The Light Of Exposure
Karen Key Smith discusses the importance of exposing our defects and weaknesses to the light of day to create more of what works in our lives. She shares her personal experience of growing up in an alcoholic home and how it affected her physical health. Karen emphasizes the significance of understanding what has happened in someone's life to be patient with them.Main takeaways:Our secrets make us sick, and it's essential to expose them to the light of day to receive healing.Exposing our defects and weaknesses helps us address them in a healthy way and create more of what works in our lives.Understanding what has happened in someone's life can help us be patient and empathetic towards them. Mental health is crucial, and emotional issues can affect our physical health.Don't miss the new episodes of My Happy Ass Life dropping every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Follow the podcast wherever you get your shows and check out Karen's blog at myhappyasslife.com. Additionally, catch her live on Facebook Monday-Friday around 7:45 AM central time.Be sure to follow My Happy Ass Life on social media:Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/my_happy_ass_life/)Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/myhappyasslife/)And don't forget to use the hashtag #BeSweetYall!The show's theme song is "Tropical Sun" by Uppbeat, provided free for creators with a license code of SYC1UZMPYY5BQTHZ. The show is written and recorded by Karen Smith, with post-production and show notes by Ashley Feller.Transcript:We've been talking a lot about our gifts, our deficits, our defective character boundaries, things like that. And so what has to happen, and there I use the example of AA, NA, any of the 12 step programs, Al-Anon doesn't matter. They are all based on the same principles of working a program of recovery to expose what doesn't work in their lives and to create more of what does.So I'm just gonna read you the passage that I based our whole affirmation on this morning. And it says, "It would be tragic to write out our inventory only to shove it in a drawer. These defects grow in the dark and die in the light of exposure." So our affirmation today is in the light of exposure.So let's talk about it for just a minute before I read it. This is the thing they say that our secrets make us sick. The things that we hold inside that we don't admit to another person, maybe to your pastor or somebody, or things that can fester and grow, they will always find manifestation. Y'all don't find manifestation in maybe your anger. They'll find manifestation in maybe your body where you're sick and you don't know it.I'm gonna be very transparent and honest with you, with what happened to me as a child. So when I was a young girl, I grew up in an alcoholic home like I've told you many times before. Now my dad was not mean, he was not unkind, and he was not abusive. None of that. But when you live in a home of dysfunction, you get used to dysfunction. But yet you're embarrassed by the dysfunction. You don't want anybody to know about the dysfunction, so you cover it up. And part of my covering it up was I wanted to make everybody happy. So I was always kind, always loving, always sweet. If I was sad or scared, I did not let you know. I don't, to this day, I still don't know about. . I don't know how to express anger because I just don't have it. But what I would do, I would stuff it away.I started getting sick, horrible stomach problems, passing out, hyperventilating, everything you can imagine. They took me to every doctor imaginable and could not figure it out. Not one single person said, "Hey, she's been growing up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional home. Maybe she needs to go to Alateen or get into some kind of recovery program of recovery." And that would have been for fun and for free. But instead, I went to doctor after doctor. Now, the symptoms were coming from an emotional place, but they were truly real symptoms. They were real. They weren't make-believe, and to this day, when I am upset or I am scared, I don't eat. My stomach gets upset. I just do that. I took that to this day, but, when I learned to expose those things to the light of day, when I realized that it was important to not stuff it and address it in a healthy fashion, I suffered from those things, and it was not until. . I started working in a program of recovery. Then I went, ah. So that's what was wrong with me. That's what Oprah Winfrey says. Instead of asking somebody what's wrong with you, ask them what has happened to you? What has happened to your life? And I think that gives us a lot of pause to be very patient with other human beings. Because we do not know those things in their life.We don't know what might have hurt them. And I may read a little more of the passage of this book. This is called the Light of Exposure. All my defects, God, I bring them to you. All my assets and all my gifts I bring them to you. Everything, anything. All the things that keep me in unhealthy patterns, I daily let go. I give all of my life over to the light of exposure, exposing the greater good, exposing my weakness so I can address them, exposing my gifts so I can use them. I will not hide my life under a bushel. But I will not hide the darkness either. Everything, yes, everything, is made more light, more free, more hopeful when exposed to the light of love, and so it is.And I don't know about you, but things for me that I still have to continue to let go of is future tripping, which means I'm worried about something that hasn't even happened or I'm stressing over something that hasn't even happened yet. And instead of using my imagination for good, which I normally do, I start imagining all the things that happen. To extremes. And when I'm over this thing that I'm working through right now that I've told you I've been working through for years trying to get better out of something, I will tell you, but right now, I gotta keep it to myself. Over-concerned with what others and scared of angry people. I have a real problem with angry people. If you're angry, I just don't even talk to you. I just let you do your thing, and I just kinda lay back because I don't understand it. It's something I don't understand. I don't understand anger, I don't understand being very aggravated with people. That's something that I don't have in me, but I have plenty in me that needs to be exposed to the light of day. And I also will not hide the darkness either because in doing, I give you permission to let go of your darkness. I give you permission to expose things in the light of day, and y'all mental health is so important. Mental health, brain health, all those things. I've told everybody the story of me tweaking my knee, but I certainly haven't told a lot of people the story of emotional things that can make you sick, physically sick.So my prayer for you today is that you expose those things to the light so that they can receive healing by God's grace, ease, and his goodness, so that everything that pours out of you is love and kindness. So that's what I got for you today. And you know what? I didn't know I was gonna talk about the soul I got here. So God gave me a surprise today. And you too. I found out when you found out. Y'all, I love you so much, and I'm gonna go play me, hopefully, a good game of golf and enjoy being with these sweet ladies at Bay Point. Be sweet, y'all.
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