Introduction to The Life Model

1. Introduction to The Life Model • Overview of The Life Model Book • Outline of Cliff’s 19-page summary of the 133-page book • Shepherd’s House Observations • From the Life Model Blog: Instilling Maturity in Children, by Barbara Moon • Coauthor E. James Wilder, PhD. • Important Books by E. James Wilder, PhD. • Biography and CV Extracts • Presentations Given • Three Ministries Related to The Life Model • Thriving Recover Your Life • Thrive Changing My Generation • THRIVE Skills - 19 of them. Nineteen Skills That Create Healthy Communities. Nineteen Skills That Must Be Learned • Karl and Charlotte Lehman • Brain Science, Emotional Trauma, and the God Who is With Us: The Immanuel Approach to Emotional Healing • Information Processing in the Human Brain • Neurobiology Bibliographic References • Clifford Rote • September 2009

2. The Life Model, by E. James Wilder and colleagues The Life Model is a unifying approach to ministries of counseling, recovery, pastoral care, prayer ministry, deliverance, inner healing, child rearing, body (of Christ) life and health. Because the Life Model develops strong maturity, it is widely used as a church model, particularly where people must face suffering. Missions have adopted the Life Model for restoring hurt missionary children. Almost every major ministry dealing with trauma and abuse in the USA uses the Life Model as part of their teaching. Published 2000 and revised 2004 by Shepherd’s House, a 30-year old Christian counseling and healing ministry in Pasadena, CA, this small, 100-page book is a collaborative effort by Shepherd's House staff over many years. • From www.lifemodel.org: • What is the Life Model? • The Life Model is a new paradigm for spiritual and psychological health. If you have tried the usual Christian and psychological answers but still long for something more - you have come to the right place. Stay skeptical as long as you can and take a close look at the Life Model. • The Life Model lets you experience joy and learn the skills to thrive. • The Life Model is powerful. • The Life Model is simple-to-use. • The Life Model re-introduces skills for a peaceful and joyful life that can only be transmitted from generation to generation by those who have learned them. • The Life Model replaces what violence, neglect and loss have kept one generation from passing to the next. • The Life Model awakens the neglected potentials of your brain and soul. • The Life Model enables people under pressure to experience joy. • The Life Model teaches how to recover quickly when something goes wrong. • The Life Model applies neuroscience for practical solutions to urgent problems. • New Life Model applications are developed every day.

3. The Life Model- Outline of Cliff’s Summary Document • 1. Wholeness (page 3) • We live in a Fractured and Fracturing World • Family and Community Can Fail • Traumas keep us from becoming what God intended us to become (Eph 2:10) • Joy is a Necessity • Growth and Maturity are a Biblical mandate • God’s Part and Our Part in Becoming More Mature • Summary • 2. Maturity (pages 4-7) • Maturity is about reaching one’s God-given potential and depends upon Joy • We are motivated by Fear Bonds and Love Bonds • It takes both a village and a family to promote maturity • Maturity and its Stages • How People Mature and the Maturity Indicators Chart • Summary • Maturity Indicators Chart (diagnostic tool) • 3. Recovery (page 8) • Recovery is about exceeding ones’ current potential and reaching one’s God-intended destiny • How brains help with traumas • Type A Traumas - absence of good things we all need to achieve emotional stability • Type B Traumas – bad things that happen • Lies Accompany Both Type A and Type B Traumas • Healing for different types of traumas can misfire in the church setting • 4. Belonging (pages 9-10) • A caring family and community are needed to reach one’s destiny • Spiritual Adoption – God’s way of caring for those who don’t belong • Levels of Spiritual Adoption • A note of caution regarding those who volunteer to become an adoptive family member • How Spiritual Adoption Applies to Ministry • The Life Changing Revelation • 5. Your Heart (pages 11-15) • All valid spiritual direction comes to us through our heart • True knowing and false knowing • A healthy heart • Getting to know the characteristics of your heart • The human birth defect • The heart and the sark • Winning battles with your sark • Living from your heart • Take a Look at Where You Are (diagnostic tool) • 6. Living the Life Model (pages 16-17) • Every church has a God-given heart • What a church looks like under the Life Model • 7. Appendices (page 18) • Scripture References: • Maturity, • God’s Concern to Heal, • God’s Concern For the Fatherless, • Spiritual Adoption. • Books about the connections between Development, Healing and Neurobiology: • The Developing Mind, • Parenting from the Inside Out, • Healing the Hardware of the Soul, • Change Your Brain --Change Your Life, • Joyful Beginnings.

4. The Life Model- Shepherd’s House Observations • Practicing God’s principles makes the people around us more alive. • There are enough good things to be done for us all to participate. • Most people are happy to be life-giving until it requires suffering on their part. • Belief does not form character directly. A change in belief is often the last step in the character formation process and this gives the illusion that a change in belief alone produces a change in character. • Maturity grows best in multi-generational communities. • The Life Model propagates relationally not conceptually. • Healing may be instantaneous but learning skills and building capacity require time and practice. • Joy is a necessary agent for lasting change in relationships with God and with others. • Giftedness and education do not equal maturity. • It is who you know and love that counts. • Most fallen leaders we have examined had excellent categorical theology, knowledge and beliefs that neither caused nor prevented their falls. • Most people do not grasp the importance of things that are missing from their lives.

5. From the Life Model Blog: Instilling Maturity in Children, by Barbara Moon, posted 10-04-2008 Barbara Moon is a ministry leader, counselor, mentor, and teacher living in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the mother of four grown children and Nana to eleven grandchildren. From a description of her book, Jewels for My Journey, “Come take a journey with Barbara Moon, an ordinary person who walks with an extraordinary God. In Jewels for My Journey, Barbara takes you from the beginning of her journey of faith where she meets Jesus Christ at an early age, through young adulthood where she learns about freedom and union with Christ, to a place in her adult life where Jesus heals a deep childhood wound and the disaster of divorce. As the journey unfolds, God uses jewels of wisdom from Barbara’s mentor, Dr. Jim Wilder, to lead her through what Dr. Wilder calls an identity change. What she learns through her journey of faith is life changing and rich with wisdom. You will want to explore and ponder these jewels over and over.” Most conscientious parents desire to help their children grow into maturity. I would like to suggest some topics that may help parents see this issue more specifically. I will take a short compilation of ideas on maturity from my book, Handbook to Joy-Filled Parenting, a topic upon which I will be sharing at the July 2009 THRIVE conference. Maturity is a central truth of and one of my favorite topics in the Life Model. As I look at what maturity entails, its progression and its goals, it has helped me to realize that as parents we are not raising children, we are raising adults. That is our goal—to see our children become fully functioning adults. This worthy task will take daily attention and time over several years. Working on it may prevent some of the problems we see around us today. In today’s world and even in the church, the task of growing maturity is seldom mentioned. We receive all sorts of messages screaming “how to” or “you should” but we don’t hear enough messages that shout, “Grow up!” I’m on a mission, when possible, to try to bring maturity into discussions whenever I encounter struggling relationships. The maturity I am most interested in is not Spiritual maturity but emotional maturity, the kind that helps us act like the age we are supposed to be. We all know adults who whine, blow up and/or attack when they don’t get their way. We know adults who can’t keep a job or who spend unwisely. As I mentor and counsel people and watch children in various settings I see some maturity lacks that are similar in all ages. For now I would like to tickle your thinking about four specific areas that can help parents guide their children into maturity while checking out their own behaviors concerning these skills. It’s important to keep in mind that “More is caught than taught,” and that children will learn none of these specifics unless parents are willing to give unselfishly of their time. The topics I would like to share about are: knowing how to do hard things, respecting another’s’ “no,” knowing what to do with disappointment, and knowing good repair skills when conflict arises. It seems to me that many people do not understand how to do hard things, a task to be learned before the age of thirteen. Perhaps one reason for this lack in children today, besides the fact that parents have that lack, is that we have become a culture of busyness and doing the least possible to get by. It does take tons of time to parent well as we slowly and persistently teach children that homework is part of life and comes first; that delay of gratification is more important than having everything one wants-when one wants it-the way one wants it; and that seeing life from the “big picture” will go a long way towards preventing bad choices later in life. It is very hard as an adult to live within ones means financially, giving and spending the way God intends, if these values were ignored or not modeled while growing up. It is difficult to manage one’s time well as an adult if that topic was never spoken to or modeled. Remaining pure while dating will be extremely absent if children have not been taught that their choices can affect generations. A parent who does not know how to do hard things will find it difficult to make the sacrifices of his or her time that are vital to parenting well. There is no place for selfishness when making the time consuming, hard choice to be the kind of parents who want to be involved in building character into their children’s lives. When children reach the age around four to six and do not demand as much intense attention, it can be easy to become dismissive and step back with our time and effort and allow the children to “take care of themselves.” Parents often do this without thinking and then wake up when the child reaches middle school and begins to act out. It can then be too late to reestablish a close relationship that could have been maintained with unselfish time and attention from birth to twelve. The elementary years are some of the most important for teaching values and building character. Everyday moments bring great opportunities that over time form maturity. Noticing these opportunities is a mind-set that we can choose to have and then trust God to lead us in those moments. When there are squabbles, hurts, questions or celebrations, taking time to interact will send a deep message of value, love and acceptance to our children. Another specific area for training towards maturity is that of helping children learn to respect the “no” of others. Siblings can be taught to respect a no at a very young age when someone says, “Stop” or “No, you can’t play with this right now.” If parents are aware of this aspect of maturity it can become part of everyday life by reminding them when they fail to respect a no and praising them when they do. Sharing of course is taught along the way also, but if we stop and think about it, we can become aware of many places conducive to training children to respect others’ “no’s.” Along with respecting a no, another important task is to help children learn what to do with a “no” which often brings disappointment. This is part of returning to joy from sad and taming the nucleus accumbens, but it can be very practical and often will expose that we as parents might not do well with disappointment. It is much more difficult to take the time to work out, comfort, and/or discipline crying or a tantrum over disappointment than it is to give in. Over the years, and it may take years, children can learn to hear that “no” without falling apart and realize that they will not surely die when not getting their way. Again I see the hard choice for the parent—time and patience instead of going the easy road and giving in. Asking for forgiveness when conflicts arise is another skill I cannot emphasize enough. When children are taught, beginning around the age of two and half to three, to say, “Will you forgive me,” instead of, “I’m sorry,” it will be an engrained habit that will serve them well in life. If you do not think it makes any difference, then try it yourself and see how much more humbling it is to say, “Will you forgive me?” That phrase allows the other person to answer “yes or no.” “I’m sorry” leaves only a place to say nothing or to lie and say, “Oh, that’s okay. “ My daughter-in-law, whose four girls have asked the question from toddlerhood, will not answer anything if her children try the “I’m sorry” route with her. She just remains quiet until they finally say, “Will you forgive me?” After she answers, “Of course,” joy is restored. Once again this kind of training will take time and persistence. As the children get older, we can add, “I was wrong, will you forgive me?” This can be even more difficult to say. This way of seeking forgiveness trains children to take responsibility for their actions instead of blaming others for their mistakes. Granting forgiveness goes right along with seeking it from others. Future relationships will have fewer struggles when mature adults know how to ask for and grant forgiveness. If this is practiced in childhood with siblings and parents, it will easier down the road. When someone asks, “Will you forgive me?” the offended one can say either, “Yes,” or “No” or “I’m not ready yet.” In a family where this kind of practice is normal, the children do not stay very long in the latter two answers. Return to joy is accomplished quite quickly and fear of ruptures is non-existent, another mature skill to carry into life. Taking the tons of time needed to build and guide children through the maturity tasks will be very rewarding and worth the effort as we watch our children enter adulthood better equipped to thrive. Selfless parenting can help prevent many problems that will arise from immaturity issues such as “infants” marrying other “infants or children” and then “babies” having babies. Young adults will be more likely to succeed in school and careers, spend and give money as God designed, and have better relationships by respecting another’s “no.” Realizing that disappointments are part of the entire journey of life and learning to suffer well in them will help life go a bit easier because they will already know that joy comes after feeling sad and/or not getting one’s way. I hope these four topics will encourage us that maturity is an extremely important and necessary path worth considering in everyday issues that arise in our relationships with our children.

6. Very important book! The Life Model- Other important books by E. James Wilder, PhD. We are all part of a natural community made up of our families, friends, work and culture, as well as part of a spiritual community that revolves around God or Satan. When a person fails to receive proper love and support, the door is opened for cults and the occult to provide for those needs. This book shows how Christians have the power to affect both the natural and spiritual worlds.This powerful tool advocates restoration from evil using a community-based counseling perspective. Unlike most books on Satanism or cults, it takes a positive, nonsensational approach intended to encourage those seeking answers. How God designed men to grow and mature. This is the most complete description of Life Model maturity in print. Includes:Stages of Infant, Child, Adult, Parent, and ElderHow to seek out corrective experiences for those elements of development that were missed. A deeply profound book – a must read for adults, parents, elders, pastors and other leaders. Requires familiarity with The Life Model. Raises serious questions about the decreasing ability of our culture to produce elder-level maturity in people. This beautiful and warm hard cover book makes an excellent gift for parents of grade school aged children, men who grew up without active fathers, and anyone who did not have a good bond with their own father. You will learn how to become an adult, deal with sexuality. This book records the warm and personal conversations between father and son on a weekend trip to learn about being a man. Will help you and those you know to grow up even when it has been years since puberty. Those who have read this book and, like Wilder, have taken this trip describe it as a “sacred moment.” Now it is your turn.

7. The Life Model- E. James Wilder, PhD. Biography and CV Extracts Jim Wilder sat at Christmas dinner but could not lift his hand. Even though he was only two years old he was having a stroke. Soon it was obvious that he was spiking a high fever that proved to be viral meningitis – the disease portrayed in the movie Awakenings by Robin Williams and based on the book and true story of Dr. Oliver Sacks. He was a very sick boy and his community prayed urgently for him. Everyone else who had become ill in the epidemic was dead. Instead of being in a wheelchair, mentally retarded or in a perpetual coma Jimmy was soon walking with the help of a brace. As a boy with an uncertain and challenging future, Jimmy read biographies of the doctors who discovered the causes and cures of plagues. He was taking pictures through his microscope of unidentified protozoa by the time he was 12. At age 19 Jim witnesses his first miraculous healing from a psychological trauma. Having grown up during extreme violence in Colombia (an estimated 250,000 people were brutally killed and danger was everywhere) he has seen the results of violence and trauma. Once he saw trauma healed by prayer, his interest in trauma recovery began. Here was a worldwide, unhealed epidemic from violence, abuse and war! Jim acquired a masters in theology and a doctorate in psychology that led to work with veterans, Nazi death camp survivors, addicts and abused children. He has spent over 30 years at Shepherd’s House leading trauma treatment programs. As a supervisor, Jim consistently received the most damaged people and continued his search for recovery for those considered untreatable by all known therapeutic means. By the mid-1990s trauma recovery was an established field but the estimated cost of recovery for one person with severe, life-long psychological trauma was estimated at fifteen million dollars. Doctor Jim knew there needed to be a better way or most of the traumatized people in the world would never be helped. He had already seen a miracle and he was a walking miracle. Before the days of brain scans Doctor Jim worked in the VA hospital doing brain evaluations using the methods developed by the famous Russian doctor Luria. Doctor Jim built research equipment and even designed and built computer circuit boards for research projects. Doctor Jim combined the work of the genius UCLA medical school professor known as the Einstein of psychiatry, Dr. Allan Schore with the work of the Nobel prize winning doctor Gerald Edelman, Dr. Guillio Tononi and the brain scan work by the well known Dr. Daniel Amen and added the materials by Dr. Oliver Sacks, Dr. Daniel Siegel, Dr. Antonio Damasio, Dr.Vilaynur Ramachandran, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk and others and combined them into a form that can be taught to third-world peasant farmers with no education and still amaze career neurologists. At the center is the power of joy to passing a thriving human vitality from generation to generation. If you are human this will make sense deep in your genes and if you know your science it will be brilliant. Doctor Jim continues to seek a self-propagating trauma recovery solution that one person can pass to the next in devastated parts of the world. He was on his way to the Sudan when the somewhat reclusive doctor and Ed met in Florida and the plan for Thriving Recovery was born. The answers Jim and Ed have found are richly woven into the design of Thriving. Now you can participate in the answers that have Doctor Jim speaking to such varied groups as the Public Health Department of the State of Tabasco Mexico, European dignitaries or presenting the future of recovery with Ed at a global conference for training recovery counselors. The power of prayer, the power of innovation, the power of personal recovery and the power of a vision for still undiscovered solutions to the effects of violence and deprivation – global evil – drive the shape and the future of Thriving.

8. The Life Model- E. James Wilder, PhD. Presentations (1 of 2) Clinical and Spiritual Considerations in the Treatment of Adult Survivors of Satanic Ritualistic Abuse, Christian Association for Psychological Studies Western Region, 1988. Patterns of Deliberate Personality Damage, Spiritual Warfare Seminar III, Maranatha Ministries, 1988. Restoration of Those Exposed to Extreme Evil, Spiritual Warfare Seminar IV, Maranatha Ministries, 1990. Community Based Treatment For Ritual Abuse, Christian Association for Psychological Studies Western Region Convention, 1992. Treatment of Husbands of Incest Abuse Survivors, Christian Association for Psychological Studies Western Region Convention 1992. How Ministering to the Deeply Wounded Transforms the Church, International Conference on Biblical Counseling (ICBC) 1996. Community Based Counseling and the Church, Christian Society for Healing Dissociative Disorders (CSHDD) 1996. Overlooked Factors and Traps, Discipling Ritual Abuse Survivors In Resolving Dissociation, Demonization, and Programming, Tulsa 1997. Marriage and MPD,  Pasadena 1997. Bonding and Treatment, Keynote speaker--three days CSHDD Convention 1998. Helping Wounded Healers, Discipling Ritual Abuse Survivors Conference, Shield of Faith, MN 1998. Bonding and Treatment, Keynote speaker--Western Region CSHDD Convention, 1999. Filling Your Cup After the Bottom Drops Out, (Four presentations at each conference.) Community based counseling for churches, Acton CA 1997, Palm Springs 1997, Lexington KY 1997. Healing In Community, Two day training conference for pastors, counselors and those helping abuse survivors, Shield of Faith, MN 1999. (12 hours of training) Bonding, Dissociation and Attachment Workshop, Two day training for counselors, Spokane WA & ID, 1999. Joy Strength, Four presentations at ICBC, 2000. Attachment, Training for prayer counselors at Elijah House Canada, Victoria BC, 2000. Pastoral Counseling Training, for Desarrollo Cristiano Internacional in Chiapas, Jalapa, Mexico City, 2001, 2002. Joy and Trauma Recovery, Ron Susek Evangelistic Association, Gettysburg, PA 2001 (One day training). Shepherds at War, Three day conference, Wichita KS 2002. THRIVE Conference, CARE Inc. MI. Synchronization of brain, relationships and spirit 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 (Six days). Five to Thrive and Diagnosing Failure to Thrive, Lake Avenue Congregational Church, Pasadena. 2003 (12 weeks). Five to Thrive, (8 hours) at Trauma and Abuse Care Group International (TACGI), Medicine Hat, Canada 2003. Joy, Returning to Joy, LA District Assembly Church of the Nazarene, 2003. Lectures and chapel talks on healing and growth Bethany College, Scotts Valley, CA 2003. Maturity Retreat Weekend, Lake Ave. Congregational Church 2004 (Previous retreats include Vineyard, Foursquare, Nazarene, community, Presbyterian and other churches since 1990) Ministering the Joy of Jesus to the Traumatized Brain, Kitchner Ontario, (2 days) 2003, Ensenada Mexico 2004. Suffering Well, Training Pastoral Staff (3 days) Madonna House, Ontario Canada, 2003.

9. The Life Model- E. James Wilder, PhD. Presentations (2 of 2) Suffering Well, Training Pastoral Staff (3 days), First Church of the Nazarene, Pasadena, 2003. Synchronization of the 4+ Hierarchical Levels of the Brain and Diagnosis of Trauma, CAPS Fresno, CA 2003. Joy, Quiet and Synchronization in Trauma Recovery and Prevention, Link Care Fresno, CA 2003. Keeping Your Ministry Out of Court, International Association for Theophostic Ministry Convention Minneapolis, MN 2004. Theophostic and the Brain,International Association for Theophostic Ministry Convention Minneapolis, MN 2004. Recovering From Sexual Addictions, ICBC (five presentations) 2004. Bonding & Healing in Community, Mariners’ Church Irvine, CA (recovery facilitators retreat-5 presentations) 2004. Thriving and Addiction Recovery, De Hoop, Dordrecht Netherlands (one week training for staff) 2004. Belonging and Maturity, De Hoop, Netherlands (one day training for pastors) 2004. Capacity and Vision, Tot Heil des Volk, Netherlands (one day training for Tweede Mijl volunteers) 2004. Thriving and Addiction Recovery, Tot Heil Amsterdam Netherlands  (one week staff training for staff) 2004. Fear Bonds in Occultism, FEO Ede Netherlands (lecture for counseling, medical and pastoral professionals) 2004. Sexual Identity, Netherlands, (one day conference) 2004. Recovery from Trauma,  Ruchama, Netherlands (recovery home for Amsterdam prostitutes) 2004. Pastoral Counseling, Szepalma Hungary (three days for Eastern European pastors through Mentoradines) 2004. Trauma Recovery, (one day church conference) Budapest Hungary 2004. Trauma Recovery, Brasov Romania (5 evening church conference) 2004. Marriage Enrichment and Returning to Joy, Dziegeslow Poland (two day conference) 2004. Maturity, Seminario Teológico Grupo Vida Nueva, Coacalco, Mexico 2005. Recovery, Desarrollo Christiano (half day seminar for leaders,) Mexico City, 2005. Maturity, Seminario Teológico Presbiteriano de Mexico (3 days,) Mexico City, 2005. Maturity, Presbiterio del Sur de Veracruz, (3 days) Coatzacoalcos, Mexico 2005. Addiction and Trauma Prevention, Secretaría de Salud de Tabasco, (Half day conference for the psychologists and social workers for the Department of Public Health), Villahermosa, Mexico, 2005. Addictions and Trauma, 22nd Annual NET Institute Convention, Orlando FL, (3 days of speaking/workshops), 2006. Addictions, Trauma and Maturity, ABC School for addiction counselors (YWAM), Lonavala India, (5 days) 2006. Maturity for Men, Sierra Madre Congregational Church men’s night, 2006. How to Live With A Man, Mexico City, 2006. Thriving, Salvation Army (Leger des Heils) anniversary address, Netherlands, 2006. Guest lectures at Fuller Seminary, BIOLA, Talbot Seminary and Point Loma University.

10. The Life Model- Three Related Ministries Also: Dr. Dallas Willard dwillard.org. Dr. Dallas Willard is a Professor in the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He has taught at USC since 1965, where he was Director of the School of Philosophy. He has also taught at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, UCLA and the University of Colorado. Dr. Willard also lectures and publishes on religion. His books include: The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (Book of the year 1999) Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (Spirituality award 2003) The Great Omission: Rediscovering Jesus' Essential Teachings on Discipleship Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives Dallas and his wife Jane live in Southern California where Jane is a Marriage and Family Therapist who helped establish Shepherd’s House.

11. The Life Model- Three Related Ministries

12. The Life Model- Thrive Changing My Generation (1 of 3) THRIVE Skills - 19 of them. Nineteen Skills That Create Healthy Communities. Nineteen Skills That Must Be Learned Skill 1 - Share Joy Mutual amplification of joy through nonverbal facial expressions and voice tone that conveys, “We are glad to be together.” This capacity allows us to bond and grow strong brains as well.Technical description: Right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere communication of our most desired positive emotional state. Skill 2 - Soothe MyselfSimple Quiet Lowering my own energy level so I can rest after both joyful and upsetting emotions, as I need to and on my own, makes me feel stable. This self-soothing capacity is the strongest predictor of good mental health for the lifetime.Technical description: Release-on-demand of serotonin by the vegetative branch of parasympathetic nervous system to quiet both positive and distressing emotional states. Skill 3 - Form Bonds for TwoSynchronize Attachments The essence of a secure bond is the ability to synchronize our attachment centers so that we can move closer or farther apart at moments that satisfy us both. Synchronized attachment centers provide the basis for smooth transfer of brain skills and learned characteristics.Technical description: Two-way bonds involve simultaneous activation of the attachment centers (Control Center level 1) between two people. This activation helps create a state of mutual mind at the cingulate cortex level (Control Center level 3) that can only be maintained by direct facial contact with one other person at a time. Skill 4 - Create Appreciation High levels of the emotional state of appreciation closely match the healthy balanced state of the brain and nervous system. Creating a strong feeling of appreciation in yourself or others relieves unpleasant states and stress. Appreciation is very similar to the let down reflex that produces milk flow when nursing and the warm contented feeling that follows for mother and child. Skill 5 - Form Family BondsBonds for Three Family bonds allow us to feel joy when people we love have a good relationship with each other. We experience what they feel and understand how they see our relationships through our three-way bonds. Joy bonds between two adults form a couple style bond so community joy building requires bonds for three or more.Technical description: The prefrontal cortex (Control Center level 4) contains our capacity to maintain three points of view simultaneously. When this area is well developed we can understand how others see us, participate in relationships between others and correct our errors about ourselves and how we see others. Skill 6 - Identify Heart Values from SufferingThe Main Pain and Characteristic of Hearts Everyone has issues that particularly hurt or bother him/her and always have been the way he/she is likely to get hurt. Looking at these lifelong issues helps identify the core values for each person’s unique identity. We hurt more the more deeply we care. Because of how much pain our deepest values have caused, most people see these characteristics as liabilities not treasures. Skill 7 - Tell Synchronized Stories4+ Storytelling When our brain is well trained, our capacity is high and we are not triggered by the past, our whole brain works together. A simple test as well as a means to train the brain is telling stories in a way that requires all the brain to work together.Technical description: The four levels of the right-hemispheric control center work together and allow the bonus (+) of having our words in the left hemisphere match our experience. When emotional and spiritual blockage is resolved our whole brain works in a synchronized way. By selecting stories we can test and train our brains to handle specific aspects of life and relationships.

13. The Life Model- Thrive changing My Generation (2 of 3) Skill 8 - Identify Maturity Levels We need to know our ideal maturity level so we know if our development is impaired. Knowing our general (baseline) maturity level tells us what the next developmental tasks will be. Knowing our immediate maturity level from moment to moment lets us know if we have just been triggered into reactivity by something that just happened or have encountered a “hole” in our development that needs remedial attention. Watching when our maturity level is slipping also tells us when emotional capacity has been drained in us or others. Skill 9 - Take a BreatherTiming When to Disengage Sustained closeness and trust requires us to stop and rest before people become overwhelmed and when they are tired. These short pauses to quiet and recharge take only seconds. Those who read the nonverbal cues and let others rest are rewarded with trust and love.Technical description: All the brain-developing and relationship-building moments that create understanding and produce mutual-mind states require paired minds to stop a moment (pause) when the first of the two gets tired, near overwhelm or too intensely aroused. Those who disengage quickly, briefly and allow the other to rest are rewarded Skill 10 - Tell Nonverbal Stories When we want to strengthen relationships, resolve conflicts, bridge generations or cultures we get much farther with the nonverbal parts of our stories than with words.Technical description: This workout for the nonverbal control center in the right hemisphere develops all the timing and expressive skills used to develop good emotional and relational capacity. Skill 11 - Return to Joy from the Big Six Feelings Although we live most of our lives in joy and peace we need to learn how to stay in relationship and quiet our distress when things go wrong. When we take good care of our relationships even when we are upset the upset does not last long or drive people away. We quickly resolve our “not glad to be together” moments.Technical description: The brain is wired to feel six unpleasant emotions. Fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame and hopeless despair are each signals of something specific going wrong. We need to learn how to quiet each of these different circuits separately while maintaining our relationships. Training under these six emotional conditions covers the full range of our emotional distress. Skill 12 - Act Like Myself in the Big Six Feelings Part of maintaining our relationships when we are upset is learning to act like the same person we were when we had joy to be together. A lack of training or bad examples causes us to damage or withdraw from the relationships we value when we get angry, afraid, sad, disgusted, ashamed or hopeless. Skill 13 - See What God SeesHeartsight Hope and direction come from seeing situations, ourselves and others they way they were meant to be instead of only seeing what went wrong. This spiritual vision guides our training and restoration. Even forgiveness flows from seeing people’s purpose as more important than their malfunctions and makes us a restorative community instead of an accusing one. Through our hearts we see the spiritual vision God sees. Skill 14 - Stop the Sark This Greek word (also rendered sarx) refers to seeing life from our personal view of how people should be. This conviction that I know or can determine the right thing to do or be is the opposite of heartsight in skill 13. For the sark, people become what they have done (the sum of their mistakes) or what we want them to become for us. Blame, accusations, condemnation, gossip, resentment, legalism, self-justification and self-righteousness are signs of the sark. Skill 15 - Quiet Interactively Facial cues, particularly of fear, help us to know when we are pushing others too hard. Sometimes we need and want to maintain a high-energy state without “going over the top” like knowing when to stop tickling so it stays fun. Fast recognition and response to facial cues means optimum interactions and energy.Technical description: Using the ventromedial cortex that is part of level 4 of the Control Center together with the intelligent branch of the parasympathetic nervous system allows us to control the upper end of arousal states. Instead of taking us all the way to quiet/peace this type of quieting allows us to operate at high levels of energy and quiet just enough to avoid going into overwhelm. This system controls aggressive, sexual and predatory urges so we can avoid harmful behaviors.

14. The Life Model- Thrive changing My Generation (3 of 3) Skill 16 - Recognize High and Low Energy Response StylesSympathetic and Parasympathetic Many characteristic responses to emotions and relationships are strongly shaped by our tendency toward high or low energy reactions. Recognizing who tends to respond with high energy (adrenalin based emotions) and who would rather withdraw helps us match minds with others and bring more helpful variety to our own response tendencies.Technical description: Joy, anger and fear are all energy producing emotions (sympathetic) while sadness, disgust, shame and hopelessness all reduce our energy levels (parasympathetic). Tendencies to activate or shut down often become “pursuit and withdrawal” or “anger and tears” instead of healthy relationships. Skill 17 - Identify Attachment Styles How well we synchronize our attachments (skill 3) early in life leave the most enduring pattern in our personality. These patterns change the way we experience reality. At one end we may give almost no importance to our feelings or relationships and at the other we may feel hurt almost constantly and think of nothing but feelings and people. We may also become afraid of the very people we need. All these factors distort our reality but feel real to us at the time. Knowing how to spot these distortions helps us compensate.Technical description: Secure attachments bring joy, peace, resilience and flexibility as we mature. Insecure attachments come in three types. An under-active attachment pattern (dismissive) leads to underestimating the importance of feelings and relationships. This group usually thinks things are fine and no big deal. An overactive attachment style (distracted) leads to excessive intensity and an exaggeration of feelings, hurts and needs. This group is always feeling hurt or thinking others are upset when they are not. The third style (disorganized) is afraid to get close to the people they love and need. Skill 18 - Intervene Where the Brain is StuckFive Distinctive Levels of Brain Disharmony and Pain By recognizing the characteristic pain at each of the brain’s five levels we can pinpoint the trouble and find a solution if someone gets stuck. The type of pain gives us a good idea of the kind of solution we will need when someone is not “keeping it together,” “falling apart,” or “stuck” as we commonly call these losses of synchronization.Technical description: There are five levels in the brain when we count the four in the right hemisphere control center and add the left hemisphere as the fifth. By knowing the characteristics of each we know when one level got stuck and what kind of interventions will help. For instance, explanations help level 5 but will not stop a level 2 terror like the fear of heights. Skill 19 - Recover from Complex EmotionsHandle Combinations of the Big Six Emotions Once we can return to joy and act like ourselves with the six big negative feelings taken one at a time, we can begin to learn how to return to joy and act like ourselves when the six are combined in various combinations. Shame and anger combine to form humiliation. Fear and hopelessness (with almost any other feeling as well) form dread. These combination feelings can be very draining and difficult to quiet.

15. The Life Model- Karl D. Lehman, MD and Charlotte E.T. Lehman, M.Div. http://www.kclehman.com/ Cliff participated in this seminar From the Shepherd’s House Advisory Board page: Karl Lehman M.D. is a board certified psychiatrist, international speaker and teacher and writer. His website contains over 2,000 pages of free information.He has produced more than 20 teaching DVDs. Dr. Lehman and his wife Charlotte are the developers of the Immanuel Process of healing prayer. Charlotte has a Masters in Divinity. Karl has been a student and critic of the Life Model and THRIVE training for over a decade. His background in medicine, biology, physics, prayer ministry and community life make him a huge resource who never accepts an answer just because someone said so.

16. Karl D. Lehman, MD and Charlotte E.T. Lehman, M.Div. The Immanuel Approach to Emotional Healing Cliff did all the reading!

17. The Life Model- Karl D. Lehman, MD and Charlotte E.T. Lehman, M.Div. The Immanuel Approach to Emotional Healing Does this teaching regarding Immanuel Interventions and the Immanuel Approach make outrageous and/or heretical claims? Some people are upset by the teaching that we actually interact directly with the living Jesus Christ. Some people are upset by the proposition that people who engage in this process will perceive the Lord’s presence, will connect with Him, and will actually communicate with God. Some people especially have trouble with the obvious implication that people who participate in this process will receive a kind of divine revelation in the context of communicating with the living Jesus Christ. First, I want to clarify what I am actually saying, so that there is no confusion regarding the questions we need to address. Yes, I am saying that we actually interact directly with the living Jesus Christ. Yes, I am saying that people who engage in this process will perceive the Lord’s presence, will connect with Him, and will actually communicate with God. Yes, I am saying that people who participate in this process will receive a kind of divine revelation in the context of communicating with the living Jesus Christ. This is exactly what I am saying. If you are going to hang me for this, you can be comforted by the fact that I am not denying the charges. However, I am NOT saying that we are infallible in our ability to accurately perceive what the Lord is saying to us. I am NOT saying that we are infallible in our ability to accurately interpret the meaning of what the Lord says to us. I am NOT saying that we are infallible in our judgment regarding how the Lord’s words to us apply to the rest of the world. In summary, I am NOT saying that the revelation people receive in the context of communicating with Jesus has the same authority as scripture. But I AM saying that we can perceive the Lord’s presence, that we can connect with Him, that we can communicate with Him, and that we can receive truth from Him in the context of this communication. So, do I have an answer for those who are upset by these bold claims? Can I support this teaching – that some find upsetting (or even outrageous) – with sound Biblical exegesis? The answer is actually surprisingly simple: Read Dallas Willard’s book: Hearing God.30 In all seriousness, Dr. Willard wrote this book to answer exactly these questions: “Can we, today, in the twenty first century, actually communicate with the Lord? Can the average Christian, in the present, actually receive specific, individualized truth from God in the context of this communication?” Dr. Willard’s conclusion is “Yes.” And he supports this conclusion with strong, sound, compelling Biblical exegesis. Read the book. It’s really excellent. 30HearingGod: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press), 1999.

18. The Life Model- A Helpful Diagram of Information Processing in the Human Brain Hippocampus Viewed from the Right Hemisphere

19. The Life Model- Neurobiology Bibliographic References Allan N. Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: Neurobiology of Emotional Development, (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 1994) Allan N. Schore, Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2003) Allan N. Schore, Affect Dysregulation and the Disorders of the Self, (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2003) Erik H. Erikson, GROWTH AND CRISIS in, Theories of Psychopathology and Personality Edited by Theodore Millon (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1973) Pages 136-156. Bessel van der Kolk, Psychological Trauma, (Washington: American Psychiatric Press, 1987.) Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience , (New York: Guilford Press, 1999.) Daniel G. Amen, Healing The Hardware of the Soul, (New York: The Free Press, 2002.) Gerald M. Edelman, Guilio Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness, (New York: Basic Books, 2000) Harvey Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, Craving for Ecstasy, (San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers, 1997.) Ronald A. Ruden and Marcia Byalick, The Craving Brain, (New York: Perennial, 2000.)