Joy is one of the first things we lose when fear and trauma take the wheel and it’s also one of the first things spiritual warfare targets. We sit down with writer and speaker Wanda Thibodeaux for an honest conversation about CPTSD (Complex PTSD), the slow accumulation of harm that can leave you stuck in shame, hypervigilance, and the crushing feeling that God must be disappointed in you.
We get painfully practical about the gap between feelings and truth. Feelings are real, but they can distort reality, especially after trauma, and they can whisper lies like “God is absent” or “I’m not worthy.” Wanda shares how getting grounded in scripture helps us challenge those distortions, rebuild identity in Christ, and stop striving for love we’ve already been given. We also talk about free will, God’s timing, and why silence can feel like abandonment even when God is actively working in the background.
If you’ve ever connected with Job’s ashes moment, this is for you. We unpack why trusting God’s character matters more than getting instant answers, how to spot coping mechanisms that keep you numb, and how to start healing without needing to relive every detail of the past. Wanda introduces “joy by a thousand jolts” small daily moments of joy that support neuroplasticity, retrain the brain, and gently reconnect you to a God who is joy.
If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find faith-forward tools for trauma healing and purpose.
Connect with Wanda on LinkedIn and find her books, writing, and devotional at faithfulontheclock.com.
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey Lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release That Review Purpose. And today is Wanda Thibodeau. She’s here to discuss joy and how we can backhand the devil with it. Because here’s the thing when we are stepping into our joy is when we start to experience immense spiritual warfare. She went through it in her own journey. I’ve gone through it in my journey. You’ve heard me talk about we get out of our fear, we finally start stepping into joy and we start to surrender to the Lord’s plan for our life. And here He comes. And it can be very devastating for some of us because we think we’ve done something wrong and it’s punishment and it’s not. We know that when we’re fighting in this world, we’re not fighting against people, we’re fighting against spiritual realms. And it scripture tells us that when we start getting into God’s word, we start understanding more because he starts revealing more to us. So without further ado, we wanted to thank you so much for joining us on release that reveal purpose.
Thank you. I really appreciate the invitation to be here.
It’s wonderful to have someone that understands this journey. And I’m really curious to understand more about your journey from PTSD because I know that you talked a lot about trauma, you overcoming and unlearning that and not associating God with that. And I know tons of people that need to hear your story. So can you honor us with it?
Sure. Um, well, I guess I mean I’ll just start with the basics. Um, but first I do want to clarify like um CPTSD, which is mainly what I talk about, there is a difference between that and regular PTSD. And the main difference is like PTSD normally develops um, you know, with with major events. I mean, like if you think of a veteran in war, um, that’s a good example. But CPTSD is I refer to it a lot, it’s like death by a thousand cuts, where we have these small traumatic moments all the time that just add up. And that’s what, you know, like childhood trauma or even like you know, like if you are in an abusive relationship, that’s another good example of CPTSD. Um, so it’s not necessarily always in childhood, but that term that’s what it means is that it’s always a constant small traumas. Now you can have big traumas, you know, wrapped up in that, you know, depending on what your environment is. But the idea is that it’s basically a slow burn for the hurt, if that makes sense. Um, but having clarified that, um, you know, my my backstory is basically, you know, my my home when I was growing up was basically not a really safe environment. There’s a lot of alcoholism in the home, um, domestic violence, that kind of thing. So it really was not safe. And within that, I really had a lot of self-doubt. I didn’t know what God wanted me to do. I felt really, really far from him most of the time. Um, you know, struggled with all the typical things, shame, you know, all that stuff. Um, so as I walked through that, you know, I I managed to kind of keep my connection to God, but it was always a question of, you know, well, what am I supposed to do? Like, am I really even worthy of him? So that question like followed me for a long time. Over time, I have very slowly come to accept, you know, as I have on my backdrop for my Zoom, that you can fight for joy and in that way backhand the devil. My belief that I have struggled to find is that our joy is basically spiritual warfare fighting for that. And when we have these kinds of battles, whether it’s regular PTSD or CPTSD, all of the trauma that is in our life, we have to cling to that joy. The devil knows that if we break our joy, or if he he breaks our joy, that breaks the relationship that we have with God. God is joy, and if he can break that, that breaks the connection. And that to the devil is the biggest wound he could ever give God is to destroy that relationship. That is his main goal. So I believe that he uses all of the things that happen in our lives. The devil, you know, he uses all of these negative things, the poor choices that people make, and he he makes those to his benefit as much as he can to hurt God. But our fight is to backhand him by fighting to keep the joy and to remember that God is who he is, he’s a joyful God, he’s not in it to hurt us. You know, sometimes when we go through all of these things, that’s what we feel like is that God is doing it to us, but it’s not. God walks us through it, that’s the difference. It can feel so similar, like a trial from God, but God walks us through it, the devil causes it. That’s the big difference. So that’s it, that’s the story in a nutshell.
I love that because you have, in essence, touched on many subjects. You’ve touched on the relationship that God seeks of us, you’ve touched on his presence in our lives, despite our trials, because he never promised that we were gonna have a carefree life. He always said you’ll have trials and tribulations, yet I will be with you. When you seek me, you will find me. There’s so many verses to that as you read his word, his truth, right? And you’re right, the devil does want to break your joy and, in essence, break your relationship with him. That’s the biggest insult. And our call to action, if you will, is to stand firm in that joy, stand firm and angered in him, in God’s relationship with us. Abide in me as I abide in you. Know that you do have the spirit of power, love, and self-discipline to stand your ground because he’s told you that. But I do think, Wanda, and I and this is the part that I’m really curious about. I know I’ve struggled with believing who I am in Christ. As we spoke at the beginning before we even started recording, I shared with Wanda that in November he kind of sat me down and said, I am not interested in your achievements. I’m interested in your heart, Sylvia. And you’re not giving me your heart. You’re striving again. You’re striving to feel worthy of my love. You already have my love. You don’t need to do that, you don’t need to earn that. I’ve given that to you. My son gave that to you when he died on the cross. You’re you’re here. You you are a co-heir with Christ, and I need you to start believing that. But I know that that is a struggle for people. Wanda, can you break up how you went from not feeling worthy and believing in who you are in Christ? Can you break that up?
Well, there’s a couple of things to that. Um, the first thing that I would say is it took me a long time to understand it, but feelings are just feelings. Like they’re not even true. Like if you think of like a little kid who is totally scared that there is a monster in the closet, that is a feeling. There is no monster in the closet, but they feel like it is, and to them that’s reality because the feeling is so strong, right? And that’s kind of the way that I see this. Now we are in a lot of times really hard situations. Those situations are real, but the feeling that God is not present with us, that is the abstraction, that is the distortion that we have. That’s the feeling that isn’t true. So what we have to do is realize how do we how do we recognize that that feeling is just a feeling? So that kind of led me to say, okay, well, I I know I’m in this feeling, and I can’t really seem to get rid of it. And what I had to do was really get into the word and say everything that I’m feeling goes against scripture, it goes against the word, it goes against everything that I have been told about his character. So either he’s wrong or I am. Like honestly, I mean, like that, I really had to think that way. And I said, okay, well, if he’s right, okay, well, then I have to just let the feeling be a feeling, and just that feeling, not trust that, not that you can’t trust your instincts all the time, but just in that particular area, realize that’s distorted, and I know it’s distorted, and I’m gonna sit in that and recognize it, and then I’m gonna get into the word and focus on that. Um, the other thing that was really big for me is just taking time to try and zoom out a little bit, like I said, like getting into the word and seeing that bigger picture of who God is and thinking, I’m in this moment that I don’t feel stable, I don’t feel good. And then I realize God is so much bigger than that. He’s so much bigger than I am, and I have to just let that moment pass because it’s not it’s not gonna be my entire reality. And I have to look at my entire reality for what God wants it to be, not what I think it is, if that makes sense.
It does, and it does there’s a word that keeps coming up in my consciousness, and I have a feeling it’s the Holy Spirit asking this. So maybe there’s someone that needs to understand the concept of free will and how this plays into what you just discussed.
Well, I think that I I don’t know if I if I would say I have a line between free will, because I think that God, He I don’t think He forces us to do anything, He does not force us to believe in Him. We have the will to believe in Him or not. He wants us to, but I also believe that He does know whether we are going to choose Him or not. So it’s like kind of like this fuzzy middle line. So I really believe that when He is there with us, He knows that He was supposed to be there with us, He knows everything that’s gonna go on in our lives, so that from that standpoint, you know, we we can choose, but as scripture says, all things work for His good, and we can trust in that.
I I love that. And there was something that you know as you go talking that this is as you read the word, he does reveal certain things to you. Absolutely and that’s the part that most people miss. One, two, his knowledge of uh of what is happening is far greater, far more vast than yours. Yours is very limited in what’s happening in your life, and the role you’re playing precisely in this moment that will impact another of his children’s lives. And I know that I’ve discussed this concept on the podcast before because the timing, God’s timing, can sometimes feel like abandonment. Yeah, it can feel like silence, like from a parent. And downright can feel painful when we can’t hear him, when we don’t know what the guidance is. Have you been in those moments and how have you navigated?
Oh gosh, I mean that was most of my life, to be honest with you. I mean, I and I won’t sugarcoat that, but what I will say about it is that when you are seeking God in that absence, like he’s you’re seeking him, but he’s right next to you and you don’t even see it. I mean, because again, that feeling distorts you from recognizing that he’s right there, right? I have this, and and you can maybe I don’t know, some some people respond to it and some people don’t, but I sometimes I call God taco God because my image of him is that like a best friend, you go in the middle of the night and you you’re hungry and you’re you’re gonna say whatever is good you’re gonna vent and you’re gonna eat that taco and you’re gonna sit with your best friend and just have that moment with them, right? Best friend. That’s God to me. That’s what he’s supposed to be, that relatability that you can sit next to him and have a taco. Now, does that mean that you can’t respect him? No, you pick up a napkin, okay? But that relatability, that that presence that he has, that is always there, that kind of intimacy that he wants. We just don’t always realize it that he’s right there on the couch next to us as we are crying into our tissues, but we just can’t feel it, you know, and that’s that’s the disconnect. But all I will say to that is when you have those moments, you really have to realize that God is God, He will work through those feelings that you have. I can’t remember a single time after that, like I would, I would work through those moments, and I would still know that God was God, like after like all of that, like just crying, like and I would get it done, and somehow I would feel better, and I would then in that moment I would be like, Yeah, he’s still there. I don’t know how, but I know he’s he’s around, and I didn’t know what was gonna come up, but I but I could feel that.
I can relate big time, I can relate big time. There’s been several moments, and as you were speaking, he was I don’t know if he does this with you, but he does it with me all the time. He’ll give me a reel of events that have already occurred, and he’ll remind me this is when I was still there that you thought I wasn’t there. Uh like there were moments ago in 2022 where I felt so alone and I didn’t reach out to anyone, no other human being knew what was happening, yeah, except myself and God and my spouse. That was it. That that was the only three people that knew what was happening. And I just sat and just gave it all to God. I I couldn’t feel him, I couldn’t hear him, I just knew to trust him because I had already surrendered back in 2012 during Easter weekend, and I he had come through for me. And so when you have those experiences with him, you rely on those experiences when you can’t feel him or see him or or see his character as you’re reading the word. Because sometimes as you’re reading, it feels like you’re just going through the motions that’s happened to you, it has happened to me, and it’s like the forcing of it because it does happen to all of us. It’s not just, I think most people see both you and I and think, oh, it never happens to them. It happens to us a lot, actually. We he shows me different ways that he’s there, and not always with that presence in the heart space or at the crown of my head where I feel like a tingling sensation when I know he’s there. Yeah. Um, and so I can relate, and I’m sure a lot of people on the other side of this interview will be able to relate when there’s total silence. One of the things that I did do in that silence just recently, just like you, was get into the word. And my honest prayer was this, and I keep saying this because I I feel like I feel compelled to share. I Lord, give me the eyes to spiritually see what you need me to see in this circumstance. Give me ears to hear, to understand and embody that understanding so that I can produce the fruit of patience in my life as I wait for your response. And Lord, help me believe, like truly believe who and what I am in you, Lord. Because that was my biggest struggle was I I knew how to achieve, because that’s how I trained my whole body to be. Yeah. But when that came to a standstill and he sat me down and he said, But I’m not interested in that. So we’re interested in your heart. I want you to pause for presence with me, for relationship with like true relationship. And I think this is another leveling up. Do you feel like this is a leveling up for you? What do you think your next level up will be with God? I’m curious.
Well, I can’t I can’t speak to you know what he’s got planned for that, so I can’t really know what the level up is going to be. Um, but what I will say is I have thought so much about Job being having gone through what I have been through. And you know, we always talk about that in terms of, you know, he he was testing Job. I don’t necessarily believe that. I believe he was teaching the devil that he couldn’t mess around with things. Um, but when you look at Job, you know, he was devastated. Sitting in the ashes. I mean, if you want to talk, not understanding what’s going on, that’s Job. But what Job had was his understanding, his cognitive understanding, like we’re saying, of who God was. That’s what let him get through. So tagged onto that, you know, like we were talking about getting back into the word, we I think sometimes, and I know for myself that part of why I struggled was this. Um, but when you’re talking about timeline, we want our own timeline. And we said that God has his, but it’s our human tendency, really, to want the script. And we think that if he is not talking to us, then that’s it. But really, he’s working in the background. Just because he’s silent to us doesn’t mean he isn’t active. It doesn’t mean he’s not addressing the problem. It just means that right now, that’s not his moment to speak to you. He’s doing something else on your behalf that will come to fruition. You will see it later. So you’ve got to trust whatever is in the background and sit with him on the couch. If he’s gonna be silent while he’s working on other things, okay. But just sit there, you know, be Job, trust what you know. That’s uh the the best advice that I can give in that from what my own experience.
I think this is hilarious. This concept, I I I laugh and laugh because years ago he led me to Job. I mean, I’m talking about 2021, maybe 2020. He said, I need you to read Job and Jeremiah. I’m like, whoa, really? And then like, this is like dark. This is Jeremiah didn’t go through all his was a hard mission. And I and I felt like saying, Is that what you’re leading me? Like, is my mission gonna be hard? Because I’m gonna be leading people to you when we’re in a day and age that people don’t want to believe in God, right? They want to believe in every in themselves, in their accomplishments. That’s what they rely on, on their control. They don’t know to trust, to rely on who God is. They don’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to do that until a couple months ago, you know, and just really sit with it. Yeah. Um and he led me to not just Job, but I do agree with Job, it’s under he had his cognitive understanding of who God is, right? He had that, even though he had lost absolutely everything. And if there’s someone in the Bible that truly trusted God’s timing and whose faith, that’s I think the biggest thing with Job was his faith, despite everything he lost, and despite how the devil came at him, because he sifted him lovely. Like, oh, let me test him because, well, of course he’s righteous, and of course he loves you. Well, you’ve given him everything. That’s like the beginning of Job. And then when you see what everything he tested him through, my book, the reason why I titled it, In Faith I Thrive, is precisely this concept that Job sat through. Job’s faith was the his biggest weapon against the devil himself. And the only authority that that demons understand is the word of God. And so if you don’t get into it, how do you how can you fight them?
Right.
Right. And so in the last couple of months, I put up scripture everywhere in my house because the warfare was here in my home and it was constant. Yeah. And I find that those of us that are stepping into tougher missions, missions that are bringing more souls back to heaven, giving him back his children, you know, that are lost, that are looking for him, but they’re looking for him in all in different places, and they don’t realize they’re looking for him. And then they hear us talk and they say, Well, that’s what I want. I want to have what they have. I want to have that level of faith that no matter what’s going on in your life, no matter how abandoned you feel. Um, like we said, and let’s break it up. The very first concept that you discussed is sit with the feeling. The feelings can distort. Yeah, right. We’re emotional human beings. So we know that thoughts are going to promote big feelings. We know that, uh, just based on psychology. We know there’s scripture out there to that degree of saying arguments and any pretense, pretensions that sets itself up against the knowledge of God are demolished when we take thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. And if we use that concept as weapon, as warfare towards the devil, then a lot of these arguments they don’t even. You don’t even have these conflicts anymore. This inner conflict, you rely and you trust in God. But the conflict exists because the sins of our flesh are very powerful within us. Our feelings are very powerful within us. So I think what we are saying is identify what is really the feeling, right? And give it to I in my case, I’ve given those feelings to God. I’ve released them completely to Him. It’s like, listen, I want you to reveal to me why this triggered me so much. Help me remove it with your strength. I I obviously have tried it in my strength and it didn’t work. I failed 150 times. I’m kind of done feeling this, you know, because it’s hurting the people around me. So the first thing and what we’re saying, I think, Wanda, is get to the root of why you’re feeling like that and give it to him, release it to him. And the second thing I heard you say is rely on who God is. And the only way to rely on who God is is to get into his word. Are there any other uh tips that you can share with the listeners on how they can learn more about God?
Well, for me, again, like just taking that time because as you know, when you because I have worked a lot too, like that that was my vice. It still is, you know, that I’m that I’m working on it. But you know, when you talk about CPHD or any of the things that we can go through that can disconnect us from God, part of the problem with that is that we get so we get used to the path of the coping mechanism that feels so familiar. And in terms of feeling, we know what that coping mechanism helps us to feel. And what’s scary is that when you leave the coping mechanism aside, whether it’s work, alcoholism, whatever it is, when you leave that aside, now you have to open yourself up to another feeling that maybe you were kind of to push down, right? So you have to be real honest about what those feelings are. So I would say try to identify what you are using in your life to not feel what are the difficult feelings that you don’t want to touch because that’s where the good stuff is, or that you have to bring to God, and maybe that has to mean you set the project aside. Maybe it means you don’t overeat the way you normally do, or whatever it is, but you stop that activity that you’re used to and you sit in it, and it’s hard and it’s messy and it doesn’t feel good, but that’s where you can go to God and say, This doesn’t feel good. And as far as finding out the why, one thing I do want to mention there is that you don’t necessarily have to go back to when you were three or five or whatever it is, you don’t have to go back that far. It can just be something a little bit more generalized to say, this makes me uncomfortable because I don’t like having people have authority around me. Okay, well, that’s a big part of it. You can keep diving into it, but that’s the core nugget, right? And you can you can get deeper into that over time, but just to identify that and just be willing to dig in as far as you can where you are at. Pieces will come. I talk about sometimes how it’s a little bit like a kaleidoscope. My life has been like a kaleidoscope where God will give you these little beads of understanding and he will put them in the tube, right? But you don’t know, you don’t see it all, right? Because you don’t you don’t get it. And all of a sudden, when you’ve got the pieces, uh you’ve got the beads that he needs you to have to have everything make sense, he just gives a little twist, and then all of a sudden things lock. You didn’t know, you didn’t know, like you knew you had the bead, but you had no idea how it connected to anything else. Nothing so you didn’t you didn’t you didn’t have the feeling of like of like the magnitude of what it was because you couldn’t see the connection pieces, and so sometimes I think what God does is he gives us these little pieces over time so that we’re not overwhelmed, and then when we’re ready, he clicks it into place, and then we feel the whole thing, and it makes sense. That’s what it was.
Yep. For you know it’s kaleidoscope for me, it’s puzzle pieces because I love puzzles, and all of a sudden that last piece comes in, you’re like, oh that makes sense. There’s like why, why, why? Oh, that makes sense, that’ll make sense. I get why you did that in this timing, and for me, there’s been so many instances of that as of late. Um and I’ve tried to explain this to my husband, but he, you know, the he’s on a different journey, so it’s almost like when you ask God, when you honestly ask him to reveal, he will hold back.
Yeah. The other thing too is like I think sometimes as we are waiting for that timing, again, we are trained in this culture to want big signs, big signals, right? If you’re gonna invest in anything, you want definitely the numbers have to be there, right? And we’re trained to look for that, and we want the big feelings, the big joy. And one of my biggest messages to people is that that’s not how it works. If you know anything about neurology, you know that you have to put little pieces in all the time to get those neurons to wire a certain way, and you have to repeat it dozens, dozens, hundreds of times to get it to really be smooth. So, my message to people is that if you want to reconnect to God, look for your small tiny joy moments. I call them joy by a thousand jolts.
Yes.
Because every time you’re putting in that neuralgia, you are literally retraining your brain. And the beautiful, beautiful thing about this is that because remember, God is a God of joy. So then once you start feeling it many, many small little times a day, guess what? You can also do believe that there is a God who is joyful because you actually experientially feel it, yes, you reconnect to him in that way. So even little things I tell people all the time, even if it’s just feeling the warmth of your coffee cup, definitely.
It’s not it’s not big moments, and I and I shared it in my book as well. The the subtitle is Finding Joy Through God’s Master Plan. Because these are there’s gifts of joy every day, and like you said, it’s like the steaming cup of coffee. It’s going outside and catching a glimpse of a cardinal as it’s flying from tree to tree. Yeah, these are not big moments, these are small, small moments, but we must retrain our mind to look for it because in this day and age we have negative bias, it’s everywhere. Yeah, we don’t intentionally focus our mind on the small gifts of joy. We won’t see them, we won’t find them, we won’t feel them, right? And we know through psychology that neural pathways take time to re groove. Like we need to create new grooves in our brain. First, we need to remove the old pathways, the you know, the feelings that are getting triggered, right? Like we discussed at the beginning of the podcast. But then when we’re creating these new neural pathways, it’s when we’re noticing these small moments daily, and we do it. I’ve found that it wasn’t 21 days of doing this, it was like 40 days of doing this, 45 days of consistently, and even if you miss a day, you get up the next day and you do it again. It doesn’t mean that, oh my gosh, we have you know failed. No, it just means that we’re human.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We’re human and uh we’re gonna fall in temptation because we all do, we all do, but that’s why he died first. That’s the whole purpose of him dying first because he knew the human tendency was too strong. He knew that the devil was gonna tempt us and we were going to fall for his bait, and but we need to pick ourselves up and just keep going, you know. So any last words of encouragement, one that were how can we find you, we want to work with you, or you know, buy stuff from you.
Sure. Well, as far as the last word of encouragement, you know, you had mentioned Jeremiah earlier, and one of the things that I think God showed me as I was working through Jeremiah for myself is that if you read Jeremiah, you know, he struggled, struggled so much. But part of the reason he struggled is because God had shown him right from wrong. If he didn’t know right from wrong, he wouldn’t have felt as bad as he did, if that makes sense. Like it’s a bit of a paradox. So if you are struggling, if you are suffering because you know what the right thing is, and people aren’t doing that to you, they’re treating you badly, you’re suffering, whatever it is. The very fact that you know right from wrong that you have pain, it’s a paradox, but that by itself proves that God exists because the only place that that knowledge could have come from is from God. He gave that to you for a reason, and you can cling to it. That’s wonderful. So, having said that, if people do want to connect with me, I always invite people to connect with me on LinkedIn. Otherwise, you can look at my um my books and my writing on faithfulumclock.com. I have a devotional that you can find on there as well.
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Wanda, for joining us on release that revealed purpose. I’ve learned immensely from your journey. And thank you for clarifying C P T as these. So I know what you’re talking about. That’s awesome. And for the listeners, you know how I always sign off to remember Matthew 5.14 to be the light, be your light. That light shines inside of you so brightly, and it’s where your joy is. And when you step into it with confidence, with that power, love, and self-discipline that God has given you, you will shine brightly for everyone to see. And you’re gonna attract even more prosperity into your life because that’s how this works. And so, Wanda, thank you so much for being that light in the world. If you and I can do this, I know that anybody listening can also step into their own light. Have a wonderful and safe and loving rest of your day.
Bye now.
Thanks, Shelly. So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review back on iTunes. We’ll win a chance on the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.