Also, a 15 year participant in Bible Study Fellowship where she serves as a hostess and heads up the hostess luncheons each Spring. Also, participates in two other Bible studies. She enjoys spending time with her cousins and friends on a regular basis.

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