0:00:00 - (Megan Owen): We are so happy to have Patrick Doyle back on pretty psych today. He's one of my favorite humans. He has over 30 years of working with people from all over in treatment centers and churches and throughout his professional office. His authentic and transparent way of leadership has drawn followers from all over the world. Patrick's own story of emotional and physical abuse has resonated with many. His personal story of pain and survival has filled others with hope.
0:00:33 - (Megan Owen): He is a public speaker. Patrick takes difficult conversations head on. I know this from personal experience. He communicates hard truths with honesty and safety. He leads wise counsel, compassion, empathy, and caring validation. His perspective comes from a place of personal experience. Patrick's caring approach has transformed many lives. He's passionate about connecting with people so that they may see their individual value and as a result, experience the freedom from the lies that destroy their wellness of spirit.
0:01:09 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah.
0:01:10 - (Megan Owen): His hope is that others will partner with him in helping others see, believe, and act on their intrinsic value. In other words, bringing aliveness back to other person's souls. Right?
0:01:22 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes, yes, yes.
0:01:24 - (Megan Owen): And Patrick is my friend, and I am so honored to call him my friend. And he's walked alongside me for many years in different situations in my own life. Patrick, welcome.
0:01:35 - (Patrick Doyle): Thank you. I am a bit humbled by all that goodness. And I want to also reiterate. I feel the same way, you know, in this world of public Persona and getting into the world of, you know, abuse and trying to help people. And we have very strong opinions about a lot of things and it's not always kindness that we receive.
0:02:00 - (Megan Owen): That's right. We really need.
0:02:03 - (Patrick Doyle): I've always appreciated your friendship and your willingness to have the difficult conversations about whatever. I've always appreciated about that, about that, about you. So the feeling is quite mutual.
0:02:14 - (Megan Owen): Thank you, Patrick. Thank you so much. Well, part of the reason I'm having Patrick here, besides our mutual admiration for one another, is that he. I wish you could see Patrick laugh right now. He has written a beautiful new book, just came out, Death of a Thousand Cuts. I've been seeing it all over social media. It's actually a beautiful book. I have not read it yet. It's on my list. I'm hoping it will come out in audio soon.
0:02:45 - (Patrick Doyle): I'm working on it.
0:02:46 - (Megan Owen): Okay. Okay. Very good. But Patrick, first tell us a little bit about this book. I'm also, I have to say I'm interested in the COVID which is beautiful, but also somehow painful at the same time.
0:03:00 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah. I'm glad you asked because first of all, in writing the book, there was a Lot of pressure on me in certain aspects by editors and things to not use the title Death of a Thousand Cuts. But it was in my soul from the very beginning, like, because I've seen so many people suffer the death, slow, long, horrible death of a thousand cuts. And I've walked with thousands through the process. And so I didn't want to sugarcoat it and try to use SEO terms and position for sales and all the things that good people around you want you to do.
0:03:35 - (Patrick Doyle): What I realized in my own spirit was I wanted the COVID of the book. When I told my artist, I said, I want the COVID of the book too. Be a picture of the problem. So that's why you have the picture of the roses on the nice counter. And so wonderful. But then there's that. It's very subtle, but there's that knife laying on the counter. And I've had many women tell me that they really resonate with the picture.
0:03:57 - (Patrick Doyle): And that makes me so happy because I wanted somebody to see the picture and be like, oh, almost like, oh, this. This person understands this just from the picture, not to mention the words and the title and all that stuff. So it was a. Was a desire of mine from the very beginning to. I wanted it to be like, I understand, but there's also hope here. I'm going to help you. I'm not. I understand this for my own personal reasons, but I also have the experience of thousands of other people have given me the privilege of being with them in it.
0:04:25 - (Patrick Doyle): And the problem with emotional and spiritual abuse is there's so much nuance.
0:04:29 - (Megan Owen): Yes.
0:04:30 - (Patrick Doyle): And it's, you know, I talk, you know, the first chapter of the book, I talk about my own childhood of abuse. And I've said to many people that are in emotionally abusive relationships, my childhood abuse, my dad, beating me and yelling at me and hurting me and very obvious ways is in ways easier, because when you're a child and somebody's beating you and yelling at you, there's a part of you that knows this isn't right.
0:04:51 - (Patrick Doyle): Right. But when you have a very spiritually healthy quote unquote, on the outside person, or somebody who has a great reputation or somebody who presents really well and they have very. They're eloquent or they're charming and charismatic, and they're destroying you through inference and through implication and through gaslighting and just. I believe that, you know, when you're in an emotionally abusive relationship, it's one of the ways I define it. Is one person systematically destroying the soul of another.
0:05:22 - (Megan Owen): Yes. Emphatic yes. Yes.
0:05:25 - (Patrick Doyle): So when you're in a spiritual environment and that's happening and the person has a good reputation, that's quadruple maddening, as opposed to my experience where I was getting beat by, you know, ptsd, alcoholic. I mean, part of my psyche knew, like, well, this is not right. If dad had been way more subtle, I think my recovery process would have been harder. And this is why so many women that I've had the privilege of working with have cptsd. They. They don't understand that this is the natural outcome from years of harm and subtle, nuanced, hard to detect.
0:05:59 - (Patrick Doyle): And this is also why our denial structure is built so, so significantly over time. And I often talk about it in this way. Like, you know, there's a part of the book I talk about Hopium, and I believe that all of us take shots of Hopium to avoid the grief of what we're actually really dealing with. Right. And that's a normal response to painful realities. But the denial of someone who's surviving is a whole different thing than the denial of someone who's perpetrating.
0:06:27 - (Patrick Doyle): And so a lot of times I'll talk about denial and ladies, well, am I a narcissist? Because I have denial. And they. They start to take responsibility, obviously, because they've been trained to do that by the abuser. But if you're in abusive environment, when I was a kid, my dad's beating me, I can't be present with that.
0:06:44 - (Megan Owen): Right.
0:06:44 - (Patrick Doyle): I have to deny it. So denial is a healthy part of survival. Where we get in trouble is when we're not in the situation or we're unwilling to deal with the situation. And our denial then prevents us from taking action. And this is one of the things that I think the book will really help women with because I validate them and I understand them, but then also give you very practical tips on how to move forward and listen.
0:07:07 - (Patrick Doyle): I wish there was a single system that we could follow and it worked for everyone. But everyone's situation is so nuanced and so different. And it depends on what your support structure and depends on what your belief structure is. And it believes. Depends on who's around you, depends on how bad the abuser is, depends on what your beliefs. It's so much so you can't just snap your finger and make that go away. Which is also why I believe the church abjectly fails on this.
0:07:33 - (Megan Owen): I agree. And for our listeners, Patrick is one of the very few therapists in. In this niche, this very specialized niche. Of spiritual abuse and dealing with cptsd. A lot of therapists shy away from CPTSD for that very reason. You cannot create a class or a course to.
0:07:59 - (Patrick Doyle): You could, but.
0:08:01 - (Megan Owen): Well, I, you know, and I've tried with Source. That's. That's the goal there. But. However, there's no substitute for creatively entering somebody's world for their specific thousands of cuts. Right, right.
0:08:15 - (Patrick Doyle): Correct.
0:08:15 - (Megan Owen): It's not a one. It's not a one. And done by any means. It is an ongoing deep connecting a person to their own soul, to their own personhood and dignity. And that takes a tremendous amount of creativity. And you are one of those people.
0:08:33 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah. And I think that's really good that you say that, Megan, because every situation is so different. And this is one of my concerns. One of the reasons why I resisted writing a book. I was afraid that people would, like, turn the book into some sort of formula, because we all do that. We want an answer, we want out. And so I really struggle with that. And I hope I accomplished it in the book and that I try to address those nuances.
0:08:57 - (Patrick Doyle): But you cannot survive this alone. You must have healthy support. People who are not going to scripturize you, people are not going to judge you, people are not going to try to tell you what to do. People who are going to understand you and give you space to wrestle with this reality and face plant and get back up. And face plant and get back up, because that's how it works. We don't gain strength. And this is one of the problems with a lot of the church language is we speak in victorious terms.
0:09:26 - (Patrick Doyle): I was a saint and now I'm a sinner. No, not true. You, you're both. I overcame. You hear the testimony of somebody in church and how the Lord changed everything. Like I offer the example of the. The beggar in. At the pool of a sadia. And Jesus asked the question, do you want to be made well? And I used to think, gosh, you're God and all your Jesus and all that seems like a dumb question. I might be so brave to ask Jesus, you know?
0:09:54 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:09:55 - (Patrick Doyle): But then. But then as the story unfolds, I realize, oh, that guy's going to get healed. He's been a beggar his whole life. He's worked his way to the best begging spot by the door. When he's healed, Jesus said, you have to pick up your mat and you have to walk. You can't stay here. So now he just exchanged the problems of being a beggar who was crippled for being A guy who can walk with no skills and no nothing.
0:10:16 - (Patrick Doyle): Where's he going to live? What's he going to do? So his instantaneous change did not bring relief. It set a whole nother set of problems in motion. But we talk about it like. And that then puts pressure and guilt on people.
0:10:29 - (Megan Owen): And that's. That's that dualistic black and white thinking which research shows causes depression. That black and white thinking, that's just.
0:10:36 - (Patrick Doyle): One of the things it causes. I think that's one of the things that are, you know, I call it the committee in your head, the shame committee. That's one of the things they take hold of to beat us with. Yeah, see, See, you're not doing it right. See, you're not successful. See, you can't even. Even the God. Even God can't help you. Whatever, whatever, whatever. We don't need an abuser. We are our own.
0:10:57 - (Patrick Doyle): And this is why I think the core of this, Megan, is getting in touch with your intrinsic value that has never not been there. You're born with it. It doesn't change. Your belief about. It may change, but the actuality of it. And I say this all the time, delete. He's like, you're just take this beautiful, fragrant, magnificently colorful flower that's so beautiful, fragrant. We planted in toxic soil. What's going to happen over time, it's going to lose all of its beauty. It's going to wilt. It's going to. It's become a shell of its former self.
0:11:33 - (Patrick Doyle): So we take that same flower that's dying and we take it out of that toxic soil and we put it in some healthy soil. Guess what? The plant doesn't become something else. Its real self is then again revealed. This is exactly what I'm trying to help people do is like, look, you don't got to go find yourself. You're fine. What we have to do is remove the toxicity from you. We have to help you walk through and remove the toxic belief structure. We have to help you understand that this is not what's wrong with you, it's what happened to you. And we have to get honest and have some hard conversations and look at some difficult things.
0:12:05 - (Patrick Doyle): Which is why I say you have to have good support. None of us are going to. And I would not recommend somebody being alone walking into the horror of that. It's too much. It's too much when you have support.
0:12:17 - (Megan Owen): That's right. And it has to be healthy support. That's. You and I both have groups. We specifically have Groups so that we can introduce healthy relationships in sort of a structured environment. Mine is structured. We. I have a specific structure to how we hold people's stories. And then.
0:12:34 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes.
0:12:34 - (Megan Owen): And sort of teaching that. Emotional intimacy. I know. You do that as well.
0:12:38 - (Patrick Doyle): Yep.
0:12:39 - (Megan Owen): Okay. This is one of the things I love. I'm just going to take a little moment here. Patrick used to be a pastor.
0:12:45 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes.
0:12:46 - (Megan Owen): Who gave advice to women who were being abused.
0:12:49 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah.
0:12:50 - (Megan Owen): And in my mind, the definition of humility is being able to say, you know what? This. What I'm doing isn't working. It's not right. And then saying, I need another way. That's true humility in my mind. And this is Patrick to me. Patrick used to give different advice. Right. And so when I hear you saying these things, it is just a balm to our souls as women, Patrick. To have a man who was a pastor, who is a counselor, saying, okay, that's not right.
0:13:24 - (Megan Owen): This is right. This is what's coming, and this is a good thing.
0:13:27 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah.
0:13:28 - (Megan Owen): Thank you.
0:13:28 - (Patrick Doyle): You know, it was very painful, though, Megan.
0:13:31 - (Megan Owen): I'm sure.
0:13:32 - (Patrick Doyle): I had a platform, pretty large platform, you know, with the Dove TV and radio, and I planted a church and pastored it for 10 years. And it was also that process that woke me up because I was watching these things fail over and over and over again. I'm like, what? There. What? Wait? I have to wait. We say this works, but. And I'm like, you know, in my office, neck deep in other people's harm. Like, it's not like I was from a pastoral perspective, like a pulpit, although I did that. I also had the understanding of walking with people and seeing this isn't working, and I could have. And this is something I truly believe, and I hope that this will help. I believe everyone, all throughout their lives, has what I call moments of truth or an epiphany or moment of clarity, whatever you want to call it. Everyone has them. The difference between somebody who's healthy and somebody who dies in their denial is what they do with that moment.
0:14:29 - (Patrick Doyle): I had those moments of clarity, and I was, like, taking my breath taken away, like, oh, my gosh, this is not right. And then I have the opportunity to double down in denial. And I did, at times get stronger about my beliefs, but the pain of others is what woke me up. It wasn't a theological understanding, and.
0:14:47 - (Megan Owen): But that's compassion. That's everything right there.
0:14:50 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah. And, you know, you can't fake that. To those that have been harmed, yet.
0:14:56 - (Megan Owen): Truer words have not been said. Yes.
0:14:59 - (Patrick Doyle): And you know, and I was that guy that I had people turn away, turn away from you. And I didn't realize till later why I was just parroting stuff that I had been taught, books that I read or whatever. But I wasn't really thinking, I wasn't really curious, I wasn't really looking at what was happening. And this is one of the things I'm. I really have concerns about and I hope my book creates some controversy in this way because I would really like to have the conversation within the church. Like, you know, the level of denial that is covered with theological certainty and the damage that that causes people.
0:15:33 - (Megan Owen): When you said that, I just had this like vision of, of light and tr. Like this sort of nebulous center and then cement and then another layer of cement and denial and theological certainties and dogmas. And how do you know anybody? How do you actually know a human.
0:15:55 - (Patrick Doyle): Right.
0:15:55 - (Megan Owen): That's all you focus on.
0:15:58 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah, well, you don't. And I've been part of many churches over 30 plus years where I had great acquaintances, but they didn't know anything about me.
0:16:05 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:16:06 - (Patrick Doyle): Other than what I presented to them. And listen, no one goes to church, to be honest.
0:16:11 - (Megan Owen): That's so true. That's so true. I just heard this week somebody said to me, and I was so upset, so I couldn't go to church because I didn't want people to see me. And I was like, oh, stop. Yeah, okay, let's talk about that. Okay, let's talk about that. That's not.
0:16:27 - (Patrick Doyle): Shouldn't it be the safest place on earth?
0:16:29 - (Megan Owen): Exactly. It's supposed to be like a hospital.
0:16:32 - (Patrick Doyle): But it's never been that many. It has in pockets. And like I said, the church, I. That was one of my goals, is to make it a safe place no matter where you were, no matter what you believe, no matter what you were feeling. And I achieved that to some degree. But what I also learned in that process, Megan, is a lot of people don't want that.
0:16:47 - (Megan Owen): I know they don't. They say they do. Come as you are. And then when you come as you are and you're as you are, as.
0:16:55 - (Patrick Doyle): Long as it complies with what we want you to be.
0:16:57 - (Megan Owen): Yes, exactly. One second later you can be yourself for one second and then it's okay. Now you need to look like us. And there's sort of this collective unconscious, deep seated disconnect from themselves.
0:17:15 - (Patrick Doyle): Well, so from my perspective, the problem is when you go to a church and you get involved, one of the first things you're going to be asked to do is agree with the belief structure, agree with the belief statement. What's the theological understanding? So our connection is based on our.
0:17:30 - (Megan Owen): Agreement, straight away, right out of the chute. I've never thought of it that way.
0:17:35 - (Patrick Doyle): So then what we're having is we're not. So people say, well, I go to church to have fellowship. You're not having fellowship. There's a gu up front talking, and we're all sitting, facing the same direction. That's not fellowship, that's an audience.
0:17:46 - (Megan Owen): Yeah, yeah. I love the story of the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman, and I love this story because Jesus knows her. He knows all the things, right? All her secrets, all her past. And when she runs off to Samaria to share the good news, which was not, by the way, that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected because that hadn't happened yet, the good news for her was he told me everything about myself.
0:18:11 - (Megan Owen): He knows me and he loves me. And that's true love and acceptance is, listen, I know all these things.
0:18:19 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes.
0:18:19 - (Megan Owen): You don't have to do them now because there's a river of life inside of you. You can be who you are. You don't need those outside, you know.
0:18:28 - (Patrick Doyle): So bring up something that's so important, I think is so connected. And one of the reasons why I think a lot of theology harms people. And that's a big statement. I know, but I can back it up. I've been doing this for 30 years. So two things that people need as much as food and water, particularly as children, is to be seen and to be protected. What the woman at the well was celebrating was exactly that.
0:18:50 - (Patrick Doyle): I'm being seen not used as a sexual. And by the way, in the entire biblical narrative, women were seen as property. So that can't end well. But he, with authority, spiritual authority, saw her not for himself. And anytime that happens to us with another human being, it begins to heal us. Because what it does is it touches the fact that we're intrinsically valuable.
0:19:18 - (Megan Owen): Yes.
0:19:19 - (Patrick Doyle): Instead of destroying that value through belief structure and through roles and through, you know, ideology, whatever the value of the soul then is erased. And then what we're. What we're expected to do is our value then comes from our compliance to the belief, which is, in essence, a washing away of our own selves.
0:19:40 - (Megan Owen): I know that therapeutic relationship is so important. I think that it's important for us to highlight that at this point. And I'm just going to say to anybody listening, please don't go to a Therapist or a counselor who doesn't see you, who doesn't see your intrinsic value, and who uses you, and you feel that. You can feel that if you go to a counselor who needs to get something out of this session.
0:20:04 - (Megan Owen): Right, right.
0:20:05 - (Patrick Doyle): I would expand that to the pastoral world. I talk about it in the book that if you go to your pastor and he does not believe you and he wants you to forgive, he wants you to cook better meals, he wants you to have more sex, he wants you to be nicer, whatever, if he doesn't believe what you're saying, do not go back. And the reason why is he's incapable of hearing you. And the more you go there, the more harm you're going to get and then the more empowered your abuser will be.
0:20:34 - (Megan Owen): Can you say it again for those in the back?
0:20:37 - (Patrick Doyle): If you go to your pastor or your elder or anybody in your spiritual community and they, I don't care, man, woman, whatever. If they don't believe you, you do not go back. You do not talk to them. They have revealed to you that they are unsafe because they want to fix you. And usually that fixing is based on them having you comply with their belief structure. So you go to a pastor. And I'm saying this as somebody who did it, so please don't see this as a high horse. This is somebody who's done it and regrets it.
0:21:09 - (Patrick Doyle): You go, you go into the pastor. The pastor is spiritual leader. Okay? Unspoken to everyone is you have to agree with him. He's spiritual authority. And number two is he has an agenda right from the beginning. 90% of the time there might be exceptions. I know that, but everyone wants your marriage to stay together. Well, at that point, he can't hear anything I'm saying that doesn't go with that. He'll. He'll be doing his own rationalizing as you're saying what your abuser is doing to you. And now you're going to be gaslit by the guy who's supposed to help you.
0:21:44 - (Patrick Doyle): And so, and listen, I've heard lots of ladies say, well, I'm going to write him a letter. I'm going to help him understand. I'm like, don't. It's a waste of time. It's a waste. Yeah.
0:21:53 - (Megan Owen): This is this system that he has, this dogmatic grid works for him. He's not going to hear from the wife of somebody who's not doing what he wants her to do. He's not. That's. He doesn't value you or your opinion. So it is a Waste of energy.
0:22:11 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah. And let's just be honest. The theological undergirding is that women are less valuable than men.
0:22:17 - (Megan Owen): 100. Thank you for saying it out loud. We all know it. We all feel it. Everyone pretends in the church. Yeah.
0:22:24 - (Patrick Doyle): I've been the guy you could not have convinced to let a woman have authority or teach or be an elder, because that was just not biblical. I had those beliefs, and I was very stringent about it. Not because I was trying to harm anybody in my mind. It was because I was trying to protect people, because I believe this is what God wanted. It's very genuine. And it was still genuinely wrong.
0:22:43 - (Megan Owen): Right. You can be genuinely wrong 100% into.
0:22:47 - (Patrick Doyle): It, but I was also 100% wrong. So I've talked to a lot of pastors who would never admit that openly. I think that's true, that men are more valuable than women, but you look at how they behave and what their theology is, and it says it like a neon sign.
0:23:00 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:23:00 - (Patrick Doyle): So this is another one of the nuances why I think the church is a bad place for people who are in our spiritually or emotionally abusive relationships because they have an agenda, and that agenda is based on their theology. And their theology is based on a belief that Adam was. Wasn't deceived. It was Eve. So she's not as good and she's not as valuable, which is all a very unhealthy, very sad reality that has been motivated by power and politics and a lot of bad things. So what I don't want women to do is get into fighting two battles.
0:23:32 - (Patrick Doyle): One is you're fighting a battle of trying to survive the abuser you're with. And then the other is you're trying to fight the support system you used to have. And I talk about in the book, in my process, when I. When I went through my divorce, the unexpected divorce, the church divorcing me and because I was no longer complying, and the judgment. And, you know, that was one of the most painful parts of this process for me, Megan, is. I mean, I've been spending my whole life helping people. I was neck deep and giving myself away to people all the time. On the radio, on the tv, in my office, at the church, in the pulpit.
0:24:08 - (Patrick Doyle): And then one decision, I go from somebody you can trust to somebody you don't talk to anymore.
0:24:13 - (Megan Owen): It's awful. It is awful. And it just about breaks you. I know this.
0:24:19 - (Patrick Doyle): It almost did. I was close a few times. It was funny because in the book, I also, at the end of the Book. I have this chapter about meeting Eugene Peterson. When I met Eugene, it was in the worst of that process. So just the fact that that took place. So here I am meeting one of my spiritual mentors who saved my life multiple times through his writings. Here I am sitting on the deck at Eugene's Lake Flathead Lake house that I had dreamed about so many times in the midst of that rejection.
0:24:51 - (Patrick Doyle): It was such a dose of acceptance that I. And to watch Eugene cry as we talked about him being our surrogate father. So, so amazing. And I didn't. I didn't learn this till later, though. Megan. I read his biography. He had a really bad relationship with his dad, and he felt that his dad never really cared about him. And then. Then I realized he's crying with us because we felt like he was our dad. I'm like, that went to a whole nother level when I realized that, like, oh, my gosh, that was healing for all of us.
0:25:20 - (Patrick Doyle): But it was one of the things that. That trip and seeing him was one of the things that saved me.
0:25:25 - (Megan Owen): Wow. That's so beautiful. Yeah. I mean, as you were talking about that, I was thinking that's what Jesus did. The man who was blind and was accused of being sinful because he was blind from birth. Jesus went back and found him. He'd been turned out of the temple. You know, it is that Eugene Peterson was Jesus to you.
0:25:48 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah. Well, and the other thing is that Eugene's writings were the reason why I started the church. And one of the reasons why was because Eugene always said a pastor's job is not to teach, it's to be with.
0:26:01 - (Megan Owen): Yes. Yes. Can we park there for a minute? This is something that I often talk with my clients about is just being, belonging. And I hear these phrases like wanting to please God, wanting to serve, wanting to, you know, sort of wanting to strive to a place where God finally accepts them.
0:26:24 - (Patrick Doyle): And I'm with you all the way. Let's go.
0:26:27 - (Megan Owen): And we use the word belonging a lot. Like a longing to just be able to be. Be with people, be with God, be with yourself, which is entirely different. I think that doing and serving and striving actually can distract us from real, actual, beautiful, healthy relationships.
0:26:49 - (Patrick Doyle): I think it's part of Hopium.
0:26:50 - (Megan Owen): Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
0:26:52 - (Patrick Doyle): What would I rather do? Go serve at the church or realize my husband is dangerous? None of us, all of us are programmed to avoid the grief. But I say it in the book, grief is your doorway to freedom.
0:27:04 - (Megan Owen): It really is. And so warning label on counseling and therapy. Right? Now it's not going to be pretty at first. It's not going to be like, wow, I feel so much better. There's a lot of grief that comes with the severe mercy of looking at the truth and not engaging in opium anymore.
0:27:21 - (Patrick Doyle): Yep.
0:27:22 - (Megan Owen): And I, and I think that's what you're talking about when you are saying, you know, we, we think, okay, I'm just going to send this article to, to my ex husband or this article to the pastor and maybe he'll listen and maybe he'll. That is us hoping that our opinion makes a difference. That is us.
0:27:38 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes.
0:27:38 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:27:39 - (Patrick Doyle): The other part of it is, is I'm putting energy into that instead of how am I going to rearrange my life so I'm not in an abuse.
0:27:47 - (Megan Owen): Right. So we have this reserve and we don't want to go into the red and trying to be heard because it hurts to be betrayed. It hurts to not be heard. It hurts to. You want to go, wait a minute. Listen, listen. You know. No, hear, hear me. They're not hearing you. And now you're expending all this energy. Right.
0:28:06 - (Patrick Doyle): I don't think they're capable myself, but probably not. I talk about this in the book too. I think it's important to talk about like people talk about narcissism and all the diagnoses of different things. And I've had women, you know, they, they want to find out if their husband has, you know, autism or Asperger's or, or narcissism or personality disorder. While I, I believe there's great value in understanding what is happening or what the dynamics are. I see the bottom line issue with all of that is the person you're with, do they have what I call industrial strength denial?
0:28:38 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:28:39 - (Patrick Doyle): And I don't care what the industrial strength denial turns into in terms of behavioral patterns, because those we can talk about. But if someone is to the point where they believe their own lie, it doesn't matter what's said, what truth, they believe, what they think. There is no hope at that point for you making an indent or an inroad or a change in that person's mindset. And here's the other thing that I used to believe that I don't anymore, which is that God, God's always able to intervene. Well, I believe that's true.
0:29:08 - (Patrick Doyle): There's millennia of evidence that he doesn't. Both my parents went to their graves.
0:29:13 - (Megan Owen): He doesn't step on our free will. That's one thing that will never happen. We have to want to change. Right?
0:29:19 - (Patrick Doyle): But let's just think about this a second. So I'm praying that my husband will change, and I'm putting my eggs in that basket. And I'm denying the fact that his denial is so severe, he would harm his own kids, he would harm his spouse, he would go to church and lie and then come home and be somebody else. That denial. That denial is what I want women to get in touch with, because once you see that. So this goes back to my.
0:29:43 - (Patrick Doyle): Goes back to my. My baseline premise, the avoidance of pain is the beginning of all unhealthy behavior.
0:29:49 - (Megan Owen): You know, as you're saying this, I'm thinking back to when I was a young mother and my kids were little and I left Germany to come here with my four little kids because I had finally accepted that he was abusive. And I didn't have that word, though. I did not have that language yet. I was in my 30s, and I had one lone wolf voice in my life who was helping me to process what was happening to my children and myself.
0:30:21 - (Megan Owen): And I remember the day, I remember where I was sitting, he said, megan, listen, if your husband realizes that he's abusive, if, if he will even get to that place where he decides, you know what? I am abusive. That's why my. My wife and kids left me. If he even gets there, which would take a miracle. He said he has a good 10 years, at least, of a really hard work to not be abusive. He said, by then your kids will be grown.
0:30:52 - (Megan Owen): And that was what I needed to hear to say, I'm done hoping. Yes, I'm done hoping. I can't snap my fingers. And when I look back, I'm thinking, what I thought was, if people heard me, if they listened, if they believed me, they could fix it, then we could stay a family. And then we have answers and then we have fixing, and then we have, you know, but it wasn't going to happen. Just wasn't.
0:31:17 - (Patrick Doyle): And that's the thing that I think is so important is like assessing the death level of your relationship. And I. I have a part in the book where I help you assess that. Like, I've talked to so many women who are staying committed to their marriage. They haven't had sex in 10 years. They don't have any intimacy, physically, emotionally, spiritually. They don't feel safe. They're being harmed on a regular basis. And so at that point, I'm like, there's no marriage.
0:31:41 - (Patrick Doyle): This isn't.
0:31:42 - (Megan Owen): Yeah, it was just. It's a piece of paper. There's no Covenant here.
0:31:46 - (Patrick Doyle): But think about it. If I'm using that as a reason to stay, what's behind that? Like, how would I intentionally allow myself to be harmed, have none of the benefits of a relational experience that's with a spouse, and on top of that, I'm being harmed. What would be the benefit of staying well? Oh, it was because I want to obey the Lord. Would you think he wants you to be dead?
0:32:06 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:32:07 - (Patrick Doyle): No.
0:32:08 - (Megan Owen): Or live in some sort of sacrificial. Like be a sacrificial lamb for the rest of yourself? No, I mean for the rest of your life.
0:32:16 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes. I say it all the time to people. The best gift you can give anybody that cares about you is a. Well, you.
0:32:22 - (Megan Owen): Yes. Yes.
0:32:23 - (Patrick Doyle): And you cannot get well while living in toxicity. You cannot. You can minimize the harm, but you can't get free because you're being re. Harmed. And I've said this to many women, like, the presence of your abuser is a harm, even if he says or does nothing.
0:32:41 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:32:42 - (Patrick Doyle): His very presence is triggering all of the lies, all the negative messaging that's in you. So, I mean. And don't hear me say that you shouldn't stay. I'm saying everyone has a reason. And I've walked with thousands of women that stayed and worked through it, and I've walked with thousands of women who didn't. I'm with you either way. But just know you cannot be free. And in the toxicity, that's. That's a truth.
0:33:06 - (Patrick Doyle): Will I be with you in it? Absolutely. And sometimes there are circumstances for people that are very preventative, taking action. I understand all that, but we're not going to lie to ourselves and say, this is the best.
0:33:18 - (Megan Owen): Yeah, I'm with you. And I. And I want our listeners to hear, again, a good counselor. It does not make decisions for you. We will walk with you and companion you through whatever you decide because you have a sound mind and a beautiful soul and you are capable of making decisions. Patrick, do you think that people can be in emotional abuse or in physical abuse and there's no spiritual abuse happening?
0:33:46 - (Patrick Doyle): No. I think abuse in itself is spiritually harmful, regardless of what kind it is. Because.
0:33:51 - (Megan Owen): Can you talk more about that?
0:33:53 - (Patrick Doyle): Because the harm is damaging you as a person, so it's damaging your intrinsic value, which is, in essence, a spiritual harm. Okay, well, now, whether you can put words to it or not, I don't know. But, you know, it depends on the person's situation. But I really believe that, and this comes from experience, that strong certainty in your belief structure is Going to harm you one way or the other. Okay, so, for example, like, The Earth is 6 million years older. The Earth is 6 days old. Like, people are super certain about that. And I'm like, there's no evidence that any of us can understand to know for certain what happened. I don't know.
0:34:29 - (Patrick Doyle): No one does. The greatest scientist, the greatest theologian. It's all speculation. So when I start to say, but it's this, what I instantly do is now I have to live in what I call the suspension of disbelief. We all participate in the suspension of disbelief when we go to a movie. Right? I'm not going to, like, do critical things. And when you go to a movie that somebody's like, that's not real. It's not. You don't want them to go to a movie with you anymore.
0:34:50 - (Patrick Doyle): It ruins the process. So we do that on a spiritual or a belief structure way. I'm so committed to this thing that I deny reality. So that kind of rigidity always leads to harm.
0:35:02 - (Megan Owen): I also think, if I may, that now we've lost any sense of mystery and awe. And if we don't have mystery and awe, we're stuck. We're just stuck. Thank God for mystery. And also, just as an aside, I cannot believe that we majored on the six days versus six million years thing. Like, that's. That was our focus for how many years? Like, what?
0:35:26 - (Patrick Doyle): This is one.
0:35:28 - (Megan Owen): I mean, it's just ridiculous.
0:35:30 - (Patrick Doyle): If you go through history, there's some whoppers in our historical theological history. I'm like, what, we fought a war over that?
0:35:38 - (Megan Owen): Yep, yep.
0:35:39 - (Patrick Doyle): What?
0:35:39 - (Megan Owen): We're great at that.
0:35:40 - (Patrick Doyle): But again, so certainty. And I see it, you know, years ago, I helped make a documentary about the freshwater dolphins in the Amazon. You know, it's a group of church people from my church, and the amount of flack that we got for making a conservation movie, I'm like, we're doing something wrong because we're trying to help this scientist who's the world's leading expert on this stuff and also mentored by Jacques Cousteau. And, you know, he's. He's an amazing individual, but he's not a Christian. Well, he acts more like one than a lot of people I know.
0:36:13 - (Megan Owen): But anyways, this is creation. This is creation. This is.
0:36:18 - (Patrick Doyle): But the negativity was about the certainty of belief instead of the curiosity. So I would say curiosity is the cure to certainty.
0:36:27 - (Megan Owen): Oh, I love that. Which all of my clients know that's one of our three values. The three C's is curiosity. Companionship and compassion.
0:36:35 - (Patrick Doyle): That's awesome.
0:36:36 - (Megan Owen): So you have in your book a chapter called Getting Clear, is that right?
0:36:41 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah.
0:36:42 - (Megan Owen): Can you tell us a little bit about that one?
0:36:45 - (Patrick Doyle): So I strongly believe this, that it's not what's wrong with you, it's what happened to you. And when we talk about denial, denial is the thing that allows us to maintain unhealthy behavioral patterns. The avoidance of pain is the beginning of all unhealthy behavior. So in this chapter, what I do is give some practical realities of how you can start to identify what those things are. Because, look, we all deny it. So we all have a level of denial about that because that's part of survival. But what I'm wanting to do is help you, like just say you have a box of. That's all you can hold and it's full. What I want to do is just take out one corner.
0:37:21 - (Patrick Doyle): One corner is a life transition. Like you're never going to get it all out because people keep doing stuff and the world is going and doing its thing and. But if we can just take a little bit out, clear a little bit of space, we become less abusable because we're clearer about our value. We become less reactive to realities, we become less stressed out. We. A lot of things change, so we get a lot more clear about ourselves.
0:37:43 - (Patrick Doyle): Our value comes more to the surface. And now we don't avoid. We. We use our clarity as what I call navigational information. So somebody comes to me and they're, they're displaying unhealthy patterns or they're abusive patterns and instead of going, ah, I just go, got it. Moving around. Instead of, it's my fault, what about this? And because that and all this stuff that goes on our head and we're so full, we don't have any space.
0:38:07 - (Megan Owen): Right, right.
0:38:09 - (Patrick Doyle): Ultimately, what my goal is to help people live in a higher level of their value, which leads to freedom. Freedom to make choices that are healthy for me, freedom to make choices that are healthy for others instead of being in a reactive, this tunnel of belief structure where I have to do these certain things. Instead of having your own choice. One of the things that happens in abusive environments is we lose our ability to make choices because we're so focused on not dying or not being harmed or whatever.
0:38:35 - (Patrick Doyle): So once I've seen this all the time with ladies who get to this place of freedom and then it's like a whole nother level of hardship starts because they're like, wait, you mean it's okay to make a choice? Wait you mean, like, I can just do what I want? Like, I'm not. No one's going to. I had. One of the examples I use is one woman I worked with who had an abuser who was always making comments about her clothing. And she would change three and four and five times a day because of the comments he made.
0:39:00 - (Patrick Doyle): And then finally she got free. Amazing, courageous woman. She's a hero.
0:39:05 - (Megan Owen): All of y'all are our heroes.
0:39:07 - (Patrick Doyle): Exactly. That's so true. Yes. And so then she gets free, and she's, like, talking to me. She's like, I just feel really weird because I put on this outfit and I really like it, but I feel like I need to change it and that. So there's that pattern. Right. And she's like, but I didn't. And I got compliments, and I didn't think there was something wrong with me because I got a compliment. People don't understand this, but freedom is also a transition, and it comes with a lot of back and forth. And so I tell ladies all the time, like, look, the ping pong you're in is a sign that you're moving.
0:39:38 - (Patrick Doyle): When you're not ping ponging, then you're in a lot more denial.
0:39:41 - (Megan Owen): Oh, I love that. I love that. And I love seeing women start on that path, because usually once it starts, it starts. It moves really quickly, and then it's all, you know, jubilant excitement about all the decisions that you know that.
0:39:57 - (Patrick Doyle): Right. And all the people I've worked with, like, if they weren't in an abusive reality and they got to make all their own decisions, they would have a beautiful life. The reason why their lives gets harmed is because of the lunatic they're living with.
0:40:09 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:40:09 - (Patrick Doyle): And so the ping pong is really normal. And I want to encourage ladies to think that when you're going back and forth, what that means is your denial is coming down. As your denial comes down, you make different decisions, and then you back up and you're like, oh, no, is that right? That I do. Is that too much? And you second guess yourself. That second guessing is normal. It's a part of the process to get to freedom. And this is, again, like we talked about before, Megan, why healthy support is so important so you can be validated. And that's the other thing that I think is so important, is what I call vitamin V.
0:40:40 - (Patrick Doyle): All of us need a lot of vitamin V validation from people who get us, not from somebody who's on the outside. It doesn't have nearly the impact as somebody who knows and Says, you know, I see how courageous you are. The courageousness is because I watched you do this and I watched you do that, and I want you to do this. And that is one of the most impactful things we can do to shut down the committee is be validated in an intimate relationship. And I don't mean just like romantically intimate. I mean just like where somebody knows you on an intimate level.
0:41:09 - (Patrick Doyle): You have exposed your soul to them in some level. And that validation is transformational, which by the way, is the opposite of abuse.
0:41:18 - (Megan Owen): Say that again.
0:41:19 - (Patrick Doyle): The validation is. The validation is the opposite of abuse where someone is tearing your soul down, blaming you, lying to you. Invalidation is someone who knows you then is speaking the truth about the beauty of who you are. That is the transformation.
0:41:34 - (Megan Owen): It is such, it is amazing. I don't want to say blindness. I guess it is denial that we have when we don't realize we can do the hard things. And I always share this story of the first time that we got a blizzard after my ex husband left and I was crying because who's going to shovel the snow? And I had never shoveled it before and it did not occur to me that I could do it. And then I was like, wait a minute.
0:42:07 - (Megan Owen): And I took the shovel and I went and shoveled the snow. But I can't really describe this awakening. I've been told, no, you don't shovel snow. You don't need to worry about that. That's not something you can do. And then, and then I just did it. And I was like, this is actually really great exercise, you know.
0:42:25 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes, well, but see, what I see there is people who live in long term abusive situations get what I call trained. That abuser is training you to see yourself as insufficient. Is training you to see yourself as incompetent. Is training you to see yourself as the problem. You remove that toxicity and then suddenly your vibrance comes to the surface. I can shovel snow. And then the validation of doing it, like, yes, exactly, I can do this. And so it starts to build that confidence. And that confidence is what was eroded and taken away by the abuse.
0:43:00 - (Patrick Doyle): No one comes into the world feeling like a piece of crap.
0:43:03 - (Megan Owen): They really don't. They're pretty certain that they're fantastic.
0:43:07 - (Patrick Doyle): Now we can think.
0:43:08 - (Megan Owen): 012345.
0:43:09 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah, give me more food and change my diaper.
0:43:13 - (Megan Owen): It's all about me. I'm fabulous.
0:43:15 - (Patrick Doyle): Yes, well. And so that training starts in whatever way, within our families, within our religious communities, all kinds of ways. I'm hopeful the book will help people take a vulnerable look at where they're at and start to assess that and then move to a different place.
0:43:31 - (Megan Owen): It's brave. It's brave to be that vulnerable. It is brave to pick up Patrick's book and to read it again. The title, the title fascinates me because it is the perfect description of complex trauma. So yes, there it is. Death of a Thousand Cuts. And it's. It's so pretty, but also terrifying. So we will.
0:43:55 - (Patrick Doyle): Beautifully terrifying.
0:43:57 - (Megan Owen): It's beautifully terrifying and terrifyingly beautiful. Right.
0:44:00 - (Patrick Doyle): It's funny that you say that though, because I've had lots of people give me feedback about different things and I've. The feedback I'm getting so far has been. So I've sat in my office and just cried more than once, just over hearing the stories of freedom. But you know, what I am selling isn't a good thing to sell. I'm selling looking at the problem in the eye and doing the hard thing. I'm not selling. Here's a three step plan for everything to go right.
0:44:25 - (Patrick Doyle): Because I think that's a lie. In this world, without going through difficulty, you will not, you will not get free. And freedom is worth.
0:44:34 - (Megan Owen): It's so worth the fight.
0:44:35 - (Patrick Doyle): And more importantly, you are, you are not worth being abused. You have deep and profound value. And don't let anybody. One of my favorite sayings that I came up with is that you are the prize. Don't let anyone treat you otherwise, including yourself.
0:44:53 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:44:53 - (Patrick Doyle): It starts with us valuing ourselves enough to say no.
0:44:57 - (Megan Owen): And I know that we need vitamin V and we need a lot of validation. And eventually when you can say it just feels bad to me, it doesn't matter if anybody else thinks that it should feel bad to me or that it wouldn't feel bad to them or you get to that point and it feels so good on the other side. It feels so good on the other side.
0:45:19 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah.
0:45:21 - (Megan Owen): And a lot of women I work with, they. They just, they're not going to go back to that. Their nervous system has. Is addicted now to the peace and their homes where they're not abused anymore. And they're not going back to that. You know, I want to go full circle all the way back to what you talked about as, as a little boy. And which breaks my heart. Sorry. I'm imagining that there were visible signs of what your dad did to you. Right?
0:45:49 - (Patrick Doyle): Yeah.
0:45:50 - (Megan Owen): Okay. And I used to say that I wish that my husband would throw me down the stairs so I could have some visible signs of what he was doing to me. Because with cptsd, with Death of a Thousand Cuts, you can't see it.
0:46:07 - (Patrick Doyle): Right.
0:46:07 - (Megan Owen): Nobody can see it. They just think something's wrong with you or that you're insecure or crazy. Right?
0:46:14 - (Patrick Doyle): Correct.
0:46:14 - (Megan Owen): They can't see the scars, but they are there.
0:46:18 - (Patrick Doyle): Well, so this is where the. This where the title comes from. Megan, if somebody walked into my office with a black eye and a bloody nose. Okay, we know what's going on. The circle of wagons gets this person's mouth. But here's what an abused woman does, particularly in the church. She walks into my office, she smiles, she's well put together, she's articulate, she's capable, and she's in denial, and she's protecting him.
0:46:40 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:46:41 - (Patrick Doyle): If she showed up in my office with one cut, I'd be like, oh, just. He was having a bad. If somebody shows up and they have a thousand cuts, all of them, and they're bleeding to death, we're like, what is going on? We have to get you some help right now.
0:46:53 - (Megan Owen): Yeah.
0:46:54 - (Patrick Doyle): This is the secret suffering. The secret suffering of so many is they are being destroyed.
0:47:00 - (Megan Owen): Yes.
0:47:01 - (Patrick Doyle): By this. And I've seen them change. I've seen them not change. I've seen them do all kinds of things, but my hope is to help you heal and not die the death of a thousand cuts. That's my goal.
0:47:12 - (Megan Owen): And it's mine. And I'm joining you today in that goal. Oh, my goodness. I'm so emotional. I love what we do. I love what we do. So, Patrick, I love having you on the podcast. Patrick has been. He's generous, and he is giving five of his books away. And I'm so excited about this. So we're going to give details at the end of this podcast about how to enter into that little contest so that you can receive one of Patrick's free books.
0:47:45 - (Megan Owen): I also want people to find it on Amazon. Right?
0:47:48 - (Patrick Doyle): You can find it on Amazon for sure. Yeah. Just Death of a Thousand Cuts or My Name, whatever it's there. You can get. You can get. You can get it in ebook or printed version. I'm currently working on the Audible version, so it's not released yet, but I am going to read it myself, so that makes it a little more complicated.
0:48:04 - (Megan Owen): Oh, excellent. I love that, though. I can't wait. So you can find it on Amazon. Follow Patrick on social media. He has a beautiful website. He has groups as well. And then since we have talked a lot today about this, I want to mention our retreat for Mountain City, which is coming in June of 2025. I already have 10 women who are interested. There is limited space, but the title is soul retrieval, and so it goes hand in glove with what we're talking about today.
0:48:34 - (Megan Owen): Being disconnected from our sou soul is incredibly painful. And you may not even know it until you find that connection. So it's a creative retreat with some one on one work, because again, these aren't things that we can just put into steps so that they work Right. Okay. If there's one thing from your book that you want them to know 100 before we go, what would that be?
0:48:56 - (Patrick Doyle): You are worthy of not being abused.
0:48:58 - (Megan Owen): Yeah. You are worthy of not being abused.
0:49:00 - (Patrick Doyle): And you don't have to be.
0:49:01 - (Megan Owen): And you don't have to be. You do not have to be. You do not have to be the sacrificial lamb. That's already done. That's already been done. Okay. All right, Patrick. Well, thank you so much. You're welcome.
