Rising Lights Podcast

You’ve recognized the patterns. You’ve developed discernment. Maybe you’ve finally left. But now you’re standing there thinking: "okay, now what?"

In one of the final episodes of Season One, host Margaret Byars, LPC, answers the question she’s been building toward all season: what does restoration actually look like after you’ve come out of the tornado? She gets personal about what she thought her healing would look like, and what it actually looked like, and walks through four practical steps for anyone who is somewhere on the path of rebuilding.

Restoration isn’t a race back to who you were before. Sometimes it’s the Lord building someone entirely different, wiser, stronger in the right places, softer in the right places, and rooted in something that can’t be shaken.

“He is so sovereign.”

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: “Passage of Time” by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

When you grow up in a home where control and love were intertwined, they can start to feel like the same thing. Familiar can feel like love, even when it isn’t.

In this episode, host Margaret Byars, LPC, breaks down the nuanced difference between authentic love and control: what each one is built on, what each one produces, and how to use discernment when your nervous system isn’t always a reliable guide. She also unpacks why intensity isn’t the same as intimacy, what it looks like when someone enters your garden to tend it versus consume it, and why the fruit test applies here just as much as anywhere else in this series.

Control breeds fear, resentment, and captivity. Authentic love produces freedom, truth, and peace. The difference is in the pattern — and it always shows up eventually.

“Perfect love drives out fear.” — 1 John 4:18

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: “Passage of Time” by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

You can know intellectually that something is destroying you and simultaneously feel emotionally bonded to it. That's not weakness. That's what abuse does to a nervous system.

In this episode, host Margaret Byars, LPC, gets personal - sharing her own experience inside a toxic relationship and what it actually took to leave. She walks through why leaving is so much harder than it looks from the outside, what intermittent reinforcement does to your brain, and what healthy love is actually supposed to produce.

She also speaks directly to the friends watching someone they love stay in something destructive, and what compassion without enabling actually looks like.

Loving someone and praying for someone does not mean giving their destructive behavior unlimited access to you.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy..." — John 10:10

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

Sacrificial love. A servant's heart. Doing what Jesus would do. In the Church, codependency has a way of finding very convincing theological cover, and it's time we talked about it.

In this episode, host Margaret Byars, LPC, breaks down what codependency actually is, where it comes from, and why so many Christians (especially women) are living it out while calling it Christlikeness. There's a massive difference between becoming more like the Savior and believing you are somebody's savior. Jesus was not codependent. And He never asked you to be either.

If you're exhausted from trying to fix someone, managing everyone's emotions, or too afraid to tell the truth because someone might get upset, this episode is for you.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." — Galatians 6:2

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

Generational trauma isn't just a buzzword. It's a compounding domino effect that traces all the way back to the fall, and breaking it is one of the most important missions of a disciple of Christ.

In this episode, host Margaret Byars, LPC, opens in Ezra 4 with a picture the Lord gave her: breaking generational patterns is like tearing down a decrepit house and rebuilding it from the ground up - keeping the bones, but letting God rebuild the walls and fill every room with His glory. Then she gets into the science and the psychology: epigenetics, neuroplasticity, the fawn response, what it actually means to be equally yoked, and why the person you choose to marry is one of the single biggest factors in whether generational trauma gets healed or passed down.

"By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures." — Proverbs 24:3-4

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

Ministries are not exempt from the narcissistic matrix. When unhealed leaders run organizations, the family system dynamic follows them right in.

In this episode, Margaret Byars, LPC, breaks down why ministry environments are uniquely vulnerable to dysfunction, the five signs you may already be sensing, and what to actually do about it depending on where you're standing.

Just because something carries the name of Jesus doesn't mean it's functioning in the Spirit of Jesus. Look at the fruit.

"For with God nothing will be impossible." — Luke 1:37

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

In this episode, Margaret gets personal about relationships: what it actually looks like to wait on God for a kingdom spouse, why we attract the wounds we haven't healed, and what it costs to break the cycle.

Then she walks through the narcissistic relationship cycle in full: love bombing, devaluing, discard, and the hoover - what each stage looks like, what it does to your brain and nervous system, and how to recognize it before it's too late.

If you've ever felt like a completely different person inside a relationship, or watched someone you love become unrecognizable, this episode explains why.

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion." — Isaiah 30:18

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

Your family of origin was the first place your identity was shaped. The first soil. The first blueprint. And some of what was planted there was never meant to stay.
In this foundational episode, host Margaret Byars, LPC, walks through the narcissistic family system: what it is, how it's structured, and the six roles children are assigned inside it. If you've ever felt like you couldn't quite figure out who you are outside of your family, or why certain patterns keep showing up no matter how hard you try to change them, this is where we start digging.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." — Ezekiel 36:26
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 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

The wolves Paul warned about in Acts 20 aren't coming from outside the walls. They're already inside. Already in your pew, your small group, your leadership team.

In this episode, Margaret Byars, LPC, tackles one of the topics the modern Church has gone almost completely silent on: toxic leadership and false prophets, and draws a direct parallel to the narcissistic matrix. The sheep's clothing is the mask. The charm, the charisma, the version of this person that made you feel safe. And by the time you start questioning it, you're already deep inside the spin.

Margaret walks through how to use the fruit test to discern what is truly of Christ, why staying silent isn't grace; it's complicity, and what to actually do when the wolf is someone you love. She also shares personally about what it cost her to finally see clearly, and what it took to walk out.

If your discernment has ever been called too sensitive, too rebellious, or too much: this episode is for you.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." — John 10:27

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: breakingcopyright.com

You are not crazy. You are not stuck. And there is a way out.

In this episode, Margaret Byars, LPC, introduces a concept she coined from years of clinical practice and personal experience: the Narcissistic Matrix, the alternate universe built around someone else's fragile ego. If you've ever felt trapped, confused, and exhausted in a way you can't explain, this episode will finally give you language for what you've been living in.

Margaret breaks down Cluster B personality disorders, the role of flying monkeys, and the signs you may currently be inside the matrix. She also shares a deeply personal story that became one of the clearest pictures God has ever given her of what it feels like to be trapped, and what it actually takes to get out.

"Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken." — Psalm 62:2

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🎵 Intro & Outro Music: "Passage of Time" by Scott Buckley | Licensed under Creative Commons (BY 3.0) — ⁠creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0⁠ | Music powered by BreakingCopyright: ⁠breakingcopyright.com