BONUS: S2 Episode #20- Kim Honeycutt Part 1

The One when Kim Honeycutt Comes Back

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For this 2-Part Bonus Series, we welcome back top-rated psychotherapist, Kim Honeycutt! If you haven’t listened to our Season 1 interview with Kim, click HERE for a deep-dive into rejection, shame, and blame and how to get free from toxic relationships.

We recently reached out to some of our past guests that we felt might have some thoughts and feelings about everything going on in our country currently and we were delighted to receive a response from our friend Kim Honeycutt! Please be sure to listen to our first interview with Kim in Season 1.

In addition to her accomplished career as a psychotherapist, nonprofit founder, Tedx speaker, and author, Kim has also spent time as a law enforcement officer and has a unique perspective on current events. During our most recent chat, we also learned that Kim grew in empathy as she faced the tension of growing up in a multi-ethnic family. Her mother is from Panama and her father is from Fort Mill, SC. 

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In the first part of this episode, Kim points out that Jesus is the only person who was abused and was at his best during his abuse. The rest of us in our humanity become traumatized by the pain of this world and as a result, suffer the long-term fallout in our nervous system.

Kim shares that if she didn’t understand the nervous system and trauma response, she would have a much harder time finding grace for people who come at her with criticism over her. In recent weeks, she’s fielded several heated social media interactions that her experience and maturity have allowed her to handle with Grace instead of personalizing other people’s issues. God has emphasized to her once again that we can’t be in a growing relationship with the Lord or with others if we are constantly in fear of offending people or in a state of feeling offended.

To clarify, personalization simply means becoming offended or self-blaming inappropriately. The more personal your relationship with Christ is, the less you will personalize what is going on with other people.

In order to further explain our responses to one another that are rooted in our own past experiences, Kim explains that the autonomic nervous system is in charge of things we can’t control like our heartbeat, digestion, etc. But we can manipulate parts of the autonomic nervous system, such as our breath. Kim runs as a means of being still and knowing that God is God. When she runs, she controls her breath so that she can hear the Lord. 

On a recent run, the Lord highlighted several verses in Galatians.

Galatians 1:10 NIV

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ

If we’re trying to win the approval of humans, we’re not serving God.

Galatians 5:1 NIV

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

It is for freedom that Christ set us free— that doesn’t mean we have been SET free. It does not mean that we ARE free.

We have to choose freedom. We must stand firm on God’s foundation of love, mercy, and justice and not let ourselves be burdened AGAIN with the yolk of slavery.

Helping those who are enslaved requires us to do the work of accepting the gift of freedom.

Galatians 6:1-6 NIV

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way  you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load. Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.

We are called to stand beside our brothers and sisters who are burdened.

If we haven’t done our work, we will become tempted or distracted and that work means getting past our tendency to require the black and brown community to carry the burden of proof and instead carry the burden of Truth shoulder-to-shoulder!

As Kim has pressed into what the Lord is showing her in this unprecedented time, she realized that COVID-19 has brought her back to further studies on childhood attachment styles in an effort to discover more on people’s current sense of safety and capacity for connection.

She shared some of her valuable knowledge and expertise and explained that functionality that is limited to the sympathetic nervous system leads to anxiety, anger, and danger. We can fall into doing without feeling or connecting. One example of this coming up as a problem for Christians is the busy bee servant at church who is always working, but never connecting with God or others. This kind of behavior is potentially a trauma response called “fawning”.

That was the point at which Kim explained the Polyvagal theory developed by Dr. Stephen Porges. Here it is in simple terms:

The parasympathetic has two branches: Ventral and Dorsal

Ventral Vagal function allows for social engagement, connection, easing back and forth with conversation, rest and nourishment, curiosity, and empathy 

Dorsal Vagal function can cause us to freeze, shut down, collapse, or diassioate and triggers an overload of the stress hormone, cortisol. A person in a dorsal vagal response might even apear calm.

The sympathetic nervous system generates four main trauma responses:

  • Fight- anger and potentially violently responding to the trigger

  • Flight- fleeing from the trigger

  • Freeze- paralyzed by the trigger

  • Fawn- “doing” in an attempt to appease others calm the triggering situation

Fight, Flight, Fawn, Freeze (freeze response can happen in both sympathetic and parasympathetic) responses are pro-self, or self-protective. We can’t feel safe and close to God with our sympathetic nervous system activated due to trauma.

We have to realize that due to racism, people of color may disproportionately be in a trauma response from childhood experiences or circumstances and can’t be at their best because of hormonal interference. 

If we don’t have a posture of curiosity, compassion, and empathy towards others and yourself, we can never get anywhere but where we are. 

Kim asserts that therapy and systemic racism must go together. That’s where we can break down systems of abuse, neglect, ignorance, false ideology, privilege, etc. We have to treat ourselves well if we’re going to undo what we’ve been taught and find healing, peace, and justice.

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A Little More Background on Kim:

Kim Honeycutt graduated from Columbia College in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and then received a Master of Social Work degree from the University of South Carolina in 1998. After years of working in secular facilities, Kim wanted to be more open about her life as a Christ-centered recovered alcoholic.

As a result, she founded Peer In Counseling Center in 2005, a Christ-centered psychotherapy organization open to all seeking emotional healing. As a Psychotherapist, Kim provides individual, couple, and family therapy services at her office in Huntersville, NC.

In addition to providing therapy, she also has been published in several magazines including My School Rocks, Static, and Charlotte Woman. Her speaking engagements include TedxCharlotte, Myers Park High School, Substance Abuse Prevention Services Center, Providence High School, Independence Hill Baptist Church, Mosaic Church, Grace Crossing Church, Grace Covenant Church Women’s Ministry, and Columbia College to mention a few. Kim has made regular appearances on television and has been featured on National Public Radio.

Her book But Your Mother Loves You: How to Overcome the Cycle of Toxic Love and Live Your Life Without Shame will teach you groundbreaking ways to navigate toxic relationships and stop shame-based living.

Kim is also the President and co-founder of icutalks a speaking ministry that helps people hear the message of God’s redeeming Love. Check out Tia’s icuTalk here. Be sure to tune in for her new podcast icuTalks: Hear Voices on iTunes as well!

 

CONNECT WITH KIM:

If you would like more information on Kim’s upcoming speaking engagements, please visit kimhoneycutt.com or icuTalks.com.

Facebook: facebook.com/kbhoneycutt

Twitter: @kbhoneycutt

 

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