Severe Trauma to Identity and Purpose

In this episode you’re going to hear the story of Joseph Belfield a dad who found his identity and purpose through childhood trauma and abuse. His story has inspired many towards healing and realizing their own identity and purpose.

You can get Joseph Belfield's book here: https://a.co/d/9YCknw4

To connect personally with Joseph Belfield you can reach him at:

https://www.facebook.com/joseph.belfield

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Transcription - Severe Trauma to Identity and Purpose

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In a moment you're gonna hear the story of a dad who found his identity in purpose through childhood trauma and abuse.

His story has inspired many towards healing and realizing their own identity in purpose.

You'll hear his story in just a moment so don't go anywhere.

Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere, to take great pride in their role.

And a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.

Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.

Greetings everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm joined by Joseph Belfield who's an author and a dad and is here to share his story so we don't want to waste another minute.

Joseph, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.

Thank you for having me.

Joseph, let's start with one of my favorite traditions. What is your favorite dad joke?

How did Joseph prepare his coffee? He brewed.

[laughs]

I love that one. I love it.

Joseph, let's start from the very beginning. What was your childhood like and how did your life change from there?

I grew up in a broken home. My parents were divorced. I was the second of five kids.

I grew up in very abusive relationship with my dad.

I learned at a young age to take the abuse and just to use that abuse to spare my four other siblings.

But as I grew up into a young teenage, it turned into a sexual abuse by my dad and my brother.

So from there I've just turned into a life of drugs into my later teens and later years.

I mean, it was just a very rough start in the whole time going up. I always dealt alone and just not able to understand why things were happening.

At the whole time I kept searching for God and wanting God to help me.

But in praying and praying and it seemed every morning I'd wake up right back to the same misery and the same pains.

But to grow from there I've learned to now accept God and accept you at times where you are going to be asking for his help and his salvation and his love that I might not see it right away.

But if I allow myself, I will find it and it's there for us at all times.

And what about your dad? How did your dad grow up?

My dad grew up in a very apparently abusive relationship, relationship family dynamics.

Not so much on my granddad's side but for my grandmother's.

They were like 13 siblings in a two bedroom house.

Apparently the sexual abuse was very rampant in that lifestyle back then.

And it was his philosophy was you know what just happened back then. It happens now.

But that's how he learned how to deal with things and do things. So he just continued that cycle of abuse and he was a drunk and his parents were into alcohol as well.

So it was just one cycle after another.

How many generations back does this go