The Hopeful Perspective
Welcome to "The Hopeful Perspective" a podcast discussing what it entails to transform from a personal position of suffering, pain, loss and HOPELESSNESS toward a renewed perspective of security, perseverance, love and HOPE. I am your host, Jason Hopkins, a long time victim and survivor who has personally been impacted by the Lord to be a victor and a thriver! In each podcast episode you can expect to find authentic dialog from a Biblical and experiential perspective—that is, BEYOND mere religious anecdotes and simple academic exercise—though all used together engage how to find the HOPE that is essential in moving from a victim to victory. Survivor to thriver. Hopeless to hopeful.
Please download, share, subscribe and stay tuned for this journey with me. Leave a review to support and spread awareness for the Hopeful Perspective. As a man who has lived, studied and who truly understands the definition of not only 'surviving' trauma, but authentically thriving as a renewed creation amidst a broken and hurting world, I am humbled to share this platform with you. Prepare to be a critical thinker, a passionate responder and ultimately to be inspired towards The Hopeful Perspective. I would be honored to eventually earn your trust, and welcome you as a part of the 'Hopeful' family.
The Hopeful Perspective
Jar Of Clay Part 4: Defeating Fear Discovering Fulfillment
Ever wondered how the ties you form in childhood shape your adult relationships? Join me, Jason Hopkins, as I unravel the complex web of fear bonds, often known as trauma bonds, that can bind us to patterns of control, codependency, and resentment. By understanding these formative connections, you'll learn to identify unhealthy emotional enmeshment and the ways in which self-worth becomes entangled with relationships. Discover how recognizing these dynamics can pave the way for healthier, love-based interactions that nurture true intimacy, peace, and authenticity.
Sharing my own journey from a challenging upbringing in foster care to finding faith-driven healing, I open up about the transformative power of faith and community. My experiences with trauma bonds illuminate the path from emotional wounds to redemption through trust in God’s plan. This episode is an invitation to seek help, dismantle protective barriers, and embrace genuine connections with others. Whether you are at the beginning or well along in your healing journey, you are encouraged to become a beacon of hope as you dismantle the barriers keeping you from ultimate freedom and fulfillment in your relationships with God and the important people in your life.
Are you inspired by what you hear today? Jason deeply appreciates his listeners taking their time to listening, downloading, and sharing The Hopeful Perspective Podcast. Please help me spread 'hope' to others by writing a review for the podcast making it reachable for all who need to be inspired, encouraged, and changed by hoping once again. Further, understand that downloading the podcast is a surefire way to help increase the algorithm thus the reach of The Hopeful Perspective, even if you delete the episode after listening so as to not affect your data storage. I have also provided a (Support the Show) link DIRECTLY ABOVE THIS PARAGRAPH to click on for those who have shared with me they are "all in" and feel called to financially support the mission and vision of The Hopeful Perspective. A special thank you to those who have made this humble step to financially support the podcast. Without you, there is no US!
Jason Hopkins can also be reached on Facebook as well as Instagram and Threads (jayhop9953). You can also follow 'The Hopeful Perspective' FB page; where you can find more information as well as learn about upcoming news and episodes on the The Hopeful Perspective Podcast.
Welcome to the Hopeful Perspective Podcast. I am your host, jason Hopkins. This podcast is designed to give you a perspective of hope that impacts your daily life in an authentic and tangible way. I have utilized the first six episodes of this podcast to share my own personal life story, which illustrates God's glory. Through experiences overcoming child abuse and trauma, 26 foster homes and institutions, various diagnoses affecting me throughout my life and an eventual brain tumor resulting in multiple brain surgeries on my brainstem, I have moved from being merely a surviving victim to a faithful and thriving victor who the Lord has motivated to help others discover hope. Though my past was full of pain and suffering, I have been restored with purpose and sanctification. I have been redeemed and called to follow Christ within that redemption and renewed perspective, and I now want to help you, too, to have a biblical and hopeful perspective as you approach differing situations in your own life, from the delightful to the difficult and everything in between. I want to take a moment to thank you for listening and, if you have done so, taking the time to download our episodes, as when you download, along with rating our podcast with an honest response, you help the algorithm immensely to spread our reach. That said, our stats demonstrate that, while thousands listen and stream the Hopeful Perspective, less than 10% actually download our episodes. Please consider bridging this gap. To help broaden that reach for us, we have also provided a few options to either contact our show with your direct feedback, as well as to support the podcast financially. If you are called to partner with us in bringing hope to a hurting world, just click the embedded links found on any episode you are downloading on your podcast platform.
Speaker 1:Before we get started today, I want to compel you to grab your favorite snack, hot or cold beverage. Get comfortable and come on this journey with me as we delve back into our series Jar of Clay and discuss how our relationships are affected by differing kinds of bonds formed in our youth and how we can be renewed within these bonds. If you are listening for the first time, this series Jar of Clay is based on the book Living from the Heart Jesus Gave you. We left off our last time within the series, discussing the varying stages of development and maturity and how this affects our mental, emotional and spiritual development. Today, we discuss how this maturity is built and we will unpack how maturity is impossible without forming bonds between people. The reciprocity in our bonds shapes our perspective and our values.
Speaker 1:There are two kinds of bonds that affect our relationships Fear bonds that energize us to avoid pain and feelings like rejection, shame and humiliation etc. And love bonds, which are formed around joy and motivate people to live in intimacy, peace, truth and authenticity. These two bonds we experience during our formative years, depending on our upbringing, inevitably shape the way we relate to one another. While both can influence human behavior and interactions, their underlying motivations and characteristics are markedly different. The first bond we will discuss that is formed in our youth is a fear bond, often referred to as a trauma bond.
Speaker 1:Fear bonds formed when we are unable to be protected or when self-preservation fails during our formative years. When fear dominates our early relationships and we feel we can't escape trauma, then our main guidance system is governed by pain avoidance, even when it is unnecessary. Fear bonds are driven by feelings of insecurity, anxiety or dependency. They may be formed as a result of past trauma, fear of abandonment or low self-esteem. So how do we know if we tend to live with fear or trauma bonds? I'd say when we operate under fear, we live in a perpetual state of anxiety, of shame, blame-shifting against others or even blaming ourselves and we can become emotionally paralyzed. Yet there are also a few characteristics that one can look for in relationships that are governed by fear bonds or trauma bonds, and they are these Number one control.
Speaker 1:Fear bonds often involve a need to control or manipulate other people in a relationship to alleviate the feelings of personal insecurity. Anyone who has been victimized in abuse situations is, unfortunately, familiar with how trauma bonds and fear bonds are formed between offender and victim, regardless if the offender is perpetrating physical, mental, emotional, sexual or other kinds of abuse. The victim learns to concede to other people for their own protection and future relationships, often trumping their own basic needs to avoid conflict and to remain in control themselves. Victims of childhood abuse will spend much of their lives formulating defense strategies and coping mechanisms to remain in their own control of themselves. Outsiders will view these mechanisms as unhealthy and destructive and will find such people difficult to bond with, and this is often the case. Yet we need to understand that these protective mechanisms have nothing to do with you personally and everything to do with them feeling safe and secure, even when the methods appear illogical.
Speaker 1:This leads us to the second characteristic, and that is codependency. Relationships marked by fear bonds may become overly reliant on one another, leading to unhealthy emotional enmeshment. This occurs when one of the parties of the relationship is incapable of having their basic needs met through healthy alternatives, and so they fill their void through the means of a relationship. The relationship becomes their everything, and the person's own value is based on the relationship. Emotional enmeshment or codependency is a common expression of a trauma bond, as it can play out in marriages, parent or kid relationships, etc. And it can be justified as just merely expressing love to their family members. As a result, people within codependent relationships with their spouse or family members often have a difficult time acknowledging or recognizing this dynamic of their relationships. Yet most often, people who have put their spouse and or their kid into the role of their everything have very few, if any, other, friends or outlets that they have healthy relationships with, and this is often one of the diagnostic criteria of their codependent relationships with their spouses or children, etc.
Speaker 1:The third characteristic of a trauma bond is resentment. Fear bonds can lead to feelings of resentment, anger and bitterness within relationships. Often, people who have fear or trauma bonds develop the defense mechanism of keeping people at an arm's length, and they do this with a critical spirit and a sharp tongue. When we can find the negative in an individual or pinpoint the issues another person has, we can write them off and find excuses to not bring them closer to us. Then we remain safer. I utilized anger for many years as a defense mechanism that protected me in foster home after foster home, and though I kept a wall up to keep the harmful people out, I also kept the safe and loving people away from me as well. This defense mechanism ensured that I was lonely for many years.
Speaker 1:The fourth characteristic of fear of trauma bonds is fear of abandonment. Individuals within trauma bonds at the very core have a very deep-seated fear of abandonment, which can drive them to foster or seek unhealthy relationships from a young age and carry this tendency well into their adulthood. I have counseled domestic abuse survivors who have all attributed their fear of abandonment as one of the crucial reasons they remained within their abusive situations. Of course, as we've discussed earlier, trauma bonds are at the core of any offender or victim relationship, and the enemy exploits this dynamic to keep the victims imprisoned and paralyzed. As you can imagine, these characteristics disable a person from fulfilling their God-given potential. Those who battle fear or trauma bonds often maintain a destructive pattern within relationships until they find true and authentic freedom or breakers of their chains.
Speaker 1:The second bond we potentially develop in our youth is referred to as a love bond. Love bonds are driven by affection and admiration and are rooted in a desire for connection, intimacy and reciprocated relationship. Love bonds are built in nurturing homes during the developmental years, when a young person's basic needs are sufficiently met. The characteristics of a person who primarily operates within loving bonds are as follows. The first is they operate with mutual trust. Love bonds are built on trust and the belief that the other person has your best interests at heart. This does not mean that when people open themselves up to being hurt, that they are immune to pain, just that their primary function is to trust their loved ones and that they return to joy once they have experienced pain or disappointment at the hands of a loved one.
Speaker 1:The second characteristic of love bonds is that of mutual respect. Mutual respect is essential for healthy love bonds, as it fosters understanding and appreciation. A person who respects another is able to put another person above themselves in a healthy manner and move from being egocentric to other-centric. We have been called to love God and to love others, and this, being a respecter of persons, is a crucial aspect of this calling. The third characteristic of a love bond is one of mutual support. People operating in a love bond provide practical support to one another, and this entails supporting one another emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, etc. We read in Romans 12 that, as believers, we are to rejoice with one who rejoices and to weep with one who weeps. This is a beautiful picture of what it entails to support someone in a mutually reciprocative manner, to provide support whenever the situation calls for it.
Speaker 1:And the final characteristic of a love bond is one of mutual intimacy. Love bonds are characterized by a sense of closeness that can only be achieved when the parties in the relationship are willing to be close. People in love bonds tend to risk by sharing the most difficult and the darkest truths of their lives with their loved ones, despite how they are portrayed or painted in the process. We cannot be intimate in our relationships if we are unwilling to risk or to be vulnerable, and being intimate is one of the most important parts of any relationship that we are to be a part of. People operating in healthy love bonds foster strong, reciprocated relationships that are capable of being challenged yet still persevere under that pressure. When we are motivated by love, we are not controlled by fear, for, as the word says, perfect love casts out all fear.
Speaker 1:There is an additional primary difference between trauma bonds or fear bonds and that of love bonds, and it has to do with how they are weaponized. The enemy of our souls attempts to utilize fear and trauma in relationships through the lies that fear bonds say about us, and we believe those lies in our relationships. They start when we are younger. We cannot live or survive without anger, anxiety, self-protection, etc. We will not make it without pushing others away. As we grow older, we are so rooted in these false belief systems that they seem to be a significant part of who we are until we began to experience true, loving and genuine bonds that teach us who we really are and what we are genuinely capable of, that we can survive by letting others into our world, into our space, that, even if we are wounded, we really won't die. The truth is we have a picture of a love story and a love bond in the Bible so strong that God so loved the world that he gave up his only son so that you and I could inherit eternal life. He saved us from spiritual death. This is true. And selfless love. This is true and selfless love. Fear bonds and trauma bonds are forms of manipulation and control, whereas love bonds are unconditional and selfless love. Jesus loves us without condition, no matter what we do or what we have ever done.
Speaker 1:I want to take a look at a few other relationships in the scriptures that demonstrate different bonds. Let's first take a look at Abraham and Isaac. We see in Genesis 22 that Abraham so trusted the Lord that he followed his commands to take Isaac, his one and only son, up the side of Mount Moriah to sacrifice him. Yet we also see this story as a testament to the depth of parental love. As we know, the love bond that Abraham had with his son. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, as commanded by God, demonstrates the ultimate act of love and obedience with the Lord, and I know I can't imagine, as a father of a son, what it must have taken for Abraham to face his fear all the while trusting his love for Father God even more.
Speaker 1:The next story is that of Ruth and Naomi. Now, this story is a beautiful example of friendship and loyalty. Ruth's unwavering devotion to her mother-in-law, naomi, is a symbol of selfless love and unconditional compassion. This whole story, which I encourage you to read, is a beautiful depiction of a love bond that models authentic commitment, despite the fact that Ruth did not know what the future held for her. Yet she loved her mother-in-law and she loved her Lord.
Speaker 1:And the final story I want us to just consider is that of Joseph and his brothers. This last relationship in scriptures has multiple layers to it. Despite being betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers, joseph eventually forgives them. His love for his family triumphs over his pain and resentment. This narrative is particularly powerful because we see the beginning of the story, where trauma affects Joseph's life. Yet Genesis 50-20 depicts what must have began as a fear bond and a trauma bond turning into a love bond where Joseph declares you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done the saving of many lives. Doesn't that just sound like Jesus today and the redemption that he gives us and offers us? Regardless how our own journey started or how the enemy originally caused havoc in our own life, jesus can take that damage and trauma and now use its redemption for the saving of so many other lives. After all, that is how and why you are listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1:My own story is filled and marred with trauma bonds throughout as a result of the childhood trauma, the ritual abuse, the abandonment, the neglect, 26 foster homes, the institutions, etc. I had no idea how to trust anybody in my life when I first entered foster care as an angry and broken nine-year-old child and, as a result, my relationships were all marred by trauma bonds and fear bonds. Jesus and the Holy Spirit had to do a miraculous work on my heart and my soul in order for me to come to a place to accept and receive the help needed, that I could trust the trustworthy people and to cease blocking their help in my life. Though I had high walls that were built to keep the darkness out, it also kept the light out as well, and as those walls began to fall, his restoration and his redemptive work began to take place. I soon began to realize that not all people were looking to manipulate and to gain an edge and harm me, that there are those who are genuinely good, kind and loving and they are looking to share good, kind and loving acts with me, looking to share good, kind and loving acts with me, though I was opening myself to being hurt, and though I would indeed get hurt at times, I learned how to bounce back and to recover from a place of being victimized to being a survivor and a victor, as you hear me often say with pride on this podcast.
Speaker 1:I say this repetitiously due to decades of work that the Lord has done on restoring this heart of mine, and I know that as I sit here recording today, there are many listening in that are walking through this same redemptive process at varying places in your own walk. Perhaps you are further back in the process, more towards the beginning of your journey, where you are still learning about how trauma and pain has affected the bonds and the relationships in your life and you now recognize that you need to seek outside help of your own. Or maybe you're further along, like I am, where you are now in the role of a helper operating in your calling, where the Lord has taken what the enemy had intended for destruction and instead is now using you for the saving of many other lives. Regardless of where you are on the journey, you are listening today by design and by God's plan, and that, friends, is no mistake. I pray that as you are listening, you are not just undergoing information transference, but rather you are sensing the Spirit talking directly to you Because, friends, in my experience the Holy Spirit is deeply personal and with Him there are no accidents, incidents, coincidences or instances where he is not weaving His redemptive work within your life. Perhaps you are sensing the Spirit moving you toward him and I would be remiss if we left our time today without providing an opportunity for us to respond. And I want to pray and pray for anybody listening right now. So all of you listening either agree with this prayer or join me in lifting those up in intercession as we go on.
Speaker 1:Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins and I surrender my life to you right now. Wash me and cleanse me from all unforgiveness and all pride. I believe that you are the Son of God, that you died on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins and that you rose again on the third day for my victory. I believe that in my heart, and I make confession with my mouth that you, jesus, are my Lord and my Savior and that your kingdom is forever. I want to live my life according to your terms and I want you to change my reliance for myself and any other earthly vessels that I have placed my hope and instead I want to trust your plan and I ask you to put the people, the processes, the models, and I want to pursue the restoration that is needed in my life.
Speaker 1:I ask for you to reveal to me where I have neglected the needs of those who are broken around me, where I have become indifferent, incapable or I have been unable to prioritize those that need to feel the hope of Christ. Show me where I am called, lord, and I trust you are equipping those areas. Thank you for being a God of mercy, a God of healing and a God of truth, a God of hope. Might I become a beacon of hope to the hurting. May I be the one who shows and shares eternal life to those on their way to spiritual death. Show me your ways, lord. Give us the spiritual eyes to see on earth as it is in heaven, and may our priorities begin to reflect your heart and your kingdom. Heaven, and may our priorities begin to reflect your heart and your kingdom. It's in your name, jesus of Nazareth, that I pray Amen.
Speaker 1:If you have today agreed with this prayer from the depths of your heart, I want to either welcome you to the eternal family of God or I want to commend you in your return to the faith. I want to encourage you to find a church faith family who worships the Lord passionately and is committed to the teaching and the preaching of the scriptures, and one that is committed to serving the community and beyond. Also, devote yourself to the reading of the scriptures, as there is so much to grow, to learn and to be discipled in as it pertains to new life and maturity in Christ. The Lord has so much in the way of hope to show His children in His love letters that he has written to them. And Hopeful family. This has been my pleasure in spending the morning, the afternoon, the evening or whatever time of day. It is growing and learning with you and I already look forward to tuning in next time on the hopeful perspective podcast.
Speaker 1:But until then, I want to thank you for joining me along this journey today, allowing me to share from my heart and, if you'd be so kind to follow, subscribe and, most importantly, to rate and write a review for others on your platform who may need the hopeful perspective in their life. Did you know that you can also contribute monetarily by pressing our support the show link that is embedded on your platform in the episode descriptions. If you believe in what we do, I would cherish your prayers as well as considering giving to our cause. I want to shout out my gratitude to the donors we have who have made this commitment to support the podcast financially. Without you, it would not be possible to reach as many people with the messages we do or anyone who needs to be reminded that hope is real. So thank you so much in advance and until next time, remember you are loved.
