Science-backed tools.
Spiritually-based wisdom.

What if the behaviors you turn to for comfort—whether it’s overworking, people-pleasing, or numbing out—aren’t the real problem, but rather a signal from a part of you that’s desperately trying to help?

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In this powerful episode, I sit down with Ian Morgan Cron—author, speaker, and renowned Enneagram expert—to explore the fascinating intersections between Internal Family Systems (IFS) and the 12 Steps. Together, we uncover why we’re all, in some way, prone to numbing behaviors and how understanding the role of our “firefighter” parts can lead to true emotional healing. If you’ve ever struggled to make sense of your coping mechanisms or felt stuck in cycles of avoidance, this conversation will leave you with tools and hope for real transformation.

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In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

* Why we’re all addicts in some way—and how the 12 Steps apply to everyone

* What “firefighters” are in Internal Family Systems (IFS) and how they work to protect us

* The true source of numbing behaviors

* The surprising and liberating goal of the 12 Steps and what it means for all of us

* Practical ways to find a safe person to share your struggles honestly and vulnerably

* How we can all achieve emotional sobriety

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Resources:

• The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile
• The Typology podcast
• Pre-order The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone In Between by Ian Morgan Cron
• ‍Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller
• ‍ianmorgancron.com/getyourdownload

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If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 108: Inside Out—Internal Family Systems, Therapy, and High-Performing Protectors with Jenna Riemersma

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• As a listener of The Best of You Podcast, you can qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0 by visiting faynutrition.com/bestofyou.
• ‍Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so thrilled you're here for today's episode. Oh my gosh, this one was a blast to record. You will hear how much we ping off of each other's work throughout the episode.

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I first want to give a warm welcome to so many new listeners who've tuned in this month to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. And I want to thank those of you who've been listening now for a while. You are so faithful showing up every week, and I want to thank you for sharing these episodes with your friends, with your family members. 

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I love seeing new people find this place where every single week, we are seeking to grow and to heal and to become what I like to call soul menders, people who are invested in this ongoing work of healing.

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My guest today is Ian Morgan Cron. He is the bestselling author of The Road Back to You, a renowned speaker, psychotherapist, and host of the Typology podcast. Ian is widely celebrated for his work with the Enneagram, but today we're diving into his powerful new book. It's called

The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone In Between. 

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Now here's a little backstory before we jump into today's episode. Just two days before I recorded this interview with Ian, Ian had me on his Typology podcast. This was coincidental. We didn't realize it until our second interview, that we were on each other's calendars for the very same week. 

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We'd never met before, but we very quickly discovered through both interviews, a shared passion for internal family systems or IFS, which if you're new to the podcast or to my work, is a therapeutic approach that views the self as made up of different parts. It's the topic of my first book with Kimberly Miller called Boundaries For Your Soul. 

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So in this conversation today, Ian and I couldn't help ourselves from focusing on the 12 steps through the lens of IFS and in particular, we talked a lot about firefighters. If you're new to IFS, firefighters are the parts of us that react impulsively to put out the flames of emotional pain.

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These are the parts of us that try to escape or avoid pain primarily through numbing. While in Ian's case, this led to drug and alcohol addiction, for many of us, these parts of us act out through binge-watching television, through scrolling social media, through a daily wine habit, through shopping, or even through fantasy. They do anything to escape or avoid pain. 

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Working with these parts of us, no matter what your go-to numbing behavior is, is often a recovery process. In fact, Ian really reframes addiction as a universal human struggle, as something every single one of us has to come to terms with.

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Today we explore how the 12 steps can become a trellis or a structure to support growth and healing, no matter what we're facing. I loved this conversation. Ian is so real. He's so honest about his own story and his own setbacks and his insights are so wise, compassionate, and practical.

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You can pick up a copy of The Fix, as well as the accompanying workbook, anywhere books are sold. We'll link to it in the show notes. I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Ian Morgan Cron. 

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Ian: Alison, I am so stoked. We did a podcast earlier this week when you were on my show, Typology, and I've read your books and I'm a fan. I so enjoyed our conversation a couple of days ago that I got up this morning like, I'm so stoked I'm going to see Alison today.

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Alison Cook: I feel like there's this really cool thing where “coincidentally”, we have these back to back interviews. I read your book and I feel like you're an old friend that I've never met, because there's so much overlap. This book is really powerful. It's really hitting me in places.. 

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There's so much I want to dive into, especially with this idea that we all in some way, shape, or form, are dealing with an addiction. So I want to go there, but would you start by sharing with us a little bit more of your story that you reveal a little bit in The Fix, for my listeners who maybe only know you through your work with the Enneagram or through your podcast? Tell us a little bit more about your story and what led to you writing this book.

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Ian: Yeah. I've been a part of 12 step communities. I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and I have been a part of 12 step communities for about 35 years. Four years ago, following a relapse, I went to treatment. This was obviously a private thing, and I haven't spoken about it publicly over the last almost five years now.

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But I have been so beautifully and profoundly transformed by working the 12 steps. I felt like I got to let people know, who maybe don't self-identify with alcoholics or substance use disorders or overeaters or gamblers or whatever. I wanted everyone to derive the same benefit from the 12 steps that I have, as a program for living that is completely consistent with the gospel.

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And that could really change people who don't show up in church basements a couple of times a week, but could really get something from it.

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Alison Cook: It's really powerful how you recast it as something for everyone. You're so real. That's what I love about the opening few chapters of this book. There's such a raw realness, when you describe yourself as that young boy, looking for anything to numb the pain. There isn't a quick fix. There isn't a workaround, but the 12 steps do offer a scaffolding to us.

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Ian: Yes, in a way, the 12 steps are a rule of life. The Benedictines and other monastic traditions had a rule of life. And the word “rule" there actually means trellis, in the original language. The 12 steps are like a trellis on which we can grow. They offer some new ways of being in the world that can help us live more comfortably with ourselves and our own skins.

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I also love talking about internal family systems, which I know is a big thing for you. One of the things that internal family systems has helped me to do is to really understand my journey with addiction and that, as you read in the book, traumatized, exiled part of me. It got activated again and it resorted to addiction. My firefighter, if you will, woke up and went, oh, I know, I have a solution.

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Alison Cook: Read the book, listener, because it’s such great writing, but there's this moment where you describe visiting a doctor and I saw that part of you. It was like, wait a minute, Adderall, oh, ding, here's a new solution. After I don't know how many years of dormancy where you were in sobriety, that part of you, you could almost visualize that part of you coming to life.

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So Ian, I’d love to try to walk through these steps and think about this lens of the different parts of us as we're walking through the steps. Before we dive into that, for all my listeners who maybe don't identify as a typical “addict”, where we think about drugs or alcohol, tell me a little bit about how addiction applies to all of us.

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Ian: Yeah. So let me give you my definition of addiction. It's an amended version that I've taken from lots of sources, but an addiction is an unhealthy compulsive relationship with a person, a behavior, or a substance that has mood altering effects and negative consequences. So who doesn't have that?

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It could be alcohol or drugs, but it could be people-pleasing. It could be shopping. It could be food. It could be gambling. It could be sex. It could be porn. We're not people who have one addiction. I like to laugh and say that I can't get up in the morning without getting out of bed and tripping over one of my many addictions, 

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Alison Cook: You can list all the different ways that we are resorting to something, to soothe pain instead of sitting with what's hard.

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Ian: And the thing is, our firefighters have good intentions. I would say that my firefighter believes that there is an external solution to my internal problem. Of course that's like going to the hardware store to buy bread. You're going to the wrong place, man. Thank you. But no, thank you.

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Alison Cook: Yes. All right. So this is great. We talk a lot about numbing, about those firefighters, and to me, these are the parts of us that reach for something to put out the flames of pain. They might not always show up in stereotypical ways. When I was reading your story about being in college and being two people, it was like, I'm going to Christian groups and then I'm partying with my frat brothers, you were really living this double life. 

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I was thinking I've described my own college years in that way. It's the double life. The things that I was doing to soothe pain were more “socially acceptable”, things I could keep hidden or maybe “Christian acceptable”--the incessant people-pleasing or workaholism. 

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But that's what we're talking about, these parts of us that want to put out those flames of pain that can become more overt addictions. We're all doing it in some way. So let's talk about that first step. What's that moment of recognizing something has to change?

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Ian: The first step is really honesty. It's reaching this moment where we say, you know what, I've tried everything to overcome this behavior or this dysfunctional relationship like codependency or a substance. It helps me disassociate or get out of the pain that I'm feeling, but it's beginning to have significant negative consequences in my life. 

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And I can't seem to stop, no matter what I do. The admission that on my own unaided willpower, I can't stop this. I've tried, and my life's getting unmanageable. If that word feels weird to you, try intolerable, like it's not working and I need help. I always say that in some ways, the three most brave words a person can say is “I need help”.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. So it's that real admission, that naming, of this is out of control. And it's not immediately rushing to fix it. Which is my go-to. Is that what we mean by surrender? That first, it's here and I actually can't fix it?

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Ian: Yeah, in fact, you could bundle those first three steps as: Step one, I can't. Step two, God can. Step three, I'll let Him.

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Alison Cook: Wow. Wow. Okay. I can't. God can. And then step three, I will cooperate. I will work with God.

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Ian: Yeah. And the word I love, Alison, is consent. I feel like so much of the spiritual life is built on that idea of giving God consent to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And that's not easy. Because the will and the ego are pretty big forces, but basically to say, God, I give you consent to flood me with the grace necessary and the relationship with you that will render my addictive patterns unnecessary. 

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I love this prayer: God, help me to find in you what I look for in _____. So something like, God, help me to find in you what I look for in workaholism, or in achievement, or in perfection, or in Netflix, or in alcohol, or in porn, or in people-pleasing. Recognize that there are forces in our lives governing from the shadows that need our healing. And give God consent to rewire us.

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Alison Cook: If we think about these first three steps, and you're going to get the deep dive in the book, but taking them in this way, is it something you then have to practice daily? Hourly?

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Ian: Yeah. This is so good, Alison. You're a great interviewer. My sponsor, and for people who don't know, in 12 step communities, a sponsor is somebody who's been in the program longer than you and has worked the steps and helps you to do the same, walks you through them. They’re a great sounding board and counselor-advisor to you. 

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This guy's awesome. He's from East Tennessee, he's got a thick country accent. And he says stuff to me that's weirdly mystical sometimes, and I'm like, where did you get that? And he said to me, after you work these steps long enough, the numbers fall away.

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And I thought, wow, he's right. In other words, yes, in the beginning you are very conscious of the order of the steps. I'm working step one. I'm working step two. I'm working step three. After you've been at it for a while, you discover that you're now reflexively living the principles of the program, all day, every day.

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Sometimes it's very conscious. I could get up in the morning and say, boy, I admit that not only am I powerless over alcohol, but I am powerless over my fear of disappointing people. And it makes my life unmanageable today. And then I go to step two and I acknowledge that there's a power greater than myself that can restore me to sanity.

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Step three, I say, listen, God, I've made a decision to turn my will and my life over to your care. I trust that with my cooperation and consent, that you can remove this defective character from me so that I can be free. And I hope we circle around to my understanding of my inner architecture and how it has been influenced by internal family systems.

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It has given me language and a construct for doing internal work, for giving God consent. Like, hey God, I got this firefighter inside. It's called people-pleasing. I don't want to disappoint people. And no matter how hard I've tried, I can't seem to get this part to accept the leadership of my essential self. Can you help restore me to sanity here? 

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I've created kind of a hybrid of internal family systems with my recovery work. And I'm telling you, it has been incredibly helpful and I need so much to thank you for the work you've done, because it has really helped me have clarity and language for talking about my healing.

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Alison Cook: I love that. When you're saying that, what it reminds me of is one of the things we say in IFS work sometimes–we're trying to get a paper's width's distance from that part of us. Especially those firefighters, because if we can even name it to God, that this part of me is so active right now, that's putting that tiniest sliver of space between us and that part. 

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And there's power in that. We don't have to make it go away altogether. We've placed a tiny hair of distance there that gives us a little bit more agency.

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Ian: I love that. And I love this idea because when I have blended with these parts of me, I'm so over-identified and consumed. And secondly, when that happens, when I say I've come to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, that to me is like that paper thin separation between my true self or my spirit led self and this other part. 

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It's, oh, there's a part of me that's not traumatized, that wasn't sexually abused as a kid, that wasn't affected by my dad's alcoholism and drug addiction, that is separate from the part of me that would seek to find a chemical solution to my problems. God placed that in me. I've come to believe that, and it's so helpful.

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Alison Cook: It's like creating a little more inner awareness of other parts of you. So let's think about these first three steps. It sounds like what you're saying is that the first step is the acknowledgement of, I'm blended. This firefighter part of me is all that I am. 

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Ian: Yeah. And there are so many ways that we're powerless. You know what's so funny? There's an irony here. The moment you admit powerlessness, you're given a superpower. That's the strangest thing. Have you ever had a moment where you realized, I'm out of ammo?

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Alison Cook: Yeah, totally. Totally.

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Ian: You're like, I'm out of ammo. I've done everything. For those listening, if you're codependent, maybe over a kid that you can't get to stop drinking or drugging, or who has a behavior that you want to change and you realize, I've done everything, I've tried everything. And I am powerless. 

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What happens is this dilation in the chest sometimes, where everything finally relaxes. It's like all the parts go, finally, you've admitted what we've known all along.

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Alison Cook: Yes. It's oddly a relief. It's not giving up. It's a very different energy–it's surrender, but it's very hard to describe. You said that so well. There's nothing more I can do.

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Ian: What you described beautifully is the difference between surrender and resignation. Surrender is not resignation. People who are resigned to their life tend to be glum and resentful. I give up. We might even argue that's another part.

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Alison Cook: Those are protector parts. 

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Ian: Yeah. When you surrender, especially when you surrender to a higher power, God as I understand Him, all the parts go, phew.

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Alison Cook: Yes. You know what? It reminds me, as you're describing this, that giving up or resigning is a manager part that's actually trying to cope. Surrender is that true self. It's clarity. I actually don't have control. Our essential self from a Christian perspective understands and actually leads naturally to that step, because I'm not God, I'm not the ultimate power here.

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Ian: Yeah. Yeah. Steve, my sponsor, one day said to me, Ian, we are well past any conversation about you fixing you. 

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Alison Cook: It's such a relief. It's such a paradox and I don't know why we fight so hard to fix ourselves, but it is such a relief. I love that. Okay. So those are the first three steps: I can't, God can, and then I consent, God. It's bending the knee in a way.

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Ian: Yes, absolutely. So in a way we could say the 12 steps like this. One through three is about clarifying and mending our relationship with God. Four through six is about mending and clarifying our relationship with ourselves. Eight and nine are about mending and clarifying our relationship with others. And then ten through twelve is developing a lifestyle and a way of being in the world that supports ongoing health in each of those domains of our life.

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Alison Cook: Oh, that's good.

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Ian: When you get to four and five, four is a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five is admitting to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Now, some people read this and they're like, man, I don't want to go there. Yeah, those words are tough, man. I don't want to go there. 

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But I don't know anyone who's done a 4th and 5th step who has said anything other than, man, that was one of the most healing experiences of my life. So much of our work as therapists is making the unconscious conscious. What we do in this situation is, with a non-blaming gaze and with a non-judgmental compassionate spirit, we look inside and we take an inventory of ourselves. It should never be shaming, blaming, or unkind, but it needs to be rigorously honest.

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When we make that inventory, we then go out and we admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Now, it sounds like hard language, I could reframe it in some different ways but it is really important. Johann Hari or Gabor Maté says that when you keep secrets about yourself, you are essentially at war with yourself. There's some truth in that, so we need to find a trusted other or a community where we can speak our truth.

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Alison Cook: This is the one that's the hardest for me. You say it really clearly–it's being honest with ourselves, God, and another human. And I'm pretty vigorously honest with myself. I'm pretty vigorously honest with God. That other human is hard. 

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I imagine this could be different for different people. I'm curious for you, which one of those do you struggle with the most? One of the things I love about the 12 steps model is the sponsor, that safe person. A therapist can be that, but especially when you've been hurt by someone, it can be hard to trust others. 

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There are listeners who have been hurt in church settings with public confessions, where that's been used shamingly. So I feel a lot of tenderness toward folks where it's like, how do you find that trust? It’s really vulnerable when we're being really vigorously honest with ourselves and naming it to someone else.

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Ian: Yeah. In the book and particularly in the workbook, I really help people through this. So for example, in the workbook, I have a sample letter that you can actually give someone that instructs them. You really do have to pick a trustworthy person. It shouldn't be your spouse, your partner, or one of your kids. It shouldn't be a friend. 

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Find a pastor or a therapist or somebody in your life that you know is safe. And if you don't have that person, that needs to be a separate conversation. Wow, I don't actually have a real friend like that.

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It's really helpful if that person has been through this themselves in some way, had done a fifth step themselves, but there are instructions about how to do it. I get fairly granular in those two chapters to help people really think through who that person is. But I don't think you can skip this. 

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You can't decide, I'm going to stick to God and myself. It's really important. If you can't be vulnerable with your therapist, something's wrong.

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Alison Cook: I love that. And I do want to let the listener know that the workbook is so practical. I'd never heard somebody say that so clearly as you say it, that it's probably not your spouse. And that makes sense, if you think about it, because some of the things we're really admitting, honestly, could be hurtful to the people we love. 

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There are different conversations one needs to have with a spouse or a best friend. But it really is the role of a pastor or a spiritual director sometimes. My mom is a really devout Catholic. I was raised in a mixed Catholic/evangelical home. And I envy the practice of confession.

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Whatever we think about it theologically, it's a built in place to tell another human, this is what's actually happening in my heart. And that person has the capacity to hold that.

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Ian: Yes. And James, of course, doesn't let us off the hook. Bill Wilson, who wrote the Twelve Steps, derives them from a Christian organization called the Oxford Movement. People need to know that. There's nothing in the Twelve Steps that is inconsistent or discontinuous with the teachings of Jesus, and they actually derive from a tradition that was very faithful and orthodox in its understanding of the human person and God. 

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James does say, confess your sins to one another that you might be healed. So it's not like the scriptures let us off the hook in this regard. Here's what people typically say. They'll say, I don't have to go to another human being to ask forgiveness–I can only receive that from God. And that's an anti-Catholic stance left over from centuries of Protestant problems. 

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But really, that person isn't going to forgive you. In the best setting, they're going to give you an assurance of pardon that you have already been given.

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Alison Cook: That's right. And it’s embodied. It is so scriptural and the body of Christ matters. 

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Ian: Admit it to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. And by the way, you could decide that there are pieces of your fourth step inventory that you’re going to share with a friend, but you have five things on there to share with a therapist.

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You have to exercise discernment, and be smart with it. As my sponsor likes to say, Ian, not everybody needs to know everything about you, but somebody needs to know everything.

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Alison Cook: That's so good. It's really revolutionary. I've been interested and intrigued by the 12 steps for years, but this book really makes it accessible for all of us. It really makes it make sense for how it applies to all of us. It's so helpful. So let's keep going then. What's next? 

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We're doing this fearless moral inventory. We're really getting honest with God, ourselves, and at least one other human. Then what? 

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Ian: So after that we go to six and seven. What has come up in doing that fearless moral inventory of ourselves and sharing it with God and ourselves and other human beings are some character defects, like we realize, okay I struggle with resentment with so and so. It's because I'm envious of them. That's the real reason. 

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For me, I had to realize that after an episode of sexual abuse when I was about nine years old, that even though there was nothing I did wrong, I built my identity in some ways around that experience and I used it as playing the victim card. That was my part in it. You know what I mean? 

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After the fact, not the actual event, but after the fact. One of my character defects is playing the victim card sometimes. “Character defects” always put me off when I first heard it because it's like, I'm already ashamed enough. I don't really need to be told it's my defect. I am defective. I don't like the word. 

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So sometimes I call it a character defense. These are things that I came up with. These were strategies a part of me came up with to explain my experience to myself and to others. And all of my worst behaviors in life are usually driven by a part of me that came up with a strategy that is maladaptive or doesn't work.

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And that gives me a little bit more compassion and understanding for those character issues that keep dogging me. So in step six, we're entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. That's six. And then we humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings in step seven.

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Now, super important. This is all about humility. It's recognizing, I can't get rid of these on my own. In fact, God doesn't even want me to take on that responsibility. Most people hear those steps and they go, I'm entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. What we end up doing is trying to do it on our own with our own unaided willpower. And it doesn't work. It's an exercise in futility.

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Alison Cook: So Ian, for a second, let's think about this from an IFS lens, because I'm thinking about removing character defects. You've said something so important–when there's trauma in the background, and a part of you has coped with a very real trauma that wasn't your fault, if we think about parts language and defects, I hear you saying in these steps, we're revealing the strategy that a part picked up that was not helpful, but we don't want to get rid of the part.

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We want that part to unburden that poor coping strategy, that unhealthy coping strategy, so that it can be restored to its healthy, whole, and proper state.

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Ian: Okay. You're so killer. I love this. Number one, what I love about the 12 steps is that they're so beautifully written and framed. Bill Wilson, who authored them, used to say, these are suggestions. And there's no single right way to do the steps. It’s very open ended and kind.

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One of the things that we can do is blend it with IFS and look at it through that lens. You could say that this part of me came up with the idea that if I play the victim card, I can leverage this painful experience and use it to manipulate others to feel sorry for me and not ask too much of me.

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And then say, God, can you humbly remove our shortcomings? Step seven. Can you help this part of me unburden itself so that it no longer has to rely on that strategy to help me get through life?

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Alison Cook: Yeah, I love that. And that sounds like a very young part that's trying to cope. What might that part become if it can get rid of that strategy? It doesn't need that strategy any longer.

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Ian: Yes, exactly. And I always remind people this might take a minute. Bill Wilson says, we are not saints. The point is, we are trying to live along spiritual lines. We live by the principle of progress, not perfection.

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Alison Cook: That’s good. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's the slow work. 

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Ian: Isn't that beautiful? There's a prayer by Teilhard de Chardin, the great Catholic theologian and thinker. He opens one of his most beautiful prayers with the line: Above all, trust in the slow work of God. Isn't that beautiful?

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Alison Cook: Yes. I love that. It's so beautiful when you think about that overlay of getting to that step, and then God being so excited to meet that part that picked up that strategy and shine the mirror, but so gently and lovingly inviting that part to release that. It's just, wow. Why wouldn't we want to do this every day?

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Ian: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So when you get to eight and nine, right now we've dealt with self. Now, we move into others. Eight is, make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all. It's a really simple step. 

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It's just, I'm going to make a list of people I've harmed in my life as either a direct result of my addiction or addictive pattern, and then make direct amends to those people wherever possible. It's not always possible. Sometimes the person is dead. Sometimes we don't know where that person is now and can't find them. And we don't do it when it would hurt them, if our sharing with them something that we did would actually cause more pain than be of service to them. 

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But again, could this be any more scriptural? It's when you go to the temple and you realize that you've harmed somebody. Before you do another thing, run out, fix that, and then come back. This is a difficult pair of steps, but so many people carry the burden of unprocessed or unconscious resentment and hurt. 

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And if they can be agents of reconciliation in the world again, what we're doing here isn't just healing our relationship with them. It's also unburdening ourselves of shame and guilt and unresolved brokenness in relationships. Again, these steps can take time. We don't have to rush this. You're not in a race against yourself. But it's helpful to have a plan, because most people don't have a plan for transformation.

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Alison Cook: It's so good. And I love what you're saying about not rushing it. That's the willpower part of us that wants to power through right there. You might get to that point where you need to be like, I can't do it. God. Back to step one: I can't. I can't do it. I'm not there yet. The radical honesty.

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Ian: Yeah. I write about this idea that I call the “Hell no, I'm never going to make up to that schmuck” list. And those are the four or five people in my life who I would rather eat glass than make amends with. You know what I mean?

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Alison Cook: I love the book. There's a lot of honesty in it.

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Ian: Seriously, like I've got people in my life that I feel have hurt me much worse than I ever hurt them. You think I'm going to go and make amends? And yet the steps are like, listen, pal, all you have to do is clean your side of the street. That's it. Clean your side of the street. 

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They may not cop to what they did wrong in the relationship, but you need to cop to what you did. And you will come out, by the way, unburdened by shame and guilt and the feeling of something being left outstanding. When that happens, the likelihood of you returning to old addictive patterns is going to be infinitely less.

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Alison Cook: That’s so good. And it doesn't mean you have to become best friends with them.

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Ian: Heck no.

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Alison Cook: It means you're taking care of your side of the street. Yeah. One of the things in IFS work, when you have a part that's holding on to something, maybe the person's no longer with us, or maybe it's somebody toxic that it wouldn't be wise to go to, we do some visualizations. 

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It might be the case where you've told a therapist, you've told someone, but then in the quiet of your own spirit, you're still releasing that resentment in some way, shape, or form. And in such a healthy way. 

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Ian: I talk about some practices people can do to soften their hearts towards those people who we need to make amends with, because sometimes it's important before we make amends to actually have forgiven the person for what they did to us. We don't go into that conversation with some passive aggressive energy that wants to say, I did this, but you did that. 

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How do I really understand that this person has broken parts too? Bill Wilson says they are sick too, and they need the same love and tolerance that we would offer a friend who was sick. I find that to be so beautiful.

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Alison Cook: I feel like after this interview, I'm going to go do a bunch of journaling because I can feel it. There are those places in my own heart. Everything you're saying–this is a lifetime's work. This is ongoing work, layer upon layer. I really hear that. It takes time.

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Ian: Yeah. And everybody goes at their own pace. For some people they go through the steps for the first time really quickly, and they're students of it. Now remember, some people come in on fire. They get to work. They have to remove the obstacles to achieve what I would call physical and emotional sobriety.

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You and I could have a long conversation about emotional sobriety, like what that means, because through the lens of IFS, we are talking about achieving emotional and spiritual sobriety. Maybe we could talk about emotional sobriety as inhabiting and living out of our Spirit-led self and having a conscious awareness of its presence in our lives. 

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I was actually thinking about this in a meeting this morning. So much of steps work is about activating and bringing into our awareness the Spirit-led self and operating from there more and more. These steps help to support that journey in a way that's really great. 

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Step 10 is continuing to take personal inventory and promptly admitting when we're wrong. It's owning your stuff every day. It's pausing to go back after a snappy moment with your partner and say, you know what? I wasn't my best self then. This part of me was upset, and I'm sorry, or I ask your forgiveness for not coming from a healthier place then.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. So the daily work.

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Ian: The daily work. And then step 11 is about seeking through prayer and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with God. Then the final step is, and this is big, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to our fellow sufferers.

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To practice these principles in all our affairs. That is the point of the 12 steps. The point of the 12 steps is not to get you to stop drinking or taking drugs or watch porn or any of the crazy strategies we come up with to deal with our pain. It's actually to have a spiritual awakening.

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That's the whole purpose. That is the stated purpose of the 12 steps. Bill Wilson would have said, to have a spiritual awakening that now renders your need for these strategies unnecessary.

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Alison Cook: That's amazing.

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Ian: Yeah. And then to carry that message of hope to other people.

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Alison Cook: Which is what you're doing. When you said that step, to carry it to fellow sufferers, that's what I felt as I dug into your book this week. I thought, oh, you're doing that. You're giving it out of your own suffering, which has not been insignificant.

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You're bringing it to others. And isn't that the beauty of the upside down gospel? I love that idea of carrying it to others and bringing that freedom to others. I want to sidetrack into what you said about emotional sobriety, because it reminds me of what you asked me when you interviewed me, about the goal of this work of IFS, and I said, “harmony”.

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It's balancing all of the different states inside of us in a way that allows for the existence of different parts, but creates a melody. It's where that Spirit-led self is leading. When you say sobriety, it reminds me of that.

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We'll have to have another conversation because I feel like you and I could do a whole other deep dive around this, but that's a really beautiful thought. I'm going to keep thinking about that emotional sobriety. 

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Ian: There's a term I love, and I can't believe I've never heard a sermon on it. It's a word that the Buddhists use. I am a Christian, but I have learned a lot from Buddhists about different things, and I'm a critical thinker, so I'm able to go, oh. That illuminates the gospel in a way I haven't heard before.

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Equanimity. I would define it as the ability to maintain emotional balance and wholeness in the face of whatever life throws at you.

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Alison Cook: That's it. That's the word. Equanimity. Yeah. It's not doing away with the complexity–it's leading yourself through it without losing yourself, without losing connection to God, to the Holy Spirit. That's really beautiful work. 

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I want to ask you as we close, I ask all my guests two questions. What would you say to that younger you who picked up some of the unhelpful strategies? What would you want him to know if you could be with him now?

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Ian: You know what? I was at a conference a couple of years ago and someone was doing a Q&A with me. I was on stage and this person said, what would you tell your 10 year old self? And when something comes out of your mouth before you can edit it, you're having an out of body experience. You're like, did I say that? 

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I said, “you are not what happened to you”. I'm actually getting a little puddly right now when I say it, because we tend to over-identify with what happened to us in our histories. We assign it a level of truth and meaning that it doesn't deserve. And then we become strangely loyal to that interpretation of our history. 

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It took me a long time, and the steps really helped, to realize that I am not what happened to me, so that is something I would definitely tell my younger self.

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. What's bringing out the best of you right now?

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Ian: Hmm. I guess a convenient answer would be to say the 12 steps, and get my book! But they do continue to bring out the best of me, by working them every day. I can also say my wife is bringing out the best of me. I've been married for 38 years. 

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We've been through a lot together and we've reached a point in our relationship where there's a beautiful, comfortable companionship and friendship. We dance well together, and also we're very different. I'm a complex artist-type and all that stuff. And she's a beautiful peacemaker type. 

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She loves to plant sunflowers and make meals and go to yoga and live her life very peaceably. I used to look at her like, okay, this is boring. And I realized one day that it’s an aspect of God that's being revealed to me. She's my teacher.

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Alison Cook: Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Tell everyone where they can find your book, the workbook and your work.

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Ian: Yeah. Thanks so much. The book is called The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone In Between. We have an interesting offer right now. If you pre-order, it doesn't drop until January 28th, but if you pre-order now, we'll send a free copy of chapter one.

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The way to do that is to go to ianmorgancron.com/getyourdownload. And we'll tell you how to show proof that you preordered it, and then we'll send you a link to read the first chapter so you can get a head start on it.

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Alison Cook: It's well worth it. You won't be able to put it down. Please take advantage of that. This is such a good book. I would say right now, reading it is bringing out the best in me. It's been a real answer to prayer that is helping me work through some of the things in my own life.

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That structure, like you said, that scaffolding, is so helpful. I'm so grateful for you and for the fact that you're sharing this with fellow sufferers.

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Ian: Alison, dare I say, I hope one day we get an opportunity to make good trouble together. It would be so fun to do a gathering of people around internal family systems and addictions together and to help people find the next step in their journey toward disentangling themselves from the things that they feel powerless to do anything about.

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Alison Cook: Yeah, I sense a real invitation there. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Ian.

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Ian: Thanks, Alison.

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Are you always the one taking care of and fixing problems for everyone else?

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Today, I'm taking a deep dive into the heart of overfunctioning—exploring why so many of us feel compelled to take on excessive responsibilities, often at the cost of our own well-being. I delve into parentification, which I believe often lies at the root of overfunctioning. I also share how understanding these dynamics through Mel Robbins' "Let Them Theory" can offer powerful insights for change.

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Whether you're tired of always being 'the responsible one' or you're seeking to understand your deep-seated need to please others, this discussion will clarify the roots of these behaviors and guide you toward a path of healing and freedom.

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Here’s what we cover:

*What is overfunctioning, and how does it impact your life?

*How childhood parentification fuels overfunctioning in adulthood

*5 clear signs you were parentified as a child

*3 practical steps to start healing

*How Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory transforms boundary setting

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Resources:

• The Best of You: Break Free from Painful Patterns, Mend Your Past, and Discover Your True Self in God by Dr. Alison Cook
• The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About by Mel Robbins

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If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 5: What is Codependency and Why Does it Matter?

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.
• Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
• Go to puritywoods.com/BESTOFYOU or enter code BESTOFYOU at checkout for an additional 10% off your first order.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am so glad to be here with you this week. It's just me this week, and I have a topic that I've been working on a lot in my own life. I've been having a lot of conversations about this with other people, and I wanted to bring it to the podcast.

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The topic is over-functioning. It's incredibly relevant for so many of us, especially here in these few weeks after the holidays. A lot of us have been doing this for the last few weeks, if not the last few months. Overfunctioning is when you take on more than your actual share of responsibilities.

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We often are doing this to manage our own anxiety or fears or insecurities, and I've had so many conversations about this with other people, with friends, with clients, with family members, in addition to so many conversations with myself about these patterns. I've been working really hard on a lot of these patterns, especially this past year as I've gone through some transitional seasons, so it's very fresh for me personally. 

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I want to talk about today why it's so prevalent for us to find ourselves in this cycle of over-functioning. I also want to explore three very practical ways to begin to heal as we head into the new year and seek to become the best version of ourselves. 

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Here's the thing about over-functioning. It's not that we work too hard or we get caught up in the moment. It's a way that parts of us have learned to survive. It's when we're managing other people's emotions or behaviors, or we're managing their problems instead of primarily doing the work of managing ourselves, of attuning to our own emotions, our own behaviors, our own problems, which is our primary responsibility in this life before God and before other people.

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A part of us has learned to focus all that attention outward onto other people. It's often linked to codependency, when we are so focused on managing other people's problems that we miss out on the more important work that God is inviting us to do inside our own selves.

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This pattern of over-functioning manifests in several different ways. It can show up as compulsive people-pleasing, where we try to please others at the expense of staying true to ourselves. It can show up as compulsive peacekeeping, where we're constantly trying to manage other people's conflicts that have nothing to do with us, instead of regulating our own anxiety. 

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In the face of conflict, it can show up as compulsive perfectionism, where we're working so hard to earn the approval of others through our own performance, instead of attuning to our own needs, our own values, and our own worth.

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For example, you might find yourself managing your own anxiety by constantly rushing in to solve your friend's problems before they've even asked for help. In many cases, you might catch yourself frantically cleaning up your kid's rooms or cleaning up their homework, taking on tasks that they are fully capable of handling themselves because it's easier and quicker and more instantly gratifying than working through your own fears or your own stress. 

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Maybe you're someone who, when your mom and your dad start to bicker with each other, or maybe your spouse and one of your children starts to argue, maybe you're someone who jumps in and constantly tries to interpret their words or reframe what they're saying. “What he really means is this…” 

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You expend all this effort trying to smooth things over, to prevent their conflict from escalating, instead of stepping back and letting them address and resolve their own differences.

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We all find ourselves doing these things in some ways, but when it becomes compulsive, when we're doing it mindlessly, almost outside of our conscious awareness, when we're so reflexively jumping in to keep the peace, to please, or to perfect instead of hanging on to ourselves and attuning to our own selves, our own internal responses, it becomes a problem. 

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We are managing other people instead of doing the work of attending to and managing and leading ourselves through our own uncomfortable emotions.

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One way to see if this is a problem is to wonder if this is something I'm doing compulsively. Or is every once in a while, where I'm impatient and I jump in to try to fix a problem that wasn't really mine to fix? Ask yourself this: for the most part, am I acting from a place of calm and regulation, or am I engaging in this behavior to avoid, to escape or to deny or to bypass my own uncomfortable feelings? 

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Am I jumping in to please this other person out of a conscious desire to be kind and compassionate in this moment? Or am I behaving reflexively? What comes out of my mouth is what I know they want to hear, and I wouldn't even know how to show up with this person from a self-regulated space, where I might say the kind thing that they want to hear from me in the moment, but I'm also free to say, gosh, I'm not sure I see it the same way you do. 

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Am I jumping in to pick up after my child or clean up their mess, whether it's a relational mess or whether it's a literal mess, am I doing that out of a conscious desire to help them because they're in a bad spot? Or am I jumping in because I can't stand the discomfort that I feel seeing their room or seeing their relationships or seeing their homework in this state? 

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Am I jumping into the middle of this conflict that these two other people have with each other because I've really thought about it and prayed about it, and I'm deeply aware that I have some tools that might help them and they seem open to that, so I'm willing to step in as an objective third party to empower them to make a change? Or am I jumping in reflexively in this moment because I cannot stand how I feel when other people are in conflict?

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How you answer those questions is crucial to understanding whether you're genuinely helping someone out of an overflow of your own heart, or if you're unknowingly perpetuating a cycle of codependency. This is a journey that I've been on personally for years.

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And while I have healed in many ways, I'm telling you, different life seasons resurrect old wounds in new ways. I turned 52 years old, and I'm, for the most part, now in an empty nest. There are different factors and variables in my life right now that create new opportunities for deeper healing.

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As I've reflected on my own journey this past year, as I've really been working through a lot of these dynamics in my own soul, I have noticed how often messages like the following rise up in my soul.

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“I only know how to feel love.”

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That rings true for me a lot of the time, when I'm aware I'm reaching to meet a need to feel loved and to feel comforted or to feel encouraged–to feel consoled in my own life through providing those very same things to someone else.

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It's as if a part of me projects my own emotional needs onto others, and then I work to care for those imagined needs in others, instead of first pausing to ask myself, wait a minute, does that other person that needs my caregiving right now, or is it a part of myself? Increasingly, I am aware that the part of me that is constantly showing me all this concern that it has for others is actually a cue that there's a part of me in need of my care.

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As I've unpacked this in my own life and helped others to unpack it in theirs, there's a concept that is often at the root of this kind of compulsive over-functioning, where we constantly work to manage other people instead of doing the work of managing and caring for the parts of ourselves. The word is parentification.

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This is when you've been conditioned since childhood to take care of other people. I talk about this in my book, The Best of You: Break Free from Painful Patterns, Mend Your Past, and Discover Your True Self in God. The whole book really is about healing from this specific pattern of pain, of over-functioning on behalf of others to the neglect of your own self.

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One of the stories that didn't make it into the final cut of the book was about a client, Emily. I've changed her name to protect her identity, but she grew up in a home where her mother often turned to her as a confidant. As early as the age of eight, she would remember sitting at the kitchen table, where she would listen to her mom vent about her friends or her work, or even about Emily's father. 

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Emily would listen and really try to help her mom, and here's the memory that Emily would constantly go back to as we unpacked this: her mom would end these conversations by saying, you are such a good listener, Emily, I don't know what I’d do without you.

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Think about the impact of those words on a young child's soul. You are such a good listener. I don't know what I'd do without you. Emily took that in at a young age and she began to become a master at reading other people's emotions. She began to detect, before her mom would even say anything to her, when she needed help cleaning up. 

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When her mom needed space, Emily would tiptoe away and stay out of her hair. When her mom needed the right words of comfort, Emily became a master at reading those cues externally and then getting that hit of dopamine. That hit felt so good when her mom would say, you're so amazing, Emily, I don't know what I would do without you.

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A young part of Emily picked up the idea that she could get a hit of love or affection through taking care of somebody else. The problem is that as an adult, Emily began to notice that she often felt invisible in her relationships.

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She was really good at showing up for other people in her life. She showed up for her friends. She showed up for her kids. She showed up for her spouse. She showed up for her colleagues, but she had this chronic lingering loneliness inside, like nobody sees me. Nobody knows me. 

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I have all these friends, I have all these people in my life who turn to me, but why do I feel so alone? As we began to unpack Emily's past, this term, parentification, became a really helpful naming that began to set her on a path toward healing.

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Parentification is a role reversal in which a child steps into a caregiving role for their parent. And in this case, I'm speaking primarily about emotional support, when a child is expected to meet the emotional needs of their parent. It might look like being a confidant, a pseudo-therapist, or a mediator between a parent and another parent or between a parent and siblings.

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Now listen, this isn't about the occasional moment when a child helps a parent out. Those can be healthy and character-building and really beautiful. When a child shows us a moment of empathy or compassion, we want to honor that in our child.

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But this is a really different thing. This is a chronic pattern, where the child's role in the family is distorted, where they are conditioned to become essentially the primary caregiver, the parent in the family. In this sense, the parent really abdicates their role as the primary caregiver when it comes to emotional care in particular. 

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It can happen in other ways, but we're going to talk about the emotional piece of it in today's episode, where the parent is supposed to be providing the guidance, the wisdom, the support. But instead of doing that, they're instead receiving the care and guidance and support from their child. 

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This role reversal really disrupts your development when you're a child–it affects your emotional and psychological health. Here's the thing that is so important to understand; there is a power differential in a family. At its core, parentification distorts the natural power differential within a family. Adults hold the greater power emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. Children, on the other hand, are vulnerable.

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A child's job is to rely on their caregivers to help them learn, to regulate their own emotions, to process complicated situations, and to set healthy boundaries with their own peers and even with their own family members. There are tasks children are simply not equipped to handle on their own.

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The parent needs to be the primary caregiver in a family, so that a child knows what it feels like to receive care, to receive guidance, to receive support. This idea aligns beautifully with the biblical metaphor Jesus gives us for God as father or Abba, which translates to a deeply intimate and nurturing primary caregiver. 

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As humans, we look to God as bigger than us, as knowing more than us, as the one who provides, protects, and guides us. It's a beautiful relationship where we get to lean into God as that all knowing, all giving, all supporting being when we're feeling vulnerable or scared or broken down.

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In a family system, while parents will never do this perfectly, we are entrusted as parents to reflect this type of nurturing Abba-like presence to our children. While we do this imperfectly, we still carry the responsibility that we have to shape our children's lives, and not the other way around.

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So if a parent subverts that natural power differential and begins to lean on the child in a way that exploits the child's vulnerability, that family dynamic really shifts. Instead of being taught how to understand and regulate your emotions, you were leaned on as an emotional co-regulator for a parent or for a family member. 

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Instead of helping you process your own struggles, your own fears, your own insecurities, your own sensitivities, whether at school with friends or in your own family, you were groomed to serve as your parents' personal sounding board.

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Instead of modeling healthy boundaries to protect emotional well being and physical space, you were constantly boundary-fouled. Your parent constantly overstepped the boundaries and placed inappropriate burdens on you. 

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So if you go back to Emily's story, let's say she's listening really attentively to her mom, and her mom says to her in that moment, Emily, you have such a kind heart. I love your empathy. I want you to know that these are my problems and I have other adults to work through these problems with. These are not your responsibility. 

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In fact, I want to be sure you're not feeling scared or anxious because somehow you've picked up on the fact that I'm feeling scared or anxious. I want you to know I'm okay. I'm getting the help I need. It's my job to be here for you. How are you doing in this moment?

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When a child is over-functioning or stepping into the role of a parent or stepping into a role where they're taking on more responsibility than is theirs to take on, it's a parent's job to point that out. “This actually isn't your responsibility to step in here. So tell me a little bit about what that's about. What's going on inside of you?”

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That's what a parent needs to do. As you can imagine, if that didn't happen for you, as an adult you're going to show some symptoms of that. Not only were you stepping into over-functioning through caring for your own parent, but you were being validated for it. You're being told, oh, I love this about you. I couldn't live without you. You take that with you into adulthood. 

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Here are five indicators that you may have been parentified as you struggle not to over-function in your adult relationships. 

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Number one, you struggle to identify your own needs. A part of you finds it easier to focus on others than to connect with your own feelings, desires, or needs. And this part often measures your self-worth based on your ability to satisfy the needs of others.

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Number two, you feel responsible for other people's emotions. A part of you is hyper-attuned to the emotions of those around you. You feel responsible for their well-being, and this part of you feels guilty as if it's your fault when others are upset, angry, disappointed, or down, even when it has nothing to do with you.

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Number three, you avoid conflict. A part of you tends to avoid conflict, and that part of you cannot stand the thought of someone else feeling uncomfortable as a result of your actions, even if they should feel uncomfortable because they're actually doing something that is wrong and you need to speak up and say, hey, I'm not comfortable with this. 

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That's going to evoke discomfort in them, and this part of you cannot stand that. It feels like anathema to you, and instead you sacrifice your own needs in the relationship so that they always feel good about themselves and never have to feel the pain of conflict. Conflict is healthy in relationships–we need to be able to enter into conflict to navigate through pain points in our relationships.

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Number four, you experience hypervigilance, where you're always on duty. You're always on watch. I experienced this as an antenna part of me that's always out ahead of me, gauging what's happening in other people, gauging other people's facial expressions, gauging other people's subtext, gauging other people's moods.

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It's constantly scanning for what others need, for what others are worrying about, for what others' expectations are in the moment, and feeding that information to me so that I can meet it, often before they even ask. 

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And I'll be honest with you. This vigilant part of me is often driven by number one, either a fear of abandonment, that if I don't anticipate and meet that need, I won't have a relationship with that person anymore, that I'll be cut off from that person. It's the only way that part of me knows how to experience connection. 

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Or number two, that part of me genuinely and sincerely believes that the other person can't manage without my help. And that's been a big one to unpack in my own life. What if there are other ways to experience healthy two-way connection? What if that other person not only can, but needs to learn to manage? 

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The fifth indicator that you have developed this pattern of over-functioning is that you have a lot of difficulty trusting others. A part of you, having been relied upon so heavily as a child, struggles to trust that someone else could actually show up for you when you need support or when you need a listening ear.

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As a result, this part of you makes it hard for you to form balanced relationships where your needs are acknowledged as often and as frequently as you're acknowledging the needs of the other person. 

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If you've noticed any of these five indicators in your life, please know this is not your fault. This is a pattern that develops usually early in childhood and often as a result of parentification. It often begins with parents who were struggling in their own ways. So there's no blame here, but we do need to name it. 

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I have been over-functioning since I was eight years old. It's not going to change on a dime. There's a pattern here that I need to heal. And here is the good news–healing is possible. It's the work we're invited into. It’s the path that God invites each and every one of us on.

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Naming is the marker at the beginning of the path. Oh, this is where I am. I'm an over-functioner. I tend to over-function. I have codependent patterns. I have no clue how to honor my own needs. This is the truth that sets us free, and we set down on the path of healing. We're getting there. God becomes the most wonderful sort of companion as we work to establish new ways.

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The first of three steps to healing I want to share with you today is naming the pattern. Not only in general, but to begin to name it in the moment. Oh my goodness. I'm pleasing this person right now. I can't stop in this moment, but I'm aware I'm doing it. My reflex right now is to say whatever they want me to hear. 

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Just that awareness in and of itself is a huge step toward change. You might name it after the fact–oh my gosh, my spouse and my eldest son were in a conflict and I could not stop myself from intervening, from getting in the middle of it and it happened.

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Noticing is what allows you to begin to blaze new neural pathways in your brain. It's going to take a few of those, where you notice it while it's happening or after it's happening, until you finally get to the point of realizing it before it happens and making a different choice.

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When we can notice and name what's happening without shame, we get some distance from it and we begin to ask ourselves, what would it look like in that moment if I did make a different choice? What would it look like if, when I felt that anxiety inside of me, when two people in front of me are starting to fight, what if I got up and excused myself and left the room? 

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Could I really do that? It really starts with that internal what if-ing? What if I could make a different choice? 

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And this leads us to number two, where you reconnect to the part of yourself that has learned this strategy to survive. Oh my gosh. Right now, a part of me is scanning this Christmas dinner table and noticing which person is about ready to get angry or which person is about ready to feel hurt.

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Instead of focusing on the other person or on other people, shift your attention to the part of you that's doing the scanning. I wonder what that's about. What is that part of me that is so invested in taking the temperature of everyone in the room? What does that part of me need from me right now?

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What fears does this part of me have, if it weren't to do this job? What if I were to stop scanning everybody else and notice what I'm feeling in this moment?

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Inevitably, when I start doing this work, when I slowly notice that part of me that's so tempted to read everybody else and I begin to attune to my own inner feelings, inevitably, I notice anxiety. I feel anxious right now. I don't like conflict. I want everyone to feel happy. And I begin to do the work of reparenting the parts of myself in need of care. 

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I let that part of me know it doesn't have to work so hard anymore. I play the role of the parent for that part of me, because that part of me is young. It's back in that eight year old self, thinking its job is to scan the needs of everybody else. And I let that part of me know, thank you so much for working so hard, but you don't have to do that job anymore. I'm here. I can handle it. You can rest inside my soul. 

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You begin to parent that part of you in a way that it never got parented. 

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Lastly, number three, as you begin to notice more of your own internal anxieties and fears that lead to the over-functioning and you begin to reorient to your own needs instead, then you can begin to set healthy boundaries with your impulse to over-function. Now, notice I didn't say set healthy boundaries with other people. I said, set healthy boundaries with your own impulse to over-function. 

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And here's why that's important to me. Part of why I wrote The Best of You is because I was concerned that most of the conversation about boundaries is written through the lens of saying no to other people, which if you think about it from this over-functioning lens, can easily become about managing other people. 

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I need to say no to other people because then they'll stop doing this thing. The focus is on other people. And that isn't helpful to those of us who over-function by managing other people. Instead, think about boundaries as figuring out what you want to say yes to inside your own self. 

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So for example, I don't like family conflict. I feel anxious. Instead of managing others, what other choice do I wish to make in this moment? Do I wish to leave or excuse myself from the room? Do I wish to limit the time that I'm present at these types of gatherings? You flip it from “I'm going to say no to other people”, to “What do I want?” instead.

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What would I do if it weren't my job to intervene in this conflict that someone else is having? What would I do with my time if I weren't compulsively fixing other people's problems? What would I want to do in this moment if I wasn't cleaning up other peoples’ problems?

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Let yourself wonder. It might take a while to answer those questions. This is the harder part of the equation. What would I do instead right now if I didn't race in to clean up that mess that someone else made?

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One of the tools that I have found recently that has been really helpful for me on this boundary setting journey is by Mel Robbins, and she's got a new book out. It's called The Let Them Theory. It's everywhere. I highly recommend it. I would love to get Mel on the podcast. She's super busy, understandably, so I'm going to briefly use her words, but go check out her book to get the full deep dive on it.

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She uses these two steps in the context of over-functioning. The first part of it is to let them have their mess. Let them have their disappointment. Let them have their emotions. Let them engage in that conflict that's not in my control, that's not mine to manage. That's the first part, recognizing that it's not mine to manage.

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The second part of her theory, and this part is a lot harder and it gets at boundaries work, is let me. What can I control? What can I manage? What I can manage is myself. So I'm going to let them have their reaction, have their conflict, but then I'm going to let me choose to remove myself.

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I'm going to let them work through their own problem that they created, and then I'm going to take a deep breath and I'm going to let me do something really nice for myself, because it's really hard for me to watch someone else suffer the consequences of their own actions. 

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That second part, what she calls “let me”, gets at this proactive side of boundary setting. We have to go, what do I need to do in this situation to take care of myself, to manage myself, to regulate myself?

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This is a tool that honors our own agency. We let other people be responsible for themselves, and that allows us to take responsibility for what's ours, for our own anxiety, for what actually helps me. When I feel anxious, what soothes me? When I'm fearful, what makes me feel supported or connected or cared for?

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Man, that is next level healing, when we actually start to tap into what we need from other people, what we need from God, what we need from our family members and from our friends to thrive and feel supported and loved.

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When you shift away from managing other people to leading and nurturing and caring for and reparenting the parts of your own soul in partnership with God's spirit, you create an oasis of goodness and kindness and calm inside your own soul. And from this place of taking charge of your own self, you can begin to empower others in their own healing journeys. 

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What’s the secret to healing marriage struggles and fostering deep connection?

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In this heartfelt and incredibly vulnerable conversation, Ron and Nan Deal share their journey of rebuilding a marriage that almost unraveled. Drawing from their new book, The Mindful Marriage, they reveal how understanding and managing your own pain cycles can transform relationships. Whether you’re married, single, or navigating any relationship, this episode offers profound wisdom and practical tools for emotional and personal growth.

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Episode Highlights:

* Explore one couple's journey through shame, blame, and rediscovering connection.

* Learn 4 Pain Cycles that disrupt relationships and how to break free from them.

* Uncover practical steps to nurture your relationship’s “us-ness” without losing yourself.

* Learn what to do when you're willing to do the work—but your partner isn't.

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Take the free assessment Ron and Nan mention in the episode here

Get your copy of The Mindful Marriage here.

‍‍

Resources:

• The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself by Ron Deal and Nan Deal
• ‍www.worthypub.com/assessment
• ‍Matthew 7
• ‍Philippians 21
• Corinthians 13
• ‍rondeal.org

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If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 115: 4 Ways to Transform Your Relationship: Expert Tips to Heal Pain Points and Deepen Intimacy

‍

‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
• Get ahead of the New Year with a routine that helps you now by going to Seed.com/BESTOFYOU and use code 25BESTOFYOU to get 25% off your first month.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am so glad you're here this week. This is a first for The Best of You Podcast–it's the first time we've had a married couple on, as they tell their story of how they came back from the brink of their marriage almost unraveling.

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It's also the first time we've really had an episode devoted to the topic of marriage. Whether you're married, divorced, or single, this episode has something for everybody. My guests today have written a brand new book that is all about the secret to a healthy marriage.

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This episode touches on so much of what we talk about regularly on this podcast, which is learning to manage our own emotions, learning to be more in tune with our body, with the messages we're telling ourselves, more in charge of our own responses to other people.

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All that work is, in fact, the foundation for a healthy, long-term, two-way relationship with someone else. So in this episode, we're going to get deep into what my guests call the four pain cycles–the four ways most of us tend to cope when we feel threatened or hurt or fearful or controlled or even annoyed with another human. 

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We’ll see how it's our responsibility to learn how to shift from that pain cycle into a healthy response that honors the other person, but also reveals the best version of who we are in that moment. 

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My guests today are an incredible couple, Ron and Nan Deal. They've been married for 38 years and they've worked for decades to bring wisdom and incredibly practical advice for couples everywhere.

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Ron is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He's a bestselling author and podcaster, and Nan is the co-founder of Connor's Song, which is a non-profit organization founded in honor of their son, Connor, who died at the age of 12 in 2009.

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In this new book, The Mindful Marriage, Ron and Nan partner with pioneering therapists, Dr. Terry Hargrave and Sharon Hargrave, whose transformational restoration therapy has helped millions through the practice of emotional mindfulness applied to marriage. The book is called The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself.

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That subtitle really says it all. The more we grow and heal and learn to manage our own inner turmoil and become the best version of who we are, the more we show up effectively in our most cherished relationships.

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This is such a rich episode from start to finish. Ron and Nan share incredibly honestly and vulnerably about each of their own journeys and how there were periods of time where neither of them was doing their own work and it really hurt the other one. They share how they not only survived those rough patches, but learned to thrive as a married couple. 

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This method that they're laying out in the new book and that they share with us today on this episode is what helped them heal their own marriage. You will hear us talk about an assessment you can take to help pinpoint your own pain cycle, which is the way that you tend to react out of pain when you feel hurt by someone else.

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I took the assessment and we discussed my results in today's episode. If you want to take that assessment, it's free. It's at www.worthypub.com/assessment. I will send that link out along with an excerpt from the book in this week's email newsletter. It's free and it goes out every Tuesday. You can sign up for it at dralisoncook.com.

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Without further ado, I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Ron and Nan Deal.

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***

Alison Cook: Let's dive into this because you're both very real and honest in the book, which I so appreciated. Ron, you've worked with couples for years as a therapist. You’ve helped so many other couples and yet your own marriage was at a real crisis point. 

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Could you take us back to that moment where Nan, you really sat down with Ron and said, this isn't working. We've got to change. What was happening in your marriage at that moment?

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Nan: I like to go back to the beginning. We both brought in some real hard baggage to the marriage, and we didn't unpack it back then. We actually didn't know how much baggage we were bringing in from our families of origin. I honestly wanted Ron to fix it. 

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He did go through graduate school and became a therapist, and I wanted him to fix it and I didn't want him to fix it. I wanted him to fix it on my terms, when I wanted him to fix it. You know what I mean? We brought in a lot. We brought in our pain, and we started unpacking that on each other, unknowingly. 

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There was a season, a decade or more, where Ron was really overworking. I would say he was a workaholic. There were multiple times I tried to get him to see, or I tried to coerce him into seeing, or I tried to blame him or shame him into seeing this bad pattern.

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It was never enough for him. He was going after the next thing and the next thing, building this kingdom, so to speak.

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Alison Cook: Good things.

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Nan: Right. Yes. Our boys were middle school and under. So I'd say they were 8, 10 and 12 at the time. It was like, wait a minute, they need their dad. These are young boys who are going to become young men, and where is Ron? Why are we always walking into church by ourselves? 

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Why am I feeling so lonely on this side of the couch? He's gone all the time, and when he comes home, he's completely exhausted because he's given 150%. I had had enough, and we had made a move, too. I thought the move would make things better, when in fact it made it worse. 

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I met him one night with a suitcase and it really wasn't a kindness, it wasn't even a care-frontation at that point. It was, you get us some help or you're out of here. Or maybe I'm out of here, I don't know, but it’s either me or you kind of thing. I was done and in real desperation. He was like, okay, I'll get us some help. And that landed us into Dr. Hargrave's office the next day. 

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Ron: Alison, a lot of people can relate to some of that story. We just drift in our marriage and wake up one day and go, wow, you're way over there. How did we get here? That was certainly us then. 

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What we came to learn from Dr. Hargrave and the principles that we are now sharing in The Mindful Marriage, is that what was driving us, underneath my working, underneath her loneliness, was far more important than the fact that I was working a lot of hours.

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It was far more important to understand that, because what was driving us would have continued to drive in all kinds of wrong directions, and we needed to get at that root.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. The root. You had to get at the root.

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Nan: That's right. In that office that day, I met them both at the door and I said, because I'm an early childhood education major, I have this doctor and a therapist staring at me and I said, no funny business.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. I love that.

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Nan: I'm like, none of this psychobabble stuff. Terry said, by all means, go first. He let me unpack and unpack my pain. Then he turned to Ron and he really nailed him to the wall. 

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Ron: He did. He really did. He was talking to Nan. He was doing a reflective statement to Nan, but boy, he was talking to me. 

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Nan: At that moment, I sat and I thought, yay, somebody's finally seen me and heard me. But Ron starts crying. At that moment, he starts a journey of humility. And I'm sitting there in my pain and in my anger going, good. You sit in that. You sit in that for a little bit because you have been so awful to me. 

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I did not see his pain. I was so glad that somebody else saw my pain and was calling him out on it, which was wrong on my part. So fast forward two years to when the bottom drops out and our son, our middle son Connor, passes away. We are back in Terry's office, hanging on by a thread. 

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I will say this about him. I love him dearly for how he tenderly and gently stepped into that space and was present for us. I am so grateful because of how hard it was for us and how broken we were. I hate the stat that people throw out when people lose a child, and they come at you and go, well your marriage is in a terrible crisis now.

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95 percent of all marriages are gonna end because you've lost a child. First of all, that's not true. If you're in a crisis like us, you could become a statistic, but Terry was God's provision for when this crisis, this deep dark night of the soul comes on. I'm thankful for those two years we sat in his office and worked. 

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But I will say this about those two years. Ron starts his journey of humbling and Terry turns to me that day and he says, Nan, this brokenness in you, if you'll allow God to heal it, it'll be the most beautiful part of you. I sat there and I looked at him and I went, what? I've been trying to scrape this pain off my whole life. What do you mean the most beautiful part?

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It wasn't until 2020 that I understood that for the first time. Oh, this is what you meant. So this journey with him and restoration therapy and our journey of grief has been a long windy one.

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Alison Cook: Yep, I appreciate the honesty. You said something really interesting, and this is so relatable for people. When you were upset with Ron working all the time, not being available, that was real. It was valid.

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But you also said that the way you were trying to get him to see that wasn't helpful. This is what gets tricky, I think, for people when we're in a marriage, when we're in a relationship—where it's not that what we're seeing in the other person isn't valid.

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We hear the tropes of, I need to do my own work, but maybe he actually is the one with the problem!

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Ron and Nan: You're right.

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Alison Cook: It gets into what you lay out as these reactive styles.

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Ron and Nan: Yep. Reactive coping.

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Alison Cook: So this is where we can lose each other as a couple. It's a subtle, but really important shift. It's not that we're trying to gaslight ourselves and say, he's got to do him, I've got to work on myself. There is an issue, and we need to figure out how to come together in that. That feels like such an important spotlight you're placing. I want to dig into that a little bit.

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Ron and Nan: If there's abuse, then there definitely needs to be safety. There needs to be boundaries. I sat with a woman last week at a recovery meeting, and she was setting a boundary because her partner was doing drugs. She asked me, do you think that was okay? Am I not showing forgiveness? I'm like, oh, most certainly you need to get to a safe place.

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Alison Cook: I love that you're giving that caveat. We're not talking here about patterns of abuse or toxicity. We're talking about disappointments. Maybe the other person is really growing or doing their best. Maybe they are hurting us, but it's not in that category of abuse. I really appreciate that caveat.

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Ron and Nan: Yeah. We never want anybody to hear us saying that. So let's get into that reactivity. Sure. First of all, this is the universal experience. Every person on the planet does it, anywhere from a couple of times a day to multiple times, if not constantly during the day. 

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Dysregulation is a natural part of our life. It happens when somebody cuts you off on the freeway. It happens when your 2 year old or your 16 year old or your 25 year old looks at you and says, I don't care what you say, you're stupid. You feel that disrespect. Those are moments of dysregulation.

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When your spouse looks into their phone rather than looking into your eyes, you feel that gap. Where'd you go? That's a moment of dysregulation. What happens neurologically is our brain goes into fight or flight reactivity. Everybody's heard of that these days. We talk a lot about trauma, and you're an expert, Alison, at that. 

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Fight or flight really takes on four different expressions. Blame, shame, control, or escape. Those are the categories. There are different things underneath that. But blame is basically that I'm against you. This is your fault. I'm going to point out what you did wrong. It's Adam and Eve in the garden. It's somebody else's fault. 

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Shame is, it's my fault and I'm unloading on me and there must be something wrong with me. So it's not the feeling of shame. It's the activity of shame. It's putting ourselves in a corner and saying, this is about me. I'm not good enough. That's why you would rather spend time on your phone than talk to me. That's shame. 

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Control is, I'm going to take charge of the circumstances. I'm going to try to prevent this thing that's causing me pain from happening anymore. So I'm going to tell you to do that. It's criticism. It's defensiveness, where I talk you into liking me better than you like me now. It's argumentative-ness. That's what control looks like.

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Escape is 20,000 things that you can run to that will numb you to your pain. So it's running into working all the time, or running into alcohol or drugs or porn or your kids, or lots of things. Food, overeating, exercise, all the things that we can do excessively because we're running away from something. 

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Now, some people are one of those four, and as it turns out, some people do all four, or a combination. That would be me. This is the start of understanding yourself, which is why we have an assessment now online that people can go online and do. I know you're going to put a link in the show notes for that. It's very eye opening. 

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In about 10 minutes, you'll go, wow, that's me. As I've been on this journey, I did a lot of blame and shame when I was younger. I'd vacillate between the two, because I was in a very shameful home. I would blame the situation, but then I'd shame myself because maybe it was me. I did a lot of blame, shame, blame, shame. 

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Then when I got with Ron, it was like, I'm going to blame, shame, but ooh, now I want to control you. After our son passed away, this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me as far as the pain. There was nothing I could do. I went to escape, and for a decade, I numbed with alcohol and prescription medication because it was instant. 

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But the pattern was already established with the blame and shame and control. This took on a life of its own. I can still, though, in certain situations, find myself going, what are all four of these things doing? Why are they still here at the table? Alison, did you get to take the assessment?

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Alison Cook: I did. I found it very eye-opening. I actually had parts of me that were like, wait a minute. So I want to get into that. I'd love to get into that and let you guys dissect it a little bit for me, because I have one very clear one. Part of me can feel like, how is this hurting anybody? The escape one.

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So I want to get into that, but before we go there, I want to ask you, because you're saying something really important with these reactive styles. I'm going back to “Ron's working too much”. There's something legitimate there. Maybe feeling you're wanting to blame him. You're feeling shame inside. 

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What I notice in marriages, and I'd love for you to speak to this, is often it's not *what we say to our spouse. It's the place from which we say it.So if I'm feeling shame, the way that I come at my spouse is going to come out of that shame. That shame is what's going to spill out of me when I get tipped over.

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I'll say to people, as you get healthier, you may be even more able to go to your spouse and be like, hey, what's going on with this? You might be more empowered to actually say, this isn't working for me. It doesn't diminish your voice.

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Ron: It gives you agency at the end of the day. You have more agency to speak into the relationship from a position of calmness, from a position of strength, rather than dependence. See, that's the thing. I'm leaning on Nan to finally act right and do right, so that’s my sense of inadequacy. 

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There's my pain. That's what drove me to work all the time. I didn't know that. I knew I worked a lot, but I didn't know why. But once I discovered my pain, inadequacy, that was driving my control, I had to face myself with that. Rather than going, Nan needs to love this out of me, which is what most of us do our entire lives. I've become convinced of this.

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We spend our marriages saying, if you were more _____, then I wouldn't feel inadequate. I wouldn't fight. I wouldn't be controlling. I wouldn't work too much. And the truth is, that's not accurate. You have something driving you from within that you gotta learn what it is and take charge of it.

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Nan: Believe me, I tried. I tried so hard to love that out of him, or be what I needed to be for that. All of a sudden you look up and you go, but he's still working a ton. Wow. That didn't work. Mine comes from abandonment. I have so much abandonment in my family of origin story.

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I'm with you and I'm feeling abandoned by you. Then we lose Connor, and I'm feeling abandoned by God. It's this abandonment, abandonment, abandonment. Then, Ron’s drive to work and travel and be gone and conquer and do for all the other people in your world taps into my abandonment.

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It is nasty and ugly–I don't even want to call it a dance. It's dysregulation, a cycle we can't pop out of.

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Alison Cook: That's such an important nuance, because we do need to speak into our spouse's lives. That is part of it, but we have to be able to do it from a place that isn't coming from my wounds.

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Ron and Nan: Right.

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Alison Cook: It is coming from my love, and this isn't okay. 

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Ron and Nan: Alison, we are dancing around Matthew 7. Judge not that you be judged. By the way, the measure you give will be the measure you get, so when you stand in pride looking at your spouse saying, you're the one with the problems, I'm okay, but you're messed up, then what happens?

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They return fire, and now you have a cycle. So what does Jesus say to do? Stop focusing on the speck in the other person's eye. Start dealing with the log in your own eye. Then, what happens when you take the log out of your own eye? Then you will be able to help them with the speck.

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When I take agency over my pain, I manage me, rather than expecting Nan to manage me, to fix me, to help me, to love it out of me, whatever is going to happen there. When I take agency over myself, deal with my own log, my own pride, my own issues, my own pain, I am in a better position to be self-giving toward her.

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It empowers my ability to love her at that point in time. So this is not about me pulling away and fixing me and not worrying about you. No. At the end of the day, it moves us.

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Alison Cook: That's right.

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Nan: It happened last week. I'm getting ready to go to a meeting on Thursday night. I asked him, what are you going to do? I'm going to be gone for two and a half hours. He's worked a full day. He's had a long week. It's Thursday, the book's coming out. There's a lot, and he said, yeah, I'm going to work.

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I said, no, why don't you watch something? You love that. Just get lost in that and give yourself a little evening. You work so hard and you should do that. He’s like, okay, yeah, I'll think about that. Then I left him to it, because that's not mine to manage, but I can love you. 

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Old Nan would have said, yeah, that's what you're probably gonna do and you do that all the time because all you can think about is work. That's the love of your life. I came home and I said, what'd you do? He goes, I took the evening off for myself. I was like, this is a miracle. In my mind I'm going, God, did you see that? He's like, yes. I didn't need your help. I need you to love him like I love him. Then you need to back away.

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Alison Cook: That's a great example. You were in that moment trying to love him, not control him, not blame him, not shame yourself. It is so much more freeing and so much more powerful. That's an incredible example.

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Nan: I wasn't trying to get something out of him. That was genuinely for him. 

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Ron: I can tell you on my end, I immediately felt her compassion and I know the difference. A decade ago, it would have been contempt and anger, and it’s what motivated me at that point to take her suggestion.

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Back then, I would have said I'm going to do what I'm going to do, and here we are against each other again. Both dysregulated, both reacting at one another, and nobody is giving love. But when she came softly and gently, and we've done so much work together, I knew where that was coming from.

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I heard it, and I didn't think I had to do it. I wasn't being controlled by her. I had complete options. But it landed on my heart in a way that I could entertain it. 

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Alison Cook: Yeah, that difference is powerful. Early on, and I've shared with you a little bit in previous conversations, Ron, when I was dating my husband, he'd been married before. His wife had died and he was a widower, so he had a little more experience than I had coming in. 

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Some of my own abandonment and attachment issues came to the surface that I tried to put on him. He very early on would say, I don't think this is about me. And he was right. There was something about how he said it though, because he said it so clearly–there wasn't a hook, there wasn't blame, there wasn't control. 

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It was the truth. I could feel that he was actually loving me in that moment, because I then had to go, wait, if he can't solve this ache in my heart, I’ve got to get to the bottom of the ache then. Because this marriage isn't going to solve that. That's going to set us up for defeat. That was life changing to me, to do my own work.

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I love that you're putting your fingers on this in the book. You do such a beautiful job through your own stories, through such practical wisdom on how to apply it. I want to talk a little bit about this assessment and encourage folks to take it. I took the really short version, and very clearly came out as someone who escapes.

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It’s my primary go-to. I was feeling so proud of myself because I don't try to control people. I don't try to blame people. I don't really shame myself.

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Ron and Nan: Hahaha!

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Alison Cook: Oh and here's what's interesting about that one. I'm curious about your thoughts for those of us who avoid conflict, who escape it. There's a way in which we can tell ourselves, the only person I'm hurting is myself. I do it through disappearing. Nan, you talked about this in the book, disappearing into books and movies. 

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I know when I'm disappearing into a world of my own instead of wanting to face what's hard in a relationship. It's taken me a long time to recognize, and I can tell myself, I'm not hurting anybody.

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Ron and Nan: Yeah. Let me say, there are some things that are socially more acceptable to escape into. Binging Netflix. Shopping. Religiosity is something people escape into, and they call it being Christian, and really they're running from their pain. They're still running from something.

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Yes, some things have more negative consequences, such as drinking alcohol and doing drugs. That's not the point. The point is, what is this telling me about me? That is what we call chasing your pain. That question has been life changing for us. Not when our marriage came to a crisis, but every day since. 

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If I'm driving down the road and somebody cuts me off, and I have a few choice words for them, as if they could hear me, why do I do that? What is that? That's dysregulation. There's no thoughtfulness to that. It's reactivity. Then I ask myself, Ron, what is that telling you about you? What is going on with you right now? Why did it bother you so much that the guy cut you off on the freeway? 

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That little question will lead to amazing insights and discoveries about what you're running from. Then I know what to do with it. I know how to face it. I know how to move myself. We've mapped the peace cycle out of my pain. The book helps outline that for people. 

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I'm learning the vulnerabilities in me, the issues in me, and I'm seeing what I can choose to do to put on my new self and not be that anymore. With both control and escape, what I was doing was defending my pain. Because I had found something that took the edge off that made me feel better.

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It was a false sense of better. It has to do with trust in God. Because in this life, we're gonna have trouble. We're gonna have pains. We're going to be disappointed in relationships. Grief and loss are going to happen. God has to be the carrier for me.I had to trust Him with my loss, with my grief, with my pain. 

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He doesn't take it away. There are some things He has healed. He has healed our marriage. There are things in my pain He has taught me from childhood. With the loss of our son, he's not taking it away this side of heaven, but I can trust Him to help me carry it. 

‍

Boy, if one glass didn't help, or 10 shows didn't help, or three blouses that I bought, or whatever the numbing is, it can be pornography, it can be food, it can be all kinds of things. That's me not trusting God to heal or help me carry or take on that pain and to learn from it. You do that for 10 years and you get further and further and further from what the truth is and further from the light. 

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That's what was happening with me. I didn't trust him with it. I got one more thought, Alison, and then I'd love for you to respond to what we've been rambling about here as it relates to you being an escaper.

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Yes, sometimes you can escape into things that aren't really immoral or causing great difficulty. You think, I'm the only one who's suffering here, so it's not a big deal. But the other thing I would say is, what are the opportunities you miss as a result of not taking agency and facing whatever pain is behind it?

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What are the things that you're having to give up? Yes, you're the one suffering, but are there other choices you could have made that would have brought about different things if you faced the pain rather than ran from it?

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Alison Cook: I love what you're both saying, and it takes me right back to the core of your book. In my case, because I can be very autonomous, I can exist in my mind. You talk about us-ness in the book. My escape is not only depriving God of the opportunity to enter in, but it's depriving my most significant people of the opportunity to bear those burdens together, or to bear the hardships together. It's preventing intimacy. 

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Ron and Nan: That's beautifully said.

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Alison Cook: One of the things I love about your book that is so different is that you talk about how a marriage becomes its own entity. There's an us-ness that's its own thing that we have to nurture and nourish. I love that because it takes us out of the 50-50 or compromise or negotiations.

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It's this thing that's bigger than me or my spouse that I need to nurture. When I'm in avoidance or escape, I'm not nurturing that us-ness, because I'm leaving somebody out of that. I thought about this after I took your assessment, as the Lord has tapped on my heart. You are depriving yourself and others of something when you refuse to walk into pain with others.

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My husband's very active. I could curl up on a couch forever. He's very active. He loves to hike. He loves to be outside. He's always out. To nourish our us-ness, we do those things together. I could tell myself I'm doing those things for him, but that's the escaper part of me. The Spirit-led side of that is, I love solitude, I love contemplation, I love to ponder, and when we're cross-country skiing together, I get to do that in a far healthier way.

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I take his invitation to us-ness and we're doing something together that I might not choose on my own. There's fruit in that for me, and I've discovered that. Suddenly I'm like, when can we go hiking again, and he's like, that’s what you want? I’m like, not only because I want to be with you, but because the us-ness that we've created to establish those rhythms is also good for me.

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Ron and Nan: That's exactly it.

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Alison Cook: That's what I realized. The us-ness invites me into, wait a minute, this hiding that I do actually can be redeemed into something that's more contemplative. These things I want to be, I do that far better when we're an “us” and we're coming together. It's so much deeper than, “I’m doing this for him. He does this for me.”

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Ron and Nan: Exactly. Us-ness is like a baby. It's a thing you gotta feed and care for and grow and nurture, and it's a living, breathing thing that you created on the day that you got married and dedicated your lives to one another. The word picture I would give you is the unity candle. 

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Normally people walk up and they grab their individual candles and they light the “us candle”, if we could say it that way, and then they blow themselves out. Which never should you do in marriage; it is not designed to blow you out. Marriage is designed for you to be able to thrive and flourish.

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But now there is this third entity that you both need to feed and care for and fan that flame. By the way, that flame, as the us-ness grows and gets stronger, feeds each of you individually so all three candles are lit. That's the design for marriage. All three candles are lit and your us-ness becomes that thing that requires something of you to give to. And it gives back. 

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Here's my quick example, similar to yours. My wife was a runner for years and had a little injury. She became a walker, and she's not a walker, folks. She is a walker. I can't hardly keep up with her. I've had knee surgeries and now I'm doing better than I ever have physically and I'm joining her. 

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Guess what? Ron does not like walking. Ron gets tired. Ron gets sore. Ron can't keep up with Nan. But our us-ness likes walking because it's time together, it's conversation. I know it feeds her for me to be with her. It feeds me to hear her thoughts as she walks and talks.

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Yes, I pay a price for the us-ness to be fed and our us-ness enjoys it. Ron probably won't walk at all, if it were up to me. I probably wouldn't do it. But together, that's something that really feeds both of us.

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Your us-ness is gonna ebb and flow and change and grow and look differently than it did 39 years ago. You're gonna have seasons where it looks different. You've got to be a student of your us-ness too. We're an empty nest right now. So that's a different season and we're grandparents. So that's a different season with our us-ness.

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Alison Cook: Yes. I love that. You have to be intentional about it at each of these seasons in your marriage.

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Ron and Nan: To tie it in with our previous conversation, when I am at my worst, when I'm bringing dysregulation and reactivity, blame, shame, control, and escape to our us-ness, I'm not feeding it. I'm not nurturing it. I'm not contributing to something that is loving, stable, and emotionally safe for both of us.

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I'm bringing the worst of me to us. I need to manage myself to bring the better parts of me to us. And, at the end of the day, that's the message. By the way, this is the New Testament calling us out of our old self into the new self. We already have the new self in Christ, but not yet, because I'm still trying to work out my salvation every single day of my life. 

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It's a discipline of putting on the new, putting on the new, putting on the new. At the end of the day, that's why we are so grateful to the Hargraves for their work, to help us take off our old selves and learn how to put on the new self. Every once in a while, we slip right back into the old because that thing doesn't want to die. It resurrects every single day.

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We gotta kill it all over again with humility, and try to put on the new one more time. It gets easier as we grow and change. It was really hard in the beginning, but it's so much easier now. It's easier because we've practiced and worked at it and worked at it. Like muscle memory, when you're building a new skill, it does get easier.

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Alison Cook: I love the word practice. The title of the book is The Mindful Marriage. What you're teaching us to do is to be mindful of these patterns in ourselves. It does take practice. That's a good word. I love that you talked about how in marriage, we don't snuff out the individual candles. They still exist. 

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The us-ness doesn't take us over. But it takes mindfulness. So for example, it takes mindfulness for me to say, what is feeding our us-ness? It actually feeds the us-ness for me to have this interest, or for my spouse to have this interest over there. It actually feeds the us-ness. 

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Versus when I'm being selfish and I don't want to do this thing. It takes that mindfulness to really stay on top of ourselves. You lay out in the book four practices, essentially. Could you talk us through those a little bit?

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Ron and Nan: It's a little bit of a workbook. People are going to do exercises. They're going to put pen to paper, and they're going to identify, oh, wow, this is my old reactive self. This is what I do. Huh. Wow. Then they're going to map out, what's the truth?

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What’s rooted in God, rooted in the truth I'm learning about myself, about our us-ness? How then am I going to respond differently to the same circumstance? I'm still going to get dysregulated. She's still going to do something that from time to time triggers something in me. 

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It's my job to manage me in those moments. Not to expect her to fix it, because it's my job to manage me. That culminates this whole journey. This book is one journey. Not a chapter on this or that. It's one journey to help you identify these four steps. 

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When I know what they are, then that is my way out of dysregulation, back into self-regulation or self-control, so that I can put on a better me, so we can deal with whatever the issue is at hand. That's in a nutshell the journey that the book takes you on. Those four steps are very intentional to say out loud.

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Your old self. The new self you're trying to work into. You're going to love this as a clinician–the psychology of this is when you get dysregulated and go into fight or flight mode, you're in your midbrain and your prefrontal cortex isn't working anymore and you need to turn it back on.

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The four steps actively turn back on the better part of your brain. The part of your brain that knows what love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness are. You can say, I gotta move toward that. You are using mindfulness and taking back control. You're renewing yourself by renewing your mind. It’s helping you stop being the old and start being the new.

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The four steps do that. 

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Alison Cook: Love that. It's so practical. Because we can’t really will ourselves into being more loving, which is often what we try to do. Like you were saying, Nan, earlier in your marriage, “I'll try to love them out of my own willpower.”

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Ron and Nan: So let me give a quick example. When I get triggered about something, it often sounds like, okay, here's step one. Say what I feel. I'm feeling inadequate. Now, by the way, I used to say, I'm feeling controlled by you and you need to knock it off.

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See, I focused on the speck in her eye. Now I'm focusing on the log in my own eye. I feel inadequate. Because that's at the root of it. What I usually do, Nan, with my inadequacy, is I usually blame or control you by making it your fault or pointing out the one thing in your argument that's wrong. That's what I normally do.

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The truth is, I might have something I need to listen to in this moment. The truth is, God loves me and I'm not inadequate and I'm actually very capable of managing myself in this moment. Number four, this is the key. What I'm going to do differently based on the truth, is I'm going to slow my heart rate.

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I'm going to slow down. I'm going to listen. I'm going to try to hear what it is you're trying to share with me and put my defensiveness aside. Okay, deep breath. Alright, you can go. So what I did is I talked out loud to myself and to her. I talked to myself. I told myself, get in charge of your log, Ron. Don't go into reactivity. Move in a better direction. 

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Number two, I talked to her out loud and told her what I was doing in the moment. She's used to me being reactive right back. But when she hears me saying this, she goes, oh, Ron's putting on humility. Ron's taking charge of himself. I don't have to control him. He's controlling him. That's a good thing. It relieves her of any hook, to try to jump in and do what she used to do. So now we're both on a better plane. 

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The biggest thing it does is neurologically, it's slowing you down and reactivating your mind. We are transformed, Alison, by the renewing of our minds because our mind renews our brain, and the brain renews the body and how we respond. When we get the mind, then the rest of us follows.

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Step four is, so here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna calm down in this moment. My example is, I'm gonna try to listen to you and put aside my defensiveness. It's the doing that helps us reinforce this.

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Neurologically, again, the more you do it, the more your brain gets used to the new activity rather than the old, and it replaces the old with new. That's the neuroplasticity of our minds, that we're actually able to restructure the neurological ruts of our brain.

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Literally, you're not just renewing the consciousness of your mind, you're renewing your brain structure. It is physical, what happens as a result of this process. Not immediate, but over time, the more we do this, the easier and easier it gets.

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Alison Cook: When you're both doing that, you're aware. It's a cue when one of you takes that first step, for both of you to essentially slow yourselves down and be present to the other in a different way. 

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Nan: Or it could be, I went off the rails, and I really got dysregulated, and I may go into blame. I may go into control. I've caught myself, and I'm gonna come back, and I'm gonna say, hey, earlier, here's what was happening with me. This is what I did. For that I am so sorry. That is old Nan talking.

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I know I had to have God speak to me, the Holy Spirit, and I needed to hear from Him, and I know now that it was pain, that was my abandonment talking. I hate that I do those old things, but I'm gonna move towards you, I'm gonna ask for forgiveness. I'm going to move towards you, and I am going to now walk in truth.

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Sometimes we get dysregulated. Some of those things happen in a nanosecond. Those ruts can be so powerful. Early on, when I was in my recovery and I was implementing these practices, I cannot tell you how many times I would get dysregulated and go, man, I could use a drink right now.

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Years down the road now, that's the last thing that comes into my mind. And yet I still get dysregulated. It's the last thing, because that rut is not there anymore. But there are others, and you're peeling back the layers. It's a humility posture.

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It's still triggering to me. Let's talk about this. What I want to do is this, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to move towards you. I'm going to trust God with it, and I'm going to come to you with it. 

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Ron: Alison, what do you think happens in my heart when I hear her doing all that work out loud? It absolutely softens my heart.

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Alison Cook: A hundred percent.

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Ron: A hundred percent. Like, all of a sudden, instead of being on guard and dysregulated, I'm going, okay, wow, beautiful. I see you working. I see in that moment her sacrificing something about her for our us-ness.

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That moves me toward her. That makes me want to invest in this and look in the mirror at myself. All of a sudden, both of us are putting on humility, which softens the whole dynamic. Again, I don't want to pretty this up for people. This is a hard journey. 

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If you've been to really hard places like we've been, this is not a turn on a dime sort of stuff. This is sledging for quite a while. But my goodness, what used to take us two weeks to even begin to try to deal with happens in a minute and a half in this season of our life. It's so different.

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Alison Cook: I'm so glad you're saying this for people, because especially when we've dug those ruts internally and with our partner for a long time, they're deep. I so appreciate your honesty and vulnerability, both of you, about your personal struggles and how that affects the marriage. 

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This picture that I get as you're describing the process are these circles where we go into our individual selves with all the reactivity, but you're coming into that us-ness circle, and that's the space where the defenses melt away.

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Let's come back to us, and the word you keep using is humility. You talk about it a lot in the book. It melts the ego and the pride. Oh, I got to apologize to him. Let's go back to the us space. This is for us. 

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Ron: What does Philippians 2 tell us about our Lord, who put on humility and became obedient to death, even death on a cross? In that whole section, Paul lays out, this is how you do your relationships. This is how we do marriage. This is how we do friendships. This is how we do parenting. 

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Humility says, I'm not going to rule over you. I am managing me. Did you know the Latin root word for humility is grounded? You get grounded with humility. You know who you are and what you're not. You know where you fit in the world. You know who God is and that you're not him.

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That posturing softens my heart, and it absolutely makes it easier for her heart to soften towards me. 

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Nan: I want to say this, because it's not perfection you're going after, because you're not going to get that. It's not that we do these steps and then Ron never blames me for anything. Our flesh is there, but, when he blames me, I can go, wait a minute.

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This is causing me pain, and what do I normally do in my pain? I'm gonna come at you. I'm gonna go in this loop of, you always do this to me. No, I can slow this roll down, and I can say, that's shaming, and that's on you. I'm not going to receive that.

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But I don't have to withdraw. I don't have to control him. I don't have to beat him over the head. I don't have to do all of the stuff that's in 1 Corinthians 13, the record of wrongs. I love to be an archaeological digger, and just, yeah, you've been doing this for years. Your dad did this, and on it goes.

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Alison Cook: Even if it's in your own mind and it's not coming out, it's still building that rut.

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Nan: That is the pain talking. What does Nan normally do? She goes to all four of these things. No. Take a breath. Look at him as God looks at him, because that's the truth. He's having a moment here. I don't know why, but I can say, you don't need to be shaming me right now. I'm not gonna withdraw. I'm gonna move towards you, and I'm gonna listen to the truth.

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Alison Cook: There’s that agency piece. He may or may not take accountability for that. Hopefully he will as time goes on. You don't need him to, because you know what's true. That's so empowering.

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Nan: It’s so empowering. It unhooks you from that loop and that rut. We hear from couples all the time, “we do the same thing all the time”.

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Let me tell you, there are times when he can say something and my flesh goes, oh, here we go again. It's so freeing to go, wait a minute, no. I'm going to walk in truth. I feel a lot of freedom in that. By the way, I want to go full circle before you ask that next question.

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We said earlier, we never want somebody in an abusive situation to hear us saying, suck it up and stay. Oh no. I want them to listen to what we just said. The empowerment is in recognizing what is true about me from God's point of view. God says you're a worthy person. That means you're not worthy of being hit or beaten or pressed down upon, or whatever you're receiving in your current marriage relationship.

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That is not how God sees you. It's not what you're worth. So God's truth empowers me to take agency to act out of my worth. That's very important. If I'm acting out of my worth, I'm not gonna stand here and be subject to that.

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At the same time, I'm not going to close myself off to the relationship, or the possibilities of change, or whatever. But I am going to take action, so that doesn't happen anymore. Boundaries. 

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Alison Cook: Yeah. It's such a nuanced thing because sometimes, for women who are in abusive relationships, the shame makes it hard for them to leave. Being able to get to this point of, “I have to remove myself from this situation–this is unsafe for myself and my kids”, comes from this work of turning inward and the confidence that it can give you.

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I have a question for you before we wind down. I appreciate you staying a little bit longer. I can hear a listener in my mind wondering about, let's say it's not an abusive situation. It's not toxic, but one member of the couple is not willing to do their own work.

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One is sitting there going, I'd love to do this. I want to do this. Let me start tomorrow. But my spouse or whatever is never going to. They're sedentary. They're not growing. What do you do in that situation?

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Ron: We do address that in later chapters of the book, and it's a very important question. Let me say, in our own journey, both of us had seasons where we were not doing our work, for sure. In 2007, when our marriage blew up and we found ourselves in Dr. Hargrave's office, I wasn't doing any work on me.

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She was the one who needed all the change as far as I was concerned, and that was my pride talking. Dr. Hargrave helped me begin to go on a humility journey that continues to this day. During the worst season of her drinking, I was every day trying to self-regulate. Every day I was trying to say, how do I put on love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness in this moment with her?

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I was working on me, trying to take off control and blame–stuff that I was really good at. It was a lonely experience. My prayer was, Lord, since I'm not doing the same dance with her anymore that I used to do, let her get tired of dancing all by herself. 

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I don't know if that ultimately played a role or not. I know eventually she came to the end of herself and she made some really hard, amazing decisions that brought about recovery for her. I do think I was doing what I could. She was “managing me and staying in my lane”, as she's come to say it. 

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I love that state. I needed to stay in my lane instead of crossing into her lane, and eventually that created an environment where it was more likely that she started looking in her own mirror, doing her own work. But I'm not gonna guarantee that to anybody listening. I wish I could. I can't guarantee that, but I do think it is the right way to respond. 

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Nan: It doesn't do anything for your us-ness. If we can go back to that season where Ron wasn't ever seen, when I would say, hey, this is too much. I think, what about us? While I'm doing this for God, and he was so into his pride, that did nothing for our us-ness. Our us-ness was stagnant, and it was very isolating and there was not any intimacy. 

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Same with the season that I was in it. There's gotta be some grace there. There's gotta be prayer on the part of the other person for that person, but ultimately it's got to be them doing the work together, and God working in them. 

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Alison Cook: Yeah. Again, it's just, you're being so real about this. We're talking about nuanced situations, but if I can do my own work, stay in my own lane, I might be more able when the other person is ready to meet me there.

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It's not easy. It's hard. Marriage is a marathon, not a sprint. It might be a series of marathons. It's a long journey, but these are tools. I like what you're saying. These are tools that really can help you regardless of the season you're in.

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Ron and Nan: Yeah. The alternative is to be reacting out of your own pain. When you react out of pain, that ignites their dysregulated pain, and now you're in the couple pain cycle and you are stuck. When one person starts pursuing peace by self-control, it has to change something. You're not doing the same dance anymore.

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It has to change something. Ultimately, it will. You don't know exactly when or how quickly, but it will. There is power in taking your agency.

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Alison Cook: There might come a moment, like for you, Nan, where you say, I'm not doing this anymore. Or where you have to say to a spouse, this isn't okay. I'm not going to leave you, but I'm not okay with this. Again, it's coming out of that self-regulated state.

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Ron and Nan: You're right. That's right. My prayer for couples is that they will do the work together, and that they will do the work. I do like to tell people, don't gloss over it and read it real quick. Do the work and dig in and stay in your lane.

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Do the work for you, but also if they're doing the work and you come together and share, it's going to be beautiful. Don't do the work because you want that person to stop doing whatever they're doing or get off their phone. Don't pick up this book if you want your husband off his phone. 

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No, it's a Lord, what do you have for me? What do I need to work on so that I can bless my spouse, my significant other, and our us-ness? That's my prayer for people. But I'm not going to lie. It's work. I'll never forget this man that came up to us at a conference that we did. He said, thanks for helping me open Pandora's box.

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He goes, I'm dealing with the pain of a mother. They had lost a daughter. He's like, man I had shoved that so far down, and I don't want to deal with that. Here's what I would say to him. Oh, man. Buddy, you have been living in light of that pain. You don't think you have, but it affects you every single day. So do the work.

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Alison Cook: This is an invitation to a more beautiful, vibrant flame for each of us, for the us-ness with the people in our lives. Thank you so much for putting the work into sharing your story with us and creating this resource. Tell people the best way to find you and find the resource. We'll send some information out in the show notes as well.

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Ron and Nan: Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. We appreciate it. rondeal.org is our website where people can get tapped into the book. We have bonus material available there for free. We're doing a mindful marriage conference for churches where we're talking and walking couples through this process. We'd love to get connected to anybody interested in that.

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Alison Cook: I love it. That's great. I'm so glad you're bringing these tools into church spaces, because I sometimes feel like we don't get the richness of what you're trying to describe here. It’s the paradox that as we tend to our own healing, our own selves, we are nurturing us-ness. 

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Ron and Nan: Yes. Thank you so much for your time. It's been an honor. 

How do you experience loving attachment when trauma leaves you feeling shattered?

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In this incredibly profound and insightful episode, therapist and author of the brand new book, Sacred Attachment, Michael Cusick joins us to explore how our darkest moments of brokenness are not just moments of pain, but pivotal opportunities for forming a deeper, more secure attachment with God. Michael shares about his own healing journey as a result of complex trauma, and we unpack how our pain can bring us even closer to encounters with God’s love. Today’s episode is for everyone who has ever felt broken. We discuss. . .

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*5 way of understanding brokenness (and why the "sin" paradigm falls short)

*Why mystical encounters are for all of us

*A jaw-dropping moment when Michael experienced God's love

*The role of imagination in healing

*How to restore exiled and wounded parts of us

‍

‍

Resources:

• Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love by Michael John Cusick
• Restoring the Soul, a trauma-informed, intensive counseling center in the beautiful mountains of Colorado
• Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle by Michael John Cusick
• Amazing Grace Hymn
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• Isaiah 55
• An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
• St. Francis of Assisi by GK Chesterton
• Jeremiah 1Ephesians 1:18John 7:36-38Isaiah 55
• Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation by Martin Laird
• restoringthesoul.commichaeljohncusick.com

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If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 16: What are Attachment Styles and Why Does it Matter?

‍

‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and Happy New Year! I'm so thrilled you've joined us for this week's episode of the Best of You Podcast. If you're a returning listener, I'm so glad you're back with us. We have an incredible lineup of guests along with some solo episodes on topics you've been asking for lined up for this new year. 

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If you're a new listener, we are so thrilled to have you with us, where every single week we come together to talk about a mental health topic using the best of current psychology research from a faith-based perspective. I'm so thrilled you're here for today's episode. This is an incredible episode that is hopeful and inspiring and empowering and so rich and meaty. 

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There's so much in this episode. We are diving into a powerful conversation, all about sacred attachment and how we forge a healthy, secure attachment with God, with others, and with the parts of ourselves. Joining me today is therapist and author, Michael Cusick. You'll hear Michael talk about his profound journey of healing from complex trauma and how he learned to restore the intimacy of a secure, loving attachment with God.

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I love this quote from the episode where Michael says, “Our brokenness is not the barrier, but a bridge to where we want to be”. You're going to hear incredible examples of how God helped build that bridge in Michael's life from brokenness into these beautiful moments of being surprised by God's love.

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There's one point in the episode where we both got chills at the way God showed up in some beautiful and surprising ways. And spoiler alert, often God shows up for us at the moments when we feel the least worthy.

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As you are heading into the new year and you've been wanting to really dive into your healing journey and healing those places that still feel broken in your own life, whether with God, whether with loved ones, whether with the parts of yourselves, there is something for you in this episode.

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Toward the end, Michael shares a real-time exercise that you can do right along with us. I do it with him in the episode. It’s about how the power of our imagination can help us heal and envision a life beyond our toughest challenges.

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If you find something in this episode that is really helpful to you, I hope you'll share it with a friend or with a family member who might need some encouragement or practical tools along their own healing journeys.

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Part of why I continue to create this content each week is because I believe we need practical tools and we need to hear each others’ stories of healing, so we learn how to name what's hard, but we also are inspired and encouraged and empowered by what's hopeful in our shared experiences. We need to hear about how these tools from psychology and from our faith keep us moving forward to restore these broken areas of our lives. 

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Michael John Cusick is a licensed professional counselor, spiritual director, speaker, and the author of two books, including his brand new book called Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love. It's out next week. It's such a good book. I hope you'll pick up a copy of it. 

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I know you will be blessed by both the practical tools and spiritual wisdom in the book. Having experienced the restoring touch of God in a deeply broken life and marriage, Michael's passion is to connect life's broken realities with the reality of the gospel. In addition to being a therapist, Michael leads Restoring the Soul, which is a trauma-informed, intensive counseling center in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

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He also equips Christian organizations around the world and formerly served as a professor at both Denver Seminary and Colorado Christian University. Michael holds a master's degree in both pastoral counseling and in counseling psychology. I'm so thrilled to bring you this beautiful, rich healing conversation with Michael John Cusick.

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Alison Cook: Michael, I am so thrilled to have this conversation with you today. I read your new book. It's called Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love. I read an early copy of it and it really moved me, in a way that I hadn't been moved in a long time by a book, by your story, by how you frame love and his journey of attaching to God and healing. I'm thrilled to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for joining us to talk about it.

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Michael: Thank you. It's so good to talk with you and thank you for your kind words and for the wonderful endorsement that you gave for the book.

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Alison Cook:  I would love to start a little bit with your own story. Michael, the book really speaks to this gap between what we believe about God, what we want to believe about God, and the reality of our experiences.

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You pull us right in at the beginning of the book by showing us some of these contrasting experiences in your own life. You share a story about being surprised by love. It's a really amazing story with your aunt, who's a Carmelite nun, and it’s juxtaposed with going back home into significant emotional and sexual and physical abuse.

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Tell me a little bit about those competing stories and how they shaped your understanding of yourself and God.

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Michael: Absolutely. I would love to. I've shared elsewhere and even in my book, Surfing for God, about being sexually abused as a child. Most of that I remember beginning around the age of eight, but around 2003, I started to have body memories, not images, but body memories and was diagnosed with complex post traumatic stress disorder.

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That unfolded over a number of years and was, to this day, the hardest thing that I've gone through in my life–much more difficult than overcoming depression and various addictions in my life. My story started to be corroborated by various family members in my immediate family and beyond based on a lot of knowledge that was always known about an uncle. 

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He sexually abused me and a number of other family members, and I was trafficked to other men that he made me available to. Back then it wasn't called trafficking, but it filled in so many pieces in my story. My abuse wouldn't be dealt with, much less remembered in full, until I was released around probably 16 years old.

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I was four years old when that abuse started and I had an aunt that was a cloistered Carmelite nun. Carmelites were cloistered, so they made a choice to live behind a wall and they could not have contact with the public, except through a metal grate, which was like a prison cell. So when I was four years old, it was always a scary thing to go visit the nuns. 

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I was the youngest of five Irish Catholic kids. On this particular day, my brother lifted me up into this cabinet, which was in the corner, in the space between visitors and the 17 or 20 nuns that were there. It's like prison bars, but it's a crosshatch. My brother lifted me into this cabinet and it spun around on a lazy susan so that food and gifts could be passed over back and forth to the nuns. 

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I spun around thinking, I'm going to die. I didn't like being dizzy or spun around. I was terrified. I remember this very acutely. Finally, the door opened and I thought my brother was there, but my aunt, this cloistered Carmelite nun, was on the other side and she gave me this big embrace. She took me on the other side of this grid where I was not supposed to be.

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I remember being terrified even more then, of the Pope or the Bishop or some priest coming, and I'm in big trouble. It really became a metaphor for later, when I came to a very personal kind of faith. Although I was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic, for many years, for two decades, I saw God as someone who was catching me on the wrong side of things, where I was not supposed to be, not measuring up, not following the rules, and that I was going to be in trouble.

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But what actually happened on the other side of that grid is that my aunt embraced me and kissed me and held me and rubbed her fingers through my hair. She couldn't even go to her own father's funeral about 10 years before this moment. Then other nuns came in and began to embrace me.

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What ultimately happened was, they put me down on the floor and we created a circle and we started singing Ring Around The Rosie and dancing in a circle. That moment became this metaphor of spinning in life, where we're disoriented and we lose our bearings and yet there's this place where we're actually held and embraced by love.

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I've come to see that in many cases with the people that we work with in our therapeutic and pastoral work. Maybe many of the listeners of this podcast are experiencing some kind of disconnect like that as well. They want to believe that love is there to embrace them, that love has them if you will, and yet there's an external reality where they're spinning, they're disoriented.

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There's this disconnect between what they want to experience with God and what they were told the Christian life would actually be like, but what they actually experience is something very different from that. They don't have any idea how to connect those two or to close that gap.

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Alison Cook: That was such a powerful story. It reminds me of the title of the classic CS Lewis book where he talks about being surprised by joy, and it's almost like being surprised by love in that moment. There was pure love for you from these women.

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That metaphor is so powerful, and you talk about being surprised by love, where God comes into the unlikeliest of places in the book. You also talk about the long-term damage in your life as a result of the abuse that doesn't go away magically, even though you have these moments of love and grace. 

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Tell me a little bit about that. Once you began to realize the devastation that had occurred to you, what was that like? How did you try to heal? How did you try to address that? What worked? What didn't work?

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Michael: Yeah, I had some very pronounced survival strategies that kicked in at a very young age. As the youngest of five, I was the family comedian or the mascot. I got a lot of my emotional needs met by making people laugh. I made this commitment very early on that I would be a people pleaser, that I would get people to like me, that I would try to mediate conflict and anxiety.

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There was a lot of that in our home, and I mediated with humor. One of my earliest memories that I write about in the book as well, is when I was probably five years old. I would steal food out of our pantry and we were a blue collar, lower middle class family, and food wasn't always plentiful because the older people would eat it.

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I stole a bag of Nestle chocolate chips and I went under my bed and I tucked them up underneath the mattress. Some of my earliest memories are going under that mattress and eating these sweets, rationing them out to myself to kill that emotional pain. That lasted through my whole life.

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I currently attend a 12-step group for freedom from compulsive overeating. That has been really revolutionary. So today, for anybody who's listening, freedom and healing and integration are possible, but we always have to continue to do our work. There's no end point where we go, okay, I'm good. I'm whole. 

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I do believe that we can get to a place where we're whole, but we need to cultivate that in the same way that we have to cultivate a garden.

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Alison Cook: I love that. In the book, you keep us on that journey with you. You have these moments of breakthrough. You have these moments of discovery and of healing, and also, it's an ongoing process of continuing to do the work. It's beautiful in that sense. It's so realistic and also so hopeful. 

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You've described brokenness, and this is a really powerful way to describe it, as a gateway to divine attachment. Tell us a little bit more about what you mean by that. You don't mean that glibly. 

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Michael: No. I believe that with all my heart. I described the gap as this Delta, and in science, a Delta is the triangle or the Greek symbol for the distance between where you are and where you want to be. It represents that gap, but a Delta is also like the Delta of the Mississippi, where two things come together to create something new. 

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The brackish water and the salt water in that Delta becomes something new. I believe in the “gospel reality”, when we bring our brokenness plus our hope and what we're actually made to be together, and something altogether new is formed. There's this third reality that is developed. We therapists talk about non-duality and dialectical behavior therapy; there's this other way, this third way, that's really based in paradox. 

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Our brokenness is not the barrier, but a bridge to where we want to be. What we often focus on as believers is, why do we struggle with X, Y, or Z? The average pastor, unfortunately, or the average person in the pews might say that it’s because we're sinners, but it's actually because we mishandle our pain and we mishandle the disconnection that is there spiritually, emotionally and relationally from others.

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In that disconnection, we're going to move towards something that gives us that sense of being seen, soothed, safe, and secure, those four foundational elements, and behind it all is attachment.

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Alison Cook: Pain becomes an opportunity. It's something deeper than simply healing the pain and making it go away. When we actually take the pain out and we face the brokenness and we continue to take that into relationship with God, something transcendent happens there. Something new is formed.

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Michael: Absolutely. I'm not sure when this will be broadcast, but Advent starts in a week. Advent is all about becoming and waiting. It's the journey of Mary's Magnificat, of saying yes to God in this very unlikely situation, and it culminates in the birth of Christ.

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We take that for granted. The birth of Christ and the Incarnation, as well as the conception in Mary by the Holy Spirit, is really one of the very first proofs in the New Testament that God loves to inhabit anything and everything that is seemingly unfavorable. A situation that is a crisis, a situation that is tragic, like the homelessness of the God of the universe, the fact that he was conceived in an unwed teenage peasant womb, all of those things are unfavorable.

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They become precursors that in our life, all of those moments, God inhabits those things. That's the very first secure attachment, is that God is with us, God is in us. In Christ, we are in union with him. Like the Irish Celtic proverb that says, we can't put the ocean in a thimble, but we can put the thimble in the ocean. We are in the ocean of God's love.

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We can't acquire that, we can't attain that, we don't have to strive for it–it's something we rest in, through spiritual practices and spiritual training, beginning with silence, solitude, stillness, and awareness of our body. Through so many of the things that you speak about and write about, Alison, we can actually begin to embody and to experience that kind of attachment in the midst of and through the brokenness and the pain and the suffering in our life.

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Alison Cook: I love that. You give some very vivid examples of this in the book, and I've seen it in my own life. My husband and I had, for years, led Bible studies in a homeless shelter in Boston, where every single week we were with folks who were coming out of prison who, because of addiction, mental illness, all sorts of things where they'd inflicted harm on others, also were survivors of incredible trauma. 

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I've never felt such holy ground where God showed up. It wasn't because all the lives were suddenly cleaned up. Many of these folks were there, like I said, out of prison, in the unfavorability of those circumstances, where the Holy Spirit is invited in. There's a closeness of God when you feel like your life is at its lowest moment. 

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I've had moments of this in my own life, where God has shown up the most powerfully. I've turned toward him. Sure. But in the midst of some of my worst moments is when he's shown up the most powerfully.

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Michael: Yeah, and he shows up and sometimes he doesn't say anything. It's merely his presence, which brings, occasionally, a sense of comfort, but not always an embodied sense of comfort, but the sense that it's going to be okay.

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You're absolutely right. Especially if we read the Beatitudes, it's almost as if the worse a situation is and the less expected it is for God to be there, the more consistently he is there. Of course, he's everywhere, including when we visit the sick, when we take care of the homeless, when we see people in prison, what we've done unto the least of these, that's where God is. It's in the least of our situations, suffering, and circumstances, where God is as well.

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Alison Cook: You talk about these five W's and I thought that was such a helpful and powerful framework. You talk about this in the book, because of your own woundedness, because of what was done to you, you did end up finding yourself in situations that hurt your wife, that hurt others.

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This is this really hard thing for folks who are coming out of complex trauma, where we find ourselves doing things that harm others. You give us this framework of these five Ws and it's so important for us to understand all the nuances of that framework. Could you share that with us?

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Michael: Absolutely. Hurting people hurt people. Pain that's not transformed is transmitted, as a number of spiritual writers have said. I took these five W's as a way of helping people to understand what's going on below the surface. I'm assuming that people who are coming from a Christian framework have been told, the problem is your sin, and you need to repent. 

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The problem is, that doesn't work, and that didn't work for me as a very disciplined, high-level willpower Christian early on in my faith. For the first 15 years, I was memorizing Scripture, studying the Bible, leading others to Christ, starting a Young Life Club in Cleveland, Ohio that is still running 40 years later, far beyond my expectations, and really doing a lot of the external things that I thought would somehow give me the grace. 

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That God would be appreciative or impressed, and that would somehow turn the lock in the door that would open into this life that was called the abundant life and freedom. That never worked.

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I started to ask the question, what else could be going on here? I did therapy and I got some graduate degrees, and along the lines, I was approached by a professor. I've taken my own experience, my own understanding of the scriptures, and my own understanding of some of the best of psychological and spiritual writing.

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The first of the W's, and I want to forewarn your listeners, this first W might be offensive, but it's the word wretched. We all know the word “wretched” from the song, Amazing Grace. It's interesting how many secular versions there are of this song, because it's such a classic song in melody, but also the lyrics. 

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Presumably, people that aren't even religious are moved by this song. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. If you look up the word wretch in the dictionary, it says something like despicable or vile. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a despicable, vile person like me. 

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Here's the good news. That's not actually what that word means. There's a small context where that’s what that means, but at the time that song was written, the word wretched meant impoverished. It meant homeless. One of the most poignant images is in Dickens’ writing in the 1800s, A Tale of Two Cities. 

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We all know A Christmas Carol, but in A Tale of Two Cities, he wrote of wretches as homeless children that were out on the corner begging. What if we thought about our personhood, because there was this sense of disconnection from God way back in the Garden of Eden, that we've lost our way, that we're homeless, and that we're impoverished?

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I'll speak for myself, that all the resources I've used to try to make my life work, to try to manage my trauma and my pain, none of them work, and yet I keep thinking that if I spend my money, or spiritually, emotionally, relationally speaking, if I utilize my survival strategies, that somehow I can earn love.

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The scriptures actually tell us that we are impoverished. It was St. Thérèse of Lisieux, that Doctor of the Church who passed away at age 24, who left behind this wonderful spirituality of childlike simplicity. She called it “the little way”. She once said that our poverty (and she was referring to spiritual poverty) alone is our capacity for God.

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If I've got game, and if my credit card has $20,000 of spiritual spending power on it, and if my wallet is full of $100 bills, and if my piggy bank is full, then I really have no need for God. That's why in Isaiah 55, the prophet says, “Come all you who are thirsty, come and drink. You who have no money, come and buy wine, milk, and bread.”

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We actually have to acknowledge that we're impoverished in order to experience the kingdom and to experience the love that is there. So I prefer, instead of talking about wickedness, which is another W, to talk about wretchedness, or our poverty.

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The next W is our weakness, and that's simply our vulnerabilities and the human limitations we have. Jesus was weak; he emptied himself of divinity, and part of that meant that he had to sleep, he had to eat, he had to go to the bathroom. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he turned to his friends and said, hey, stay here and pray for me. Not once, but three times. 

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We tend to come into the world and reveal to others our strengths and our abilities and our gifts, but we take our vulnerabilities and our limitations and we hide them behind our back, or we relegate them to some faraway place. In IFS work, we call these exiles, the parts of us that get lost, the parts of us that get relegated. 

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People then love us, not based on who we really are, but based on who we think they want us to be, and we become performers, either getting larger than we actually are, or becoming smaller, either expanding our sense of self and performing, or dialing down who we are.

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So there's wretchedness, there's weakness, then there's woundedness, and that includes trauma and wounds of presence, things that shouldn't have happened that did happen. But especially related to attachment, and oftentimes more difficult to address, are those things that didn't happen. 

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Long after I dealt with a lot of my complex trauma, I was left going, now I need to learn how to attach to people and how not to be anxious and avoidant in my pattern of attachment. So there's wretchedness, weakness, woundedness, and then there's warfare. By that, I don't mean devil possession or anything like that, but that we have an accuser who wants to tell us that love doesn't have us. 

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I believe that the ultimate goal of evil is to whisper in our ear and to shout in our face that we cannot trust love and that love doesn't have us. This is ultimately revealed in the person of Jesus on the cross. 

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Finally, the fifth W is wiring. So if I had those first four Ws listed, I would draw a circle around those other Ws and say that we are embodied people, that we have this neurobiology, and that our nervous systems are shaped and formed by living in the world and having all those experiences of the other five Ws. 

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In that inability to self-soothe or regulate or reacting in the world and in relationships, we mishandle our pain in an attempt to try to find that secure attachment, where we can rest and know deep in our body and in our being, not in our left brain and our intellect, that that the Lord is our shepherd and that we shall not want.

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Alison Cook: What I love about that is it's so holistic. As I go through this process of sozo, this healing, this becoming more of my true self, I've got an eye on the wretchedness. When you said that about exiles, when I started doing parts work early on, those parts of me that I had shut out showed up in my system as little orphans that I was completely neglecting.

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It was life-changing for me to realize, oh my goodness, I need to actually invite these parts of me in. I'm addressing my weaknesses, like you said, I'm addressing the reality of warfare. It is a reality. All of these things matter, and we're looking at things holistically. It's not one size fits all. 

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I love that you include that. So I thought that was really a powerful way to think about the complexity of healing, the complexity of restoring our relationship with our self God and others.

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Michael: Yeah, thank you for pointing that out, because if things are not holistic and don’t represent all the different parts of our humanity, we end up believing that our faith makes us actually less human, and to be more spiritual is to become less human. But to become more spiritual is actually to become more fully human.

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Alison Cook: In working with folks about those five W's, I am always thinking about what's going on here in this marriage that's hard or in this friendship that's hard. Is there some woundedness? Is there some wiring? Is there some warfare? It's really important to have a sense of the primary thing at the root of this. When we have that framework, we can be more astute and more discerning when we're trying to be in this space of healing and walking with the people we love. 

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Michael, you bring in both this really refined psychological lens with this deeply spiritually-informed contemplative lens of there's something bigger going on. We have to do the work - and also, there's something bigger going on. There are two things you talk about in the latter chapters of the book that I loved, because we don't talk about them enough. 

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The first is this word mysticism. I loved this. Tell us what you mean by that and why that's important in this journey of healing. This isn't something relegated to saints and hyper-religious people or hyper-spiritual people from the past; there's a mystical component to all of us that can really be a part of this journey.

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Michael: Thank you for asking. In all the podcasts I've done about the book so far, no one has talked about this and I actually feel like it's one of the more important chapters, even though it's later in the book. Because it's really the goal of everything.

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Attachment, even though we can now see on spect scans and MRIs and things like that what happens in the brain, and therefore we can have a scientific aspect to it, it's really fundamentally an imagination, mystical-driven process. So first, let me define mysticism. 

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A mystic is somebody who seeks inner experience with God. So they're seeking experience, which is a kind of knowledge biblically, but it's not left brain. It's not intellectual. It's not cognitive. It's not knowing about God. It's having an encounter with God. I would argue that's the whole point of why human beings were created–not to have more Bible studies and to learn more about God, but to live in that ocean of God's love. 

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I want to quote Karl Rahner, who was a German Catholic theologian, a philosopher. He wrote in the 1960s, “The devout Christian of the future will either be a mystic, one who has experienced something, or he will cease to be anything at all”. 

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I'm afraid that what's happening in the church today, is that many people who were Christians, who now can't use Christian language, or call themselves by certain identifiers like evangelical or even a Jesus follower, are ceasing to be anything at all, and yet their hearts are still longing for the transcendent. Their hearts are still longing to be attached to love. 

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Part of what I tried to do in writing about mysticism and in the whole book is to give people a new lens by which they can see their spirituality and their relationship to God in Christ. Also, to give a new language to speak about what's going on inside that blends the contemplative and the psychological and then ultimately to give people a path to experience God.

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Mysticism and that conversation really is linked to the conversation around imagination. We can go there if you want to in a minute. When we start talking about mysticism, it makes the religious professionals and denominational leaders very on edge, because it feels woo-woo.

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It feels like we're throwing out Scripture. But the more deeply I have delved into Scripture and seen Scripture with my imagination, and tried to place myself in the stories rather than try to learn facts about God, it not only brings more transformation and healing and spiritual and emotional rest inside of me, but it also draws me into more of a mystery.

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So it feels like there's more experience of God, but there's less ability for me to explain Him, and there's less necessity for me to have to defend God, which I spent a lot of the first decades of my life in faith doing–apologetics and trying to convince people of something that they simply didn't believe.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I often now have that experience in nature, hiking in the mountains. We have this horrible fire up here in the Rockies. That was devastating to so many of us. There was a large background to it, but I was walking in the mountains and I had a moment and it was what you described.

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It wasn't like I was annoyed with God. I was trying to avoid God, but there was this moment outside, the leaves were crunching, where I felt that connection with love. It was palpable. I wrote about it. I sent it out into a blog. I usually write much more practical things. That blog got more responses, to your point. 

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There's something about, this isn't this woo-woo thing. We're trying to cultivate that experience of God with us. We don't always live there, but we want to feel that. We want to feel that experience of God with us, Emmanuel.

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I love that you're naming all of this work that we do; our deep breathing, to learn how to soothe our nervous system, to work out hard things in our relationships, to heal from our past trauma–there are these moments, these glimmers, to use Deb Dana's word, of something divine, something beyond, and we can maybe put ourselves more and more in that path.

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I'm curious, personally, how those moments have shown up for you and given you encouragement and kept you going on your own path.

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Michael: I've had many moments like that, but I've had to develop awareness and attentiveness. Sometimes there's still a voice in my head. I would argue that the scriptures and disciplines and liturgy for people that are part of that background and community, that those are all really good and essential things, but we all hit seasons of our life, particularly when trauma and anxiety and dissociation and depression or other mental health disorders are there.

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We can't walk in some of those same paths that we once did. We have to look for ways to experience beauty in the midst of our suffering. I have the strange habit of memorizing first lines of books, and Kay Redfield Jamison wrote a book called An Unquiet Mind. It's about bipolar disorder.

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I've read all of her stuff, and the first line in her book, which is her memoir of bipolar, says, “People go mad in idiosyncratic ways”. Brilliant idea. There's no two people that develop a disorder, even if it's the same disorder, the same way. I've become fond of saying, “people heal in idiosyncratic ways”.

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So when I was a brand new Christian and discipled by my Young Life leader, he sat down, he said, here's what you do. You have a quiet time and you pray this way and you read this way. That was really great for me, but within a couple of years, especially in the midst of my struggles, I needed something else, and there was no one who pointed that out to me.

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One of the most profound examples of this is about 12 years ago, when I went to a family reunion. As you might imagine from some of the stories in my book, my family has been fraught with conflict for decades and there's been estrangement. This was the first time that we'd gotten together as a nuclear family.

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We did this evening sunset cruise on Lake Michigan. We stayed in Saugatuck. There were about 250 people on this boat, and we went offshore far enough to not be able to see land, and the engines went out. I'm still coming out of my trauma at this time. I'm like, great, I'm going to die in the middle of Lake Michigan. This is probably a terrorist.

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It was really quite irrational. Then the captain came over the loudspeaker and he said, ladies and gentlemen, turn to the other side of the boat, and the clouds parted and there was a beautiful sunset. It didn't always happen there because of the clouds. It was this flaming, orange ball that was one of the most intense, glorious sunsets, and it was high up in the sky.

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As it lowered, people came closer together and huddled, these strangers in mass, and as it got right to the horizon, it became absolutely quiet. No one told us to be that way. It was an absolute hush. Then it went lower and lower. I have chills as I tell the story. As it disappeared behind the horizon, there were about two seconds of absolute silence. It's gone. Then spontaneously, the 250 people burst into applause and cheering.

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Alison Cook: That's amazing.

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Michael: It was as if they were saying, God, well done. I don't know if all the people were religious or if they were all atheists, but it doesn't really matter because it was so overwhelming and so sensory and compelling.  About 250 of us were standing together, where it may not have been the same response if it was one person on a cliff or a beach, but it was absolutely glorious.

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It was like there was a standing ovation for God. In the same way that if you see a symphony or a U2 show or something like that, you have to stand up and lift up your arms. That moment in the midst of this very tense, anxiety-producing, somewhat triggering several days with my family became like this kiss and hug from God saying, Michael, I've got you. I've got you. I show up, even here, miles away from the shoreline in one of the Great Lakes.

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Alison Cook: That is so powerful. It’s hard, and that experience doesn't necessarily zap you right out of it, but it's God breaking through. There's that moment where something bigger is happening that gives you enough to keep going. It's beautiful. Before we wind down, Michael, I want to bring in this idea of the imagination. 

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When I got to that chapter in the book, I started weeping. When I stumbled upon Internal Family Systems, IFS, at the end of my doctoral work, I was on this quest for understanding of the soul. I didn't find it in my mind. I didn't find it in all the academic knowledge. I didn't find it in all the psychology theories. 

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Here was this model, IFS, that allowed me to connect with parts of myself using what CS Lewis calls, the baptized imagination. There's this holy ability to imagine something that takes me out of my head, that takes me out of my limited finite abilities. It was life-changing to me to this day. 

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Speaking of CS Lewis, his baptized imagination, Tolkien's baptized imagination, I will still sometimes go back and read the last battle, the last story in the Narnia series. He imagined this world that is rife with great theology, but it's the story in it that actually gives me hope, that helps me reconnect to God.

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There's something about the world of the imagination that is holy and is so important for us in this work of healing trauma. We have to find a way to both incorporate it and imagine something bigger. Talk to me a little bit about that. 

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I found that chapter so personally moving because I can forget that. I can get back into my head. I can get back into good, spiritual formation habits and all that's important, but there's something transcendent that happens when we access that baptized imagination. Tell me a little bit about that and why that was important for you to include.

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Michael: In 1996, I had the privilege of sitting down with Eugene and Jan Peterson for three hours in their home in Vancouver when he was at Regent College. So I was with Eugene and I asked him a silly question.

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I was a contributing editor for the Mars Hill Review, no relation to the Mars Hill Church, which looked at the intersection of the visual arts, music, literature, poetry, theater, et cetera, with Christian faith. Back then, very few people were doing that. It was a cutting edge thing. Now, that's much, much more common.

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Eugene, who had been speaking on the arts and the imagination for a long time, called what Lewis called the baptized imagination, the sanctified imagination. I said, why are the arts important? He looked at me like, that's a dumb question, but he's too kind, he didn't say that.

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He said, Michael, we're dealing with the invisible. Everything about our faith is dealing with the invisible, and something clicked in me. I went, so I need to actually fan the flames that it's good that it's invisible, and I'm gonna have to use my imagination. I had read enough of Eugene's books, and The Message was about halfway out.

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Part of the gift he gave us with The Message is the poetry there that allowed us to think beyond the normal words, because he believed that for disaffected outsiders and for bored insiders in the Church, that we needed new language to fire up the story so that we could actually understand the story.

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Back to C. S. Lewis, I love what you said about his fiction, because throughout the world people know Narnia. All of the movies that are there are about the story of God. It is the story of creation and redemption, of birth and death and resurrection and ascension.

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It's there. The names have been changed to draw in the innocent, if you will, and to make the guilty know that they're welcome at the table. But I want to read a quote from Lewis because he wrote this in the 1950s, I believe, long before we had the neuroscience that we now have today. 

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He said in regard to imagination, the two hemispheres of my mind were in sharp contrast. On the one side, a many-islanded sea of poetry and myths. On the other, a glib and shallow rationalism. Nearly all that I loved, I believed to be imaginary. Nearly all I believed to be real, I thought grim and meaningless.

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What Lewis did with his work, and to a large degree even in his nonfiction work, is that he brought together the real and the imaginary. He helped us to see that we can actually see reality more with our imagination than with our rational mind.

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I could ask you, what's five times five? 25. What's seven plus seven? 14. You could give me the answers, but if I said, why is five times five 25? We would have to use our imagination about that and we would not be able to use our left brain. I'll often ask people to tell me what their favorite food is.

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Alison, what's your favorite food?

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Alison Cook: I'm gonna say pizza.

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Michael: Okay, what kind of pizza?

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Alison Cook: Pepperoni.

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Michael: All right, and do you like cheese on it?

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Alison Cook: Yes.

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Michael: Okay, so I'm gonna ask you right now to close your eyes, and I would like your listeners, unless they're driving a car or operating heavy machinery, to close their eyes, and to imagine a pizza. Imagine your favorite pizza from your favorite pizza shop or from the store, and imagine what that pizza looks like on top with the pepperoni, and how the juice has come out over the cheese, and imagine the crust. 

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Imagine what it would be like to pick it up in your hand and to take a bite of the gooey cheese and the tomato sauce and the pepperoni and to taste the juice. Then imagine what it would be like to swallow it, and imagine that fullness in your stomach and the satisfaction between your taste buds and chemicals being released in your stomach saying, okay, satiety or fullness is starting to happen.

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Then take a breath. What are you feeling right now as you imagine that pepperoni pizza?

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Alison Cook: Hungry.

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Michael: There you go. 

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Alison Cook: I have warm feelings. It put me back in a fun family gathering at my favorite pizza place. There's a lot to it.

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Michael: If you were to go eat after this podcast, you'd probably be less likely to eat cornflakes and more likely to eat something akin to pepperoni pizza. Wouldn't it be strange if I said to you, Alison, that wasn't real. That's strange to ask if it's real. In GK Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, Chesterton wrote in the introduction that children tend to engage in make believe and adults look down upon that. 

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But children see far more of reality through make believe than the adults who live in rationalism. We have this capacity to imagine because God has made us in his image, and God is the first one full of imagination. The Trinity dreamt us up. In Jeremiah 1, it says, before I formed you, I knew you. 

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I'm not sure of the Hebrew word there, but one could paraphrase that as, before I actually imagined you, I knew something of you, and then I set you apart. That set-apartness was not put off on a shelf, but set apart for a time and a moment for his imagination to be fulfilled. I don't know that God ever imagined my life to take the detours that it did. 

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Some would argue that God knew all of those things. I would actually dispute that without denying his sovereignty. But I would argue that part of his imagination is to meet us at every single point of our brokenness, and by entering into, incarnating, and inhabiting that brokenness, his imagination expands and then creates these opportunities for transformation that is a collaborative process between us consenting and saying yes to God, and God's always generative, creative process to bring forth life.

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That when God touches up and bumps up against brokenness, when we consent and say yes. There's no other alternative but for something that is life, and life-giving, and good, and true, and beautiful, to be generated out of that. So imagination is absolutely essential, and we all sing the song based on Ephesians 1:18, Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, open the eyes of my heart, I want to see you.

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I regularly pray, God, open the eyes of my heart that I would know the hope to which I'm called, which is to say, open the eyes of my heart so that I can become what you have imagined for me and what I can become, what the imagination and the hope and the vision and the longing that you put in my own heart.

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Alison Cook: We want that ability to imagine, when you're coming out of something like you've described, Michael, the atrocities. We want that capacity to imagine something beautiful, something good, something like that sunset that you saw.

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Sometimes Aslan from the Narnia Tales gives me that, when I feel like I can't find God, but I can almost imagine Aslan, and I've learned there's something in that. There's something there. Because there's an essence there that is good. It is what keeps us going and gives us hope.

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I love that you bring us toward that at the end of the book. I actually think it is a missing piece in this journey that is so powerful and so important.

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Michael: Great summary of the importance of imagination, Alison, and I tried to unpack that in the book. I would add that even our human longing for the Scriptures are filled with this invitation to long for. Jesus said, blessed are the hungry and thirsty for righteousness.

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He invited people to him in John 7, all you who are thirsty, come and streams of living water will flow. In Isaiah 55, you who are thirsty. Longing is a desire for something that is not yet. Every time we long for something, there's this imagination for something more, as it's related to our particular situation.

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For more in my marriage. For more experience of God. For more self control. For me to say no to things that I don't want to be eating. For me to have self-control to go and exercise when I want to, instead of sleeping in. For more experience of life. For more time in the Rocky Mountains.

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We cannot long for without imagination. Hopefully this gives people language for that.

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Alison Cook: That's so good. It's not fantasy. It's a conscious and intentional posture of the heart. I love that opening of the heart to what might be possible. It's so good. Michael, this book, I cannot say more strongly to those listening to this. It's so readable.

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You share a lot of your story but you bring in some incredibly rich resources from, as we've heard today, from our spiritual practices, from good psychology. It's such a good resource. Tell me a little bit about how people can find Sacred Attachment and what your hope is for folks who pick up a copy.

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Michael: My hope is that people can experience a trauma-informed invitation to a whole new spiritual life. My hope is that people can reimagine a new kind of spiritual life with God, that's really based in rest and peace, and overflow, and that our service and our contribution and the way that we show up in the world that is life-giving.

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That it comes out of a solid foundation inside of us, and that ultimately that every reader will understand that I can be securely attached to God, and that's a work that I do in relationship with others and in relationship with God, and most of all, that attachment has nothing to do with me.

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Once again, I love this phrase borrowed from Martin Laird in his book, Into the Silent Land. He's a contemplative author and he says that most of us are like people fishing for minnows while standing on the back of a whale. This union or attachment with God that we're seeking and desiring is something that we never have to acquire or lose or attain or work up. 

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It's something that we fall back into. I would hope that people have healing of their brokenness, and my hope would be that people have healing of their experience and their image of God, especially toxic and unhealthy beliefs about God. My hope would be that it would bring joy and lightness of being to people.

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Alison Cook: You did that. It certainly did that for me. I'm so grateful that you wrote it and that you took the time to walk us through some of your own story today. How can people find you and find your resources?

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Michael: Yeah, my website is restoringthesoul.com. Restoring the Soul is a ministry in Denver, Colorado, where we do two-week intensive counseling with folks who are looking to get unstuck from trauma and significant relational issues. We work with couples and individuals, and you can find my personal website as well, michaeljohncusick.com. 

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The book is available on Amazon starting on January 7th, 2025, but it can be pre-ordered before then everywhere fine books are sold.

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Alison Cook: I love it. I love it. I can't recommend it more to folks and so grateful for you and all the work that you've done to bring healing to others out of your own pain.

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Michael: Thank you so much, Alison. Great being with you.

Feeling exhaustion or post-holiday blues? How can we step into the New Year feeling refreshed and empowered?

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In this honest and vulnerable conversation, spiritual director and author Anjuli Paschall and I unpack our own journeys through holiday people-pleasing and how to reset for the New Year. As we close out the year, many of us grapple with a mix of relief and disappointment, compounded by the pressure of New Year's resolutions and the desire to start fresh. Anjuli offers her expert guidance on understanding these dynamics and introduces practical steps and spiritual practices to help us move forward with hope and clarity.

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Here’s what we cover:‍

* How to break free from holiday people-pleasing

* The #1 way to stop trying to control other people’s feelings

* Why post-holiday let down happens & what to do

* How to develop and cultivate aspirational feelings in your body

* Why the hope of a new year sometimes hurts & how to navigate those feelings

* Prayers to move through complicated emotions

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Resources:

• Episode 131: Navigating Holiday Emotions—An Honest, Heartfelt Conversation About Guilt, Nostalgia, and Exhaustion with Author & Spiritual Director Anjuli Paschall
• Feel: A Collection of Liturgies Offering Hope for Every Complicated Emotion
• Lovealways.anjuli on Instagram
• ‍anjulipaschall.com

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If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 30: Protecting What’s Good Without Denying What’s Hard at the Holidays

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com/BESTOFYOU or use code BESTOFYOU at checkout.
• Go to thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!
• Visit cozyearth.com and unlock an exclusive 35% off with code BESTOFYOU

.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so thrilled to bring you today's episode with a repeat guest. If you've been following along, you might remember a beautiful conversation I had a few weeks ago around Thanksgiving with Anjuli Paschall. 

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Anjuli is a spiritual director and she's the author of the new book, Feel: A Collection of Liturgies Offering Hope for Every Complicated Emotion. I loved this conversation with Anjuli so much that I wanted her to come back to talk with us about some of these post-holiday emotions that we tend to feel.

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In Episode 131, we talked about the emotions that tend to come up before the holidays. We talked about some of the guilt that you might feel, the pressure, the exhaustion, and the stress that many of us carry into the season. The words and the prayers that she offered to us in that episode were so powerful and were so helpful to me personally, that I knew I wanted to invite her back.

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Today, Anjuli is here to help us explore what happens after the holidays. The decorations are coming down, the gatherings are over, and often we're left with some complicated post-holiday feelings. Together, we're going to dive into some of the post-holiday blues that can follow the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

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We're going to talk about what it might look like to feel content after the holiday season, as opposed to exhausted and let down. We talk about some of the gloom that can linger when we're in between different seasons, when something good has ended, but something new hasn't yet quite become. We talk about the nuanced interplay of creativity and hope as we step into a new year.

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In addition to being an author and spiritual director, Anjuli is the mom of five kids, and her voice is so vulnerable, insightful, and grounded in deep faith. I know you'll find her as encouraging and life-giving as I do. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Anjuli Paschall. 

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***

Alison Cook: I so loved our conversation about pre-holiday emotions, about all of the guilt and the exhaustion. It was so helpful to me personally. It was so helpful to many listeners, to process some of these specific emotions that get tangled up inside of us. In Feel, you've created this anthology of 75 emotions. I was thinking about post-holiday emotions, because I always feel a lot of emotions, especially that week after Christmas and before new year's. 

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I always feel emotions that I have complicated feelings about. I'm curious, what do you think are some of the emotions that come up after the holiday dust has settled–when you wake up after Christmas day or even into the week after?

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Anjuli: Yeah, that is a great question. I think none of us go into the holidays thinking, oh, on the other side, I want to come out exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed, and depleted. We have great hopes that we will come out well, that we'll do it differently this year.

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Alison Cook: Yeah, exactly. 

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Anjuli: I don't think we can do the holidays differently unless we understand what we're doing. I don't always think it's, I'll buy less, do less, participate in less. That can help, but I don't know if that's always the cure. Because you can do very little and still feel depleted, exhausted, stressed, and tired. 

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You have to explore, what's happening in my internal world, that year after year, I come out on the other side not the way I hoped I would be? I don't actually have this particular feeling in my book, there's one very closely connected to it, but one feeling I experience and I hear a lot of people experiencing is the feeling of relief.

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You put all the Christmas stuff away and it feels clean. Your house is back to normal. You're in a regular routine again. All the house guests have gone. There's a new year. There's a sense of refresh and restart. The feeling I would connect to that is free. But it's an interesting feeling because it makes you wonder, what are you relieved of? What were you doing that makes you like, oh, thank God I made it through that?

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Alison Cook: About putting away Christmas decorations–I want to talk about that. We'll come to that one later. I feel a real letdown because there's something about the festivities and the lights and the decorations. I feel so sad when we have to take them down. That might link to nostalgia, which we talked about last time. I'm not sure, but there can be that feeling of letdown. 

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It is so interesting when we talk about freedom or relief. What are we feeling it from? Several years ago, going into the holidays, I noticed a pattern that every year I would wipe myself out trying to get the perfect gifts, the perfect everything. By the time the day came, I was exhausted. 

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Even my family was like, why are you doing this? So I made a conscious choice. I began to notice that tipping point of, I can stop. My work is done. This is good enough. I began to notice that, and consciously over the next few years, I would make myself stop at a certain point. Stop buying more gifts, doing more things, and it worked.

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I'm wondering if that gets at that “free from”. I noticed there was a part of me early on, when the kids are young and you want everything to be perfect, there was a part of me that was pushing me to do things that other parts of me could become aware of. We're not moving the needle on anybody's Christmas joy with these extra gifts. Nobody needed these. 

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I made myself consciously look at that and assess that and make a mental note that the next year, I was going to really notice the impulse to do more, take a pause, and take a deep breath. It really worked. I wonder if that's a little bit of what you're talking about–that pressure we put on ourselves. Where does that come from?

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Anjuli: I think you nailed it. The sister to that is taking responsibility for things that are not your responsibility. It's even the joy of other people. “I'm responsible to give my children the greatest, magical, most beautiful experience of Christmas.” We take that responsibility. 

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I do this too. I think this is the tipping point for me year after year. I'm relieved because it's like, oh, I don't have to deal with my in-laws or my sister or brother, whoever it is. I don't have to carry the responsibility of their experience.

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It was a relief for me. Oh, it's done. Okay, I don't have to do that anymore. And realizing I never actually had to do that in the first place. I took that responsibility upon myself.

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Alison Cook: That part of you that feels so responsible for everyone's happiness or everyone's experience, what is it afraid would happen if you didn't work so hard?

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Anjuli: I think it really links to some childhood stuff. There's chaos, but if I can be the one who brings joy or brings help or brings my personality or humor, it'll take the air out of the pressure.

And there's that deep belief of, I can help. I can be the one who minimizes the chaos.

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Alison Cook: There's that conditioning of, I can be the one to make Christmas magical for everybody, which is beautiful—and—exhausting. Yeah.

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Anjuli: For me, even heading into the holidays and coming out of it is like, okay. What am I responsible for? And giving people back their own feelings. Oh, actually, my mom is responsible for her joy and her sorrow and her disappointment. My brother-in-law is responsible for his anger. It's such a helpful thing to give back responsibility to the person who it's due.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. Their joy is their responsibility. It's not actually yours.

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Anjuli: Yeah. Let me ask you this question, because I bring this conversation up a lot with people, especially with feelings. Do you think that you can control how other people feel?

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Alison Cook: So the more scientific, logical, rational part of me that knows the right answer says no, we can't control how other people feel. And also, I don't think it's a complete binary. It's tricky. I think it's nuanced. This is where codependency comes in. 

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It's so tricky because we do have the power to impact how someone feels. If I know that there's something that's really going to bring you joy and I do that thing out of the goodness of my heart and it brings that joy to you, I've played a part in your experience of joy. That's the healthy part of it. That's what I don't want to lose. This is why I think this is tricky, but I have to be so clear inside myself, what my motivation is.

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Anjuli: Yeah.

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Alison Cook: When I do this thing to bring you joy, do I have the bandwidth for it? And is it a free gift? When it's a free gift that I want to give with no strings attached, that's a beautiful thing, but it's a slippery slope. Because it could be, I'm going to use this word, manipulation. I want to orchestrate everybody around me because then I feel good about myself. 

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Or I want to feel good about myself because I've been the good daughter or I've been the good parent or I've been the good sibling. So I think it's really nuanced. I'm curious what you think.

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Anjuli: I want to push back on people when I have this conversation. Because we can't control how people feel. I think there are nuances, but I think where I really want to press on people is that you actually could do everything in your power to do the thing you think that person needs or wants that will bring them joy. 

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But in the end, you could do handstands and you could give and give of yourself and you could break your back and you could do all the things and they could still not feel joy.

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Alison Cook: 100 percent.

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Anjuli: I think that's really hard for people to really embrace. Because we have so habituated ourselves, through what I even shared from my childhood, if I do these things, then this will be the result. What's so tricky is it probably worked in a lot of people's lives. If I'm the good daughter, sister, wife, then they won't be mad at me, or then there'll be peace. 

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It works to a degree until it doesn't work. Until you break down or that relationship breaks down, because it's fixated on the transactional relationship.

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If we bring it back to the holidays, I do this and I know so many women do. There is a good desire in there to bless and love people. But I also think it's really hard to do some things without hooks in there. If I do this, it will bring a good Christmas, or then my kids will get along, or then they'll love me back or want to come visit again. 

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I think there is a real work of the soul and work of the heart to relinquish any power we think we have to really transform someone's experience of Christmas.

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Alison Cook: I love this conversation because again, bringing up that word codependency–when you are recovering from being a people pleaser, being someone who takes your identity out of trying to control the emotions of others, it's really helpful to remind yourself, I cannot control anybody else's experience. 

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It forces you to that accountability. If I do this thing, am I doing it because I want to do it out of the overflow of my own heart, regardless of how it is received? But that's a recovery journey. I know in my own life, that has absolutely been a recovery journey, even to this day, of really getting quiet enough in my own soul, and asking what is motivating me here? Am I trying to earn love? Or is this something I wish to do for this human without any expectation of any outcome from them?

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Anjuli: Sure. It's like the prayer that's so close to my heart. I am in recovery too, that God would give me a pure heart. In the Sermon on the Mount: blessed are the pure in heart. It's such a desire of mine to love from a pure heart, because what a gift we can give other people when we can do that.

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Alison Cook: So bringing this back to those emotions we were talking about at the beginning of this, Anjuli, relief and freedom. There's this relief. I'm curious what you think from your inventory of emotions, what is the emotion that we feel when there is that purity of heart out of our giving? I think that's a really nuanced idea–what does that feel like when I do this? 

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It's the opposite of resentment. It's the opposite of martyrdom. I did this out of the joy in my own heart. Take it as you see fit. I am good. I am satisfied. What is that emotion that we feel on that pure side of giving?

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Anjuli: I would say the closest ones that come to mind are contentment and gratitude. It's a piece that is not determined by circumstance. When things don't go the way we hoped they would go, or the way we intended they would go, it doesn't shake your security.

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Alison Cook: So let's imagine for a minute if we could feel and tap into a sense of contentment post-holiday. What would that feel like for us? I'd love to hear some of your thoughts because that feels like an emotion that we strive for. Walk us through a little bit about what contentment feels like. How do we experience that?

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Anjuli: Well, the first indicator is how you feel in your body. Your heart rate is at ease, your chest is relaxed, your throat isn't closed up, your mind isn't cluttered. Your palms are relaxed. It's the posture of open palms. I think when we pay attention to our body, it's definitely an indicator of what's going on in our heart.

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It's really at peace. It's a place of surrender. It's a place of, your will be done, God. I think our contentment holds hands very closely with trust in God. When we trust God with surface level things all the way down to our very beings, the soul of our being, we can relax more.

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Alison Cook: I love that. Even if we feel some of the let down, some of the disappointment, or even some of the exhaustion. For the listener who hasn't felt, after the holidays, this deep sense of a contentment (if we do, that's wonderful), I'm trying to imagine, what does that feel like? Sometimes as we imagine and tap into that in our bodies, it helps us have a target in a way.

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Anjuli: That's a great thing that you brought up. I love the way this conversation is going, because that's not a feeling I would typically describe that we feel after the holidays, but what I think comes up for me is, gosh, isn't that the hope? That we're here in January and we can look backwards and be like, it was hard. It was messy. I can't believe that person did that. It didn't go the way I thought I did, but here I am today, moving into a new year. 

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Lord, I entrust what it was into your hands and know that you will use it. Even the pain, even the hardship, even the exhaustion, as seeds that you will water and grow in my life and hopefully in the lives of other people. You will use my not-enough, where I didn't live up to who I wanted to be, and you will grow contentment in my heart, but also in their hearts. 

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Alison Cook: love that. So our first emotion for post-holidays is aspirational. But if we have this idea of what if I could experience more contentment, it would require a little bit more of that releasing of the grip of both my own desires and also the people I love. I can't control them.

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Anjuli: Letting what was to rest. Letting what did happen, happen, and coming to peace with it.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I do feel like there's something to this idea of the post-holiday blues. I'm curious what your thoughts are on some of those types of emotions. Anjuli, I know you said in our last conversation that there's a component of sadness that you actually really don't mind. Is that right? 

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Anjuli: The feeling that actually comes up for me when I hear you talk is the feeling of gloomy.

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Alison Cook: Oh, that's a great word.

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Anjuli: You're not depressed. You're sad, but you're not crying in your bed at night.

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Alison Cook: It's different. It's not quite grief. Gloomy is a good word.

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Anjuli: It's funny, Alison. Gloomy was the very last feeling I added. I remember I emailed my publisher like, we have to add this feeling, because it's not as deep as sadness. But it's something we experience in seasons of transition, when there has been good. I finished a season with my son's volleyball team.

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I don't know if anyone listening has had kids who played a sport, but for that season, there’s that little community, the people we saw four or five times a week. You see them more than your best friends, and you have this common bond of cheering for your children and wearing the same color and analyzing all the plays and talking trash about the referees.

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You form this connection, and then when that season's done, it evaporates. It's gone, and you don't really see these people that come to be your friends anymore. The feeling of gloomy comes when a season changes and there's a loss.

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Alison Cook: Oh, I love that. That is it. That's what I feel. I'm curious if the listener will relate, because it doesn't feel as deep nor as sad, but it feels gloomy. What a bummer. Yeah. So talk us through a little bit, how do you think through and pray through where there's a little gloominess?

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Anjuli: The most important thing is that we name it, but then to acknowledge it, because it's a higher level feeling. It's a very easy one to neglect or minimize or dismiss. When you're furious, you can't really dismiss that. It's so obvious. Even disappointment, that's a mid-level feeling. It's hard to avoid disappointment. It sticks to you. 

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But gloominess, you could easily drink it away, Netflix it away, shop it away. I think it's important for us to name what it is and acknowledge, yeah, that was a really good thing. I am sad that it's ending and that it may never be the same again.

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Alison Cook: I love that, because what that does is give credit to the good that you're now missing. Even in your example, with the end of a sports season, which I totally get–there's excitement around it, there's energy around it, there's vitality around it–when it's over, it's this weird feeling of, oh that's a bummer.

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If you don't acknowledge that, you might miss what was good. The fact that you're aware of that feeling afterward helps you understand what was really good about what came before. Yeah. I love that.

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Anjuli: Would it be helpful to read a little bit from that section?

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Alison Cook: I would love that. It's one of my favorite parts. I love listening to you.

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Anjuli: A liturgy for when I feel gloomy. I open my heart to you, God. I feel this gloominess in my body. I'm not sure what to do with my sadness today. Give me wisdom to know what in my heart needs to be processed and prayed. My gloominess comes and goes like fog.

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I feel the ache move through me. I feel loss snagging my soul. I feel hesitant to camp here for too long. But here I am now. I trust that you care about my life. As insignificant as my sorrow may be, I believe that you do care. Life is changing. Seasons come and go. I can't hold anything still. I can't control the passage of time. 

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I refrain from thinking about my feelings. Instead, I feel them, hold them, and acknowledge them. I unfold my heart to you. I don't need to edit my words or feelings with you. God, in this place, you are my constant. Your spirit sorts through my spirit. Your spirit comforts my spirit. Your spirit consoles and welcomes me to come undone.

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Sadness exists even when words do not. I trust that you will bring me understanding. Though I can't shake this feeling, I trust that you are unshaken by it. Though I can't make sense of all my circumstances, I trust that you will make my path straight in due time. As seasons change, so do my feelings.

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I wait on you. I wait on the premise that this is not the end. I wait on the promises of your love to see me through. I know this feeling isn't final, but a passage place. It is a place I must move through in prayer, and it becomes a holy ground for hope to transpire. You are with me in this liminal space.

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I trust that even here, you are forming my heart in love. Help me see what I need to let go of, help me see what to hold on to. Once again, I entrust my life and the lives of those I love into your care. As life changes, I believe with all of my being that you desire my good and you are forming me in your kindness.

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The growing pains I feel now are growing me to be one who loves as I have been loved. As I feel my mood swing and sway, I lean on you. I allow my sadness to be the space where your love welcomes me to come undone. Lord, hear my prayer.

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Alison Cook: I love that. As I was listening, I got these images of what you want to do on a gloomy day, or even in the gloom of post holiday. Take care of yourself, wrap up in a blanket, maybe watch a cozy movie, maybe have that cup of hot chocolate. When you do those things for yourself, after having honored what you feel, it means more. It’s about really being present and taking care of myself through it.

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Anjuli: Yeah. There is a piece of it where it's with transition. With the gloominess that comes, I think there is such a power in asking God, what from that last season can I hold on to? The season is gone, December 25th is gone, but I want something to live on inside of me and I want to take that with me into the next season.

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Maybe there are things I actually need to let go of. Okay, my kid will never be a baby again. This is my last year with a baby. Okay. I want to honor that and know that next year they'll be running around and saying words, and so I'm gonna let that season go, things like that. What can I hold on to and what can I let go of?

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Alison Cook: I love that. I love thinking through these nuanced emotions. I love gloomy. That's a great word. The other thing I was thinking of, Anjuli, as you were describing that, are children's books and imagination. It gives you a category for that. I was thinking about the gloomy characters that have a place in our imaginations, and that takes the edge off of it.

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Anjuli: So true. We need that.

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Alison Cook: What's another emotion that you think of, whether for the post-holiday or the anticipation of the new year?

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Anjuli: We could go either with exhausted or creative. The new year's resolutions, the thing I'm going to do, or we could even circle back to longing.

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Alison Cook: Let’s do creative, because I think there's something about the liminality between seasons, after Christmas yet before the new year, that in-between place. I think there is a seedbed there for the creativity of the new year. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

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Anjuli: Yeah. What a clean slate. So in line with New Year's resolutions, I have a word of the year. Some people are like, this is the year. It's such a fresh motivation in that liminal space of change. It's the ambition, the power, and then for some people, it can also be a discouragement if we look at our lives and want to get things back on track. 

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If it's our weight, if it's our mental health, if it's our finances, that can be a very defeating feeling if you have failed again and again at becoming the person or being where you want to be in life. It can be a smack across the face of, why even try? But there is something about the new year that's rejuvenating. 

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I do feel pretty creative at the beginning of the year, even though I'm not a New Year's resolution person. I don’t really even want to have a word this year. Every time I see people do it, I think I’m totally going to do that this year. I'm going to have a word and a verse and this is the year. 

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But it sparks my imagination. How do I want to imagine this year going? What are some dreams I want to revisit? What are some longings that are there? There is a fresh energy when January rolls around.

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Alison Cook: You're right about that, that there can be a double edged sword to the pressure on the new year. It can invite those parts of us that get really excited and set all the goals and then other parts. It reminds me a little bit of right before Christmas, where parts of us get overzealous in ways that aren't really integrated with the rest of us.

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I love that word creativity, because even in that feeling, it's not a binary. It's not, I'm going to go for it with all my goals, nor is it, I'm always going to wind up back where I was, so why bother? Creativity is about imagination and what could be. How could I imagine something new this year?

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Maybe it's a little bit different from what I've tried in the past. I like that. There's something to that rhythm, with the new year, in a healthy way that isn't about the pressure of new year's goals.

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Anjuli: Yes. I love that so much. Do you make a new year's resolution?

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Alison Cook: I kind of make resolutions. I found that the week after Christmas, because it is that gloomy time, I like the interplay of that with creativity. So what I do is I don't call it resolutions, but I do some planning. I map out what I think, and I try to be very realistic. There are the pie in the sky goals, but when I really look at it, I go, wait a minute.

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I use that time to really dig deep. If I could do a couple of things, what would they be? That's something I feel like I've gotten better at. I've gotten better at being more grounded in my body. There's obviously the 10 pie in the sky things I'd love, but I think about what's really in front of me and what would be meaningful to me if I could actually move the needle a little bit.

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I use that week for that kind of planning, which sounds less romantic. I can see by your face that you relate to me, but it actually feels good. It feels satisfying. Yeah. Because I actually usually do it.

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Anjuli: It's such a great place to evaluate what's working and what's not working. How can we reinvent that to serve the purpose that we're hoping?

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Alison Cook: Yeah. How do you look at that for yourself?

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Anjuli: I am such a feeler that when I don't feel creativity, it's so hard to be creative. It’s this weird backwards thing for me that it actually requires some discipline. You want to run that marathon, you actually have to put some shoes on. I love the dreamy part of it.

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And then when it gets hard, sometimes I'm like, I didn't really want to run that marathon. Even writing this liturgy was such a work of my heart, because there are nuances to creativity. There are some really beautiful, pure things about it. And then there's some things that can bleed into our creativity that can be harmful for us.

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Even writing was such a journey for my own heart of, oh, I really can see the beauty and see the harm that can be done. So this is a liturgy for when I feel creative. 

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I feel creative and I feel it in my body. My creativity has a story. In some ways, it has been received, hidden, set aside, or caused me hurt. For a moment, I opened my heart to you, God. God, I feel a spark flickering inside of me. A small desire is growing.

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I feel it. I can't stop imagining what could come. When I close my eyes, I see all the pieces falling into place and my soul accelerates. I feel something waking up inside of me. It's risky and right and everything I've been wanting. I can come alive. The anticipation of what could come is all consuming. I want to create something beautiful. 

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God, I believe my hands, heart, and pent up hope all have a purpose. I want to pour all of my time, energy, and affection into this new possibility. The spark wasn't a fire kindled by mere magic. It came to me. It was ignited by you. It started someplace else. In the beginning. God, you created. I want to use creativity to get beyond the beginning.

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I believe creativity will take me forward someplace else, some place that is better. I try to build a structure that will transport me from my reality to a better one in the future. God, I resist using these ideas to bring me self-glorification or selfish gain. I resist using my creativity as a way of escaping reality. I resist ignoring the creative gifts you have given me because I am afraid of not succeeding. 

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Parts of my heart want to manipulate the gifts you've given me in a way that I think will fix or save me, creating me a clean heart. Lord, I willingly, cautiously, and courageously step into this call to create. I don't have to make something happen. Rather, I get to move into what you have asked me to do. 

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I don't have to figure everything out. I don't have to do anything but be faithful to the task before me. God, I relax into the wondrous creation of the world, those around me, and my own mysterious soul. I rest in your power, God.

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You inspire me. I don't use my power to build beyond you, God. I use my power to be with you. God, above all, form in me a creative heart of love. Let all that my hands do become a doorway to participate and invite others into your indwelling presence. Lord, hear my prayer.

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. As I listened to your prayer, that when we have felt thwarted creatively or we felt blocked, it's so closely tied to hope. It can hurt when we feel that flickering spark of hope, longing, that creative spark. We can feel mixed up about it.

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Anjuli: Yes. It can remind us of our past failures. We're paralyzed. Oh, I already tried something. It didn't work. So I'm never going to try again to put myself out there or write the book, sing the song, paint the painting, start the business. We can stifle our creativity or we can use our creativity as a way to escape reality.

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Alison Cook: The word that came to mind, it's so closely interwoven with imagination, but it’s the word fantasy. I used to create elaborate fantasies in my mind, as a kid, and I had a big imagination.

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There's a lot of creativity, but the fantasy was often an escape hatch, and it had no connection to reality. In my adult life right now, sometimes I can go too far. I'll be really grounded, and within that, what I have found is that the goal is to let that fire burn even brighter inside, because it's so connected to what's real. It's different from that escape hatch. It's tricky to bring the real and the imagined together.

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Anjuli: I think that's the intersection of entering into it with God, who is the great Creator. We create because God created. We don't create to get out of reality. We create to be with God in his reality.

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Alison Cook: Yes. We are joining God in shaping reality for good and beauty, and that really fills your heart. But you're right, it's delicate. It's like a flame. I love how you use that metaphor of a spark. It's beautiful and vital and it's also delicate.

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Anjuli: And it can burn you. Yeah. There's a witness with God in that. In whatever resolution you have, whatever the new dream is, if you allow yourself to reinvent something or change something in your life, it's not to get out of your life. It's actually to enter more deeply into the life you've been given.

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Alison Cook: You've written such a beautiful book. It's called Feel, and you cover 75 different emotions. Each one has a liturgy and some thoughts, like what we've shared today. It's a beautiful resource. When you were saying you’re a feeler, I thought, you are using those gifts for good in partnership with God by bringing this beautiful book into the world and by joining us. Thank you so much. 

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Anjuli: Thank you for having me back. It's so great to be here with your audience and your people. You lead and you share and you guide so gently and so well. So thanks for having me back. What a gift.

Are you curious about how science and spirituality intersect in understanding and treating mental health conditions like OCD?

This week, therapist and spiritual director Ryan Kuja shares his incredible journey through the complex world of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). From a young age, Ryan battled intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors. Feeling isolated and overwhelmed, at 17, he cried out to God—a pivotal moment that launched him into an unexpected exploration of mysticism, neurobiology, and the intricacies of diagnosis. This episode is designed for everyone, whether you or someone you love is dealing with OCD, or you're simply interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the diverse human experience.

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Here’s what we cover:‍

* Ryan recounts the pivotal moment at 17 when his struggle with OCD drove him to seek divine intervention

* The difference between OCD and common intrusive thoughts—what sets them apart?

* An overview of the latest and most effective treatments for OCD, from clinical approaches to innovative therapies

* Ryan shares the spiritual practices that have not only helped manage his OCD but also enriched his spiritual journey

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Resources:

• Episode 129
• ‍Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz
• ‍ryankuja.com
• ‍Instagram @ryankuja

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If you liked this episode, check out:

• Episode 129: Understanding Your Anxiety—A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Calm, Advocating For Yourself, and Cultivating Inner Resilience
• Episode 51: The 12 Common Thinking Traps, Mind Reading, Mental Filters, and How To Stop Taking Things Personally

‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
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• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am so glad you're here with me this week. We have a beautiful and insightful and compassionate episode lined up for today. We're diving into a topic that touches so many lives, whether directly or indirectly, and that's OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder.

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Now, if you listened to Episode 129, which was all about understanding your anxiety and different types of anxiety, you know that anxiety is really complex and nuanced. It has a lot of different manifestations, and OCD actually falls under the umbrella of an “anxiety disorder”. I don't always love the language of disorders, but that's the language that our current society uses.

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I wanted to touch on OCD in that episode, but there are so many misconceptions about it and it's so misunderstood that I decided to dedicate a whole conversation to it, and that's exactly what we're going to do today. This episode is for all of us. 

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If you've been diagnosed with OCD, or if you've ever wondered if what you're experiencing might be OCD, maybe you have a loved one who struggles with it, or maybe you're simply curious about it and want to have a greater understanding of this shared experience of what it means to be human. There's something for everyone in this episode.

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As you'll hear from our guest today, it can be incredibly freeing to realize there is a name for what I'm experiencing, and OCD is the right name. It can be equally as powerful as you listen today to realize, oh, this isn't what I'm experiencing. I may be dealing with something else. 

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Maybe I have some perfectionistic streaks. Maybe I have some generalized anxiety. Maybe I have some high sensitivity, as we'll touch on in today's episode. But what I'm dealing with actually isn't OCD. Either way, when we understand how to name something accurately, it can be really life giving and freeing and set us on a path toward healing.

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Toward the end of the episode, we're also going to get into what effective treatments can look like, some of the most common misconceptions about OCD, and we're also going to talk about how spiritual practices can both help and sometimes hinder someone with OCD.

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I'm so honored to have Ryan Kuja with me today. Ryan is a therapist, a writer, and a spiritual director who speaks openly about his own journey with OCD. His insights are so compassionate and so grounded in both his personal experience and professional expertise. You can learn more about Ryan at ryankuja.com or on Instagram @ryankuja. 

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Tune in for yourself, a loved one, or if you want to learn more about the complexity of the human experience and how God meets each and every one of us exactly where we need to be met. I know this conversation will leave you with a greater understanding and empathy. I am so thrilled to bring you my conversation with therapist Ryan Kuja.

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***

Alison Cook: Ryan, thanks so much for joining us today. I am so thrilled for this chance to get to know a little bit more about your story, both personally and in your work as a therapist and how you approach things. I've come to have so much respect for you based on some of your writings online and through some mutual friends. I'm so glad you're here.

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Ryan: Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be here.

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Alison Cook: I cannot wait to dig in, because you have such a beautiful way of describing what it means to be a healer. I love how you frame this work that we do that way. Before we get there, I would love to learn a little bit more about your journey 

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You talk about how you’ve been down this path and do this work out of healing what you've been through. You even write on your website, “by the time I was 24, I had been diagnosed with OCD, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and panic. I intimately know the affliction of mental health struggles”. 

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Can you take us back to your younger self, that pre-24, pre-diagnosed younger self? What were some of the cues and signals that you were experiencing that set you out on this journey?

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Ryan: Yeah, so it goes way back. I think the seeds of some of the clinical issues that I mentioned, the OCD, the PTSD, depression, anxiety, I think the seeds of a lot of that was there when I was quite young. I remember worrying a lot as a kid and being highly sensitive. But it was really at age 10. My mom was in a car accident. 

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She was okay. She wasn't extensively injured or anything, but I experienced it as traumatic. Now, I wasn't with her, but following the car accident that she was in, these obsessions about her dying in a car accident developed. The obsessive terror was, mom is going to die in a car accident. There are compulsions that developed around that to try to reduce the anxiety. 

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I would flip on and off light switches. I would repeat odd phrases over and over in my head. I remember in fifth grade riding the bus to school, and at a certain point in the bus route, I would put on a certain hat at a certain time. I knew as a 10 year old that this didn't make sense. But I couldn't not do it. 

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I would even try to ride with her when she was in the car. If she was going to the grocery store, I'd always want to come. I remember having an understanding that accidents take place in these split second scenarios. So if you're three or four seconds earlier or later, you might avoid a car accident. 

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My mind would think, if mom leaves the house a few seconds later, maybe she won't get in a crash. Maybe I should delay her, but what if that actually is when the accident would happen? This would consume me. The OCD symptoms were the first clinical manifestation that I experienced.

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Alison Cook: Boy, the way you describe that, I want to pause here for the listener. You're describing so clearly what's going on. Often people misunderstand OCD. You have the intrusive thoughts that something's going to happen to mom, but then it's followed by a compulsion. You have to do these behaviors, even though parts of you know they're not necessarily logical or rational.

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Ryan: Exactly.

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Alison Cook: I'm sure that was incredibly confusing at the time.

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Ryan: Incredibly confusing. I had no category for it, no language for it. I thought I was weird. I thought I was crazy, doing these very strange things, and I hid it from everybody. So I didn't talk about it. I didn't bring it to anybody. I had no understanding that OCD existed.

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It was very disorienting and confusing, and I felt this really strong sense of aloneness amidst this fairly overwhelming suffering. And it would wax and wane. There were years between age 10 and 17, and I can talk perhaps later about what happened when I was 17, that shifted things at least for a while.

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So I didn't know that OCD existed. I had never heard of OCD. I didn't know other people suffered with this. I didn't know this was a neuropsychiatric condition that was diagnosable and treatable. So I felt the overwhelm of these symptoms plus isolation and loneliness in it.

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Alison Cook: Yes. That makes so much sense that you're experiencing it and then you feel so isolated from other people. You didn't tell anybody until 17?

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Ryan: I didn't tell anybody and I was a master at keeping it hidden. So for example, the flipping on and off of light switches. I would do that only in rooms that nobody else was in. You think, how does somebody hide this for all these years? It's certainly possible.

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A lot of the compulsions I had were what's known as mental compulsions. Again, repeating certain phrases over and over in my head, or things that others and family members couldn’t necessarily pick up on.

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Alison Cook: Yeah, you could keep them private, but again, that splitting off internally had to be incredibly painful. Ryan, you talk about a mystical experience that happened at 17. Could you tell us a little bit about what happened there? Because it seems as if that really set you off on a whole different exploration.

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Ryan: Exactly. By the time I was 17, I was in the throes of this psychological affliction. I really felt like I was at the end of my rope. Like I said, it would wax and wane. I was a competitive cyclist during my teen years, and looking back, I think when I was training and cycling a lot, the exercise alone mitigated some of the intensity.

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But as I got away from that, it became more severe, around age 17. I really hit a low point. I was in my bed one night, and for the first time in my life, I reached out to something, anything, God.  I didn't grow up in a religious family, but we were culturally Catholic. We went to church during Christmas and Easter, but there wasn't a focus on God or spirituality or faith. 

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So this was something very new to me, something I hadn't done before, but it was really organic–like supplication, this reaching out from an afflictive space. Something profound happened. I felt infused by divine love. I felt God's presence enveloping me in this really clear embodied way, and I also heard a voice.

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It wasn't audible, it was like a still small voice coming from within me or something. These mystical experiences are often hard to put into language by the nature of them, but the voice said, I'll take care of your mother. It was very clear, very simple, very direct. I'll take care of your mother. 

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I was infused with this love and this peace and it really catalyzed the healing of the fear. The obsession, of course, was terror that my mom was gonna die in a car accident. I sensed and really felt in my heart and in my body and in my mind this sense that this God who I didn't know existed, who I'm meeting in this very experiential way, is going to take care of my mom. I don't have to. 

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So it healed the fear. The obsession dropped away and the compulsions dropped away. I literally woke up the next morning and the OCD symptoms had vanished.

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Alison Cook: Wow. So it was really a transformational encounter with God. Where do you go from there? Did you understand that it was God in this experience? How did you process that at such a young age?

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Ryan: So it's interesting. I didn't tell anybody about it because I felt like it was a bit…there wasn't shame or anything around it, but it felt odd. We're not a religious family. I didn’t have religious friends. There's no mentor figure. What do I do with this?

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Again, I was alone in it, but it was aloneness in the new freedom of this, versus the old kind of prison. I knew I wanted to start going to church. I knew I wanted to start reading the Bible. It instigated a fledgling faith and I became a Christian. I became a follower of Jesus through this event, on the heels of this mystical experience. 

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There was a short period of real freedom. This is April of 2000, when I was 17. So by the time I went off to college in August, a few months later, things had shifted. I still didn't know that the OCD had been healed. I thought that the fear had been healed. So I still didn't have a category or know that OCD was a thing. 

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I knew something happened that changed me deeply spiritually and psychologically, and I didn't yet have the language and the education around neurobiology and neuroscience and how the brain and nervous system were interplaying with some of these symptoms.

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But all that to say, the OCD then returned with a vengeance. A different type of OCD, religious OCD, also known as scrupulosity. I became terrified of, for example, certain passages in the Bible that say to be perfect like your heavenly father is perfect.

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It wasn't so much a terror of that passage. It was more of, oh, so this journey of becoming a Christian is about now being perfect. I became obsessed with sin. What is sin? What isn't sin? What is okay to do? What's not okay to do? And I'm going off to college, and is it okay to drink when you're under age? What's okay sexually? 

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All of this obsession with doing things right and doing things perfectly took root as religious OCD.

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Alison Cook: Oh gosh, Ryan, when we put ourselves back, I think about those young versions of ourselves. At this age that you're at, we're processing really heavy stuff and we have no clue what we're processing. You're saying so much here. 

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First of all, I want to point out, and I had wanted to ask you about this, that all the isolation you experienced both with the OCD and then with the religious experience is in and of itself traumatic. Would you agree?

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Ryan: Certainly.

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Alison Cook: There's already some trauma to the system there, of all the ways you're having to hide these things. Then you have this beautiful experience. It's real. It changes your life. It removes symptoms, but then the symptoms come back and they come back in the form of religiosity.

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I want to pause there because I think of so many people who have had a very transcendent experience with God. I had one in my early twenties, and it's so transformational and it's real and it's life changing.

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Also, you still have to go into the healing work. It's not “one and done”. Yeah. That had to be so confusing, when it came back, as you said, with a vengeance.

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Ryan: Absolutely. It was very confusing. There was a dichotomy between this divine love that I met in that mystical experience, but then I'm reading the Bible literally. I'm reading it literally because I have no idea that there's a historical cultural context. 

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Alison Cook: Like when Jesus has to pluck out your eyeball, it's not literal. You're not supposed to do that. 

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Ryan: Exactly. There is this sort of dichotomy around, what's real? Is that experience I had even trustworthy? Because this is what I'm reading. I'm also encountering authors and preachers who are saying things that are fear inducing. So the whole thing really consolidated around fear and shame versus the experience of God when I was 17 in my bed that night. There is this almost irreconcilable, what is real and what isn't?

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Alison Cook: You had this real experience, and then when you start reading the Bible, you go to church, you're hearing people describe a more fear-based approach, and that kind of worked together with this predisposition to OCD.

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Ryan: That's exactly right. Exactly.

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Alison Cook: The fear-based religiosity works together with this part of you, mentally, that goes right back into the obsessions, and then I'm assuming compulsions. I'm curious, because I know some folks who struggle with religious scrupulosity, religious OCD, the compulsions become more like constant confession. They take on a religious tone.

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Ryan: Yep. That was one of mine. Confession.

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Alison Cook: What did that look like for you? You're trying to balance this dichotomy of wanting to have this loving God in your life, but now it has become this whole other beast.

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Ryan: Yes. The beast overshadowed that experience almost completely for a number of years. It wasn’t until I was 18 or 19, after one or two years, until finally I open up a bit to my mother. And she's sensing, he's not doing well. By this time, depression has started to constellate OCD, which is so common.

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In my clinical work, I've never met somebody with OCD who doesn't also struggle with depression. There's such a high comorbidity between those two, which makes sense for many different reasons.

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Alison Cook: You can feel helpless. You feel trapped. Yeah. 

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Ryan: Yeah, the shame and the guilt, feeling like I'm not good enough, feeling like I'm this bad person, thinking like all my desires were wrong or broken. So there was a very deep seated sense of toxic shame and brokenness.

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I went to see a psychotherapist, or it may have been a psychologist, and got diagnosed with OCD. I remember there being a little bit of weight lifted, a little bit of relief. I had these symptoms and my obsession with sin, and I remember thinking it was an absolute sin to miss church on a Sunday morning. There's no excuse, unless you're definitely sick or have something that is a manifestation of this disorder called OCD that other people have.

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I started to read books about it. I remember reading a classic, Brain Lock by Jeffrey Schwartz, and some other books specifically on scrupulosity and religious OCD. I finally got language for my experience and found that there's treatment available. I did start an SSRI medication around that same time, and that helped some. 

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I remember sensing a little bit of freedom, that everything wasn't so serious. If you didn't go to church, oh, that's okay. You miss a Sunday, that's okay. I was starting to understand that the Bible with these difficult texts weren't necessarily meant to be read so literally. There is this sort of movement, a little bit of freedom there, in terms of theology and spiritual understanding and reading the text. The SSRI medication also helped some of the symptoms.

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Alison Cook: So you started to have some relief. At what point did you decide that you wanted to go down this journey of becoming a therapist yourself? 

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Ryan: After these experiences, I'm thrust even further into interest in mental health. It was a need. It was like survival. I was reading everything I could get my hands on, with regard to not only OCD, but also I was experiencing lots of generalizing anxiety. I had been diagnosed with PTSD when I was 23, and I had encountered some pretty good EMDR therapy with a therapist in Denver.

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I remember thinking around that time, I could see myself doing this. I could see myself in her chair. There's something about this one-to-one engaging with depth, and she may have been the first good therapist that I saw. Somebody who was very empathic, who I felt seen by, and also had a good map for the psyche and the brain and using EMDR.

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We could also talk about theology and spirituality. There was more expansion and imagination in that realm and in the work with her. I was also going to spiritual direction around the same time. This is maybe 2008 in Denver. I also remember thinking about sitting in spiritual direction. I could see myself in the other chair. I could see myself doing this, but I didn't pursue it. 

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My first career was in international relief mission and development, and I still have this really strong drive and passion to live among and serve the economically marginalized, especially on the African continent that continued to feel like a calling for a long time. I think it was a calling. It eventually pivoted and it was time to step away from that. 

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It was a number of years of noticing subtle and not so subtle draws to do therapeutic work, which eventually led me back to seminary. I completed a theology degree because that interest was very strong, and then a spiritual direction certificate program. I then went back again to pursue clinical mental health counseling. So it was a winding, circuitous journey.

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Alison Cook: Wow. As you're pursuing your own healing, you begin to notice the cues that you might actually take this and become someone who helps others.

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Ryan: Exactly. Yes.

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Alison Cook: So Ryan, put on your professional hat here for those listening. When you think about OCD now, how do you understand it and what feels important for you that other people understand about it?

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Ryan: What first comes to mind is how many misconceptions there are out there. I hear and see all the time, whether it's on social media or somebody in passing, saying things like, I'm so OCD about how I have to organize my clothes. Or yeah, I'm a little bit OCD about X, Y, and Z.

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There's no malice there, but it's so insensitive, and in a way, ignorant to the reality of suffering that occurs with people who do have OCD. I think OCD is still quite stigmatized. There are lots of stereotypes about it. There's lots of misrepresentation in popular culture, lots of caricatures of OCD.

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It's looked at as somebody who's quirky, and it trivializes the pain of people who are actually facing OCD. Like we mentioned earlier, the hallmark of it are these recurring intrusive obsessions, which are associated with anxiety and distress. The compulsions act to reduce the anxiety generated, and it often interferes with people's daily functioning, their social and occupational functioning, and their relationships.

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Often people spend hours every day as a result of OCD focused on obsessions and compulsions. There are many different types, from religious OCD to contamination OCD to harm OCD, where someone's really afraid they're going to commit harm to somebody. There can be sexually intrusive thoughts, P-OCD, which is pedophilia OCD, the fear of becoming a pedophile or acting in such a way, and relationship OCD, which is the need to have certainty around if you're in the right relationship or not.

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A lot of OCD hinges around this need for complete certainty. Contamination OCD involves the need for complete certainty that there are no germs on my hands or whatever it may be. The obsessions are generally unwanted, they're intrusive, and the psychology term is ego dystonic–they don't align with a person's values or desires.

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So for the person who has POCD, pedophilia OCD, that pedophilia for them is the most disgusting, grotesque, awful thing, basically, that they can imagine. Of course, that's the thing that has a charge and is sticky. That's the thing, because it is so ego dystonic. It sticks because it causes distress.

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Things that don't carry a charge, these intrusive obsessions don't manifest around that. I've had a number of clients who have these intrusive violent thoughts about hurting their pet, their dog, and they love their pet.

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Alison Cook: They would never hurt their pet.

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Ryan: They're the type of person who would never hurt the dog, so that the hallmark of it is, it's unwanted, it's intrusive, it's ego dystonic.

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Alison Cook: Even in your case with the religious obsessions, all you wanted was to be with this God who had showed up for you in such a loving way. The charge was, if I commit this sin, I'll go to hell. I'll go to hell. That had a charge for you. In fact, all you were trying to do was follow God.

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Ryan: Exactly. Yeah, so the obsession with the anxiety and the distress of the performance of the compulsion, whether that's a ritual kind of outward behavior or an inner mental compulsion then brings temporary relief. The compulsion brings this temporary relief.

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It lowers the anxiety, which is the whole function of the compulsion, but it's this loop that repeats again and again. It tends to strengthen over time, and it can really consume someone's life. It can really take over. Often people feel shame about it. They hide it.

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What's interesting is that there's some research that's been done–I believe the number is like 90 percent of people in the general population have occasional intrusive thoughts. The thing about somebody with OCD is it sticks. There's repetition. There's an issue with stopping, and some of that is neurobiological.

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It’s related to the OCD circuitry in the brain, but underlying this is something interesting that I've noticed. I'm not sure what research has been done in this realm, but there seem to be traits of high sensitivity in people with OCD, and I see that as the bedrock or the foundation on which OCD eventually develops.

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One of the predispositions is this high sensitivity. Yeah. It could be moral sensitivity, a really strong sense of right and wrong, good and bad, values, that sort of thing, or heightened existential sensitivity, like an awareness of existential givens of life and death. 

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So there's this kind of temperament that underlies OCD. One way to think of it is like the soil on which the tree of OCD grows.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Not everybody who is highly sensitive will develop OCD, but it does make sense that if you have OCD, underneath that is this high sensitivity. It's beautiful. The clients who I've worked with who've had it, there's an incredible sensitivity to things that can be so beautiful. And yet it can also create a lot of suffering.

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So with all that said, Ryan, how do you begin to break that cycle? I know you've talked about medication. I'd also love to hear about specific interventions. We talk a lot on the podcast about IFS, this idea of parts. Even as I'm listening to you, I wonder if there is a way in which it's helpful?

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I would love for you to correct me if I'm wrong. A part of you is having the fear and the anxiety, and then the other part is coming in with the behaviors to try to resolve that. Is it helpful to work with the different parts? What have you found to be helpful for folks?

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Ryan: Yeah. Really great question. The so-called gold standard in treatment is something called exposure response prevention, where in a controlled setting, in the office with the therapist as well as at home, the client is exposed to what activates the obsession/anxiety. Then they prevent the response. The response prevention is not allowing the compulsion. 

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The idea is, when you sit with the anxiety, when you allow the anxiety to be there without reducing it through the compulsion, it'll eventually lower. So ERP is the so-called gold standard. Now, it wasn't super helpful for me. The data shows that it's effective about 50 percent of the time, but there's high dropout rates and it's difficult. 

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It is evidence based and it does work with about half of people. The research says ERP plus SSRI medication is about 70 percent effective. But, it's interesting. The field seems to be shifting some for a while. I honestly experienced it from many clinicians, or hearing stories from clients with OCD who had seen these OCD experts who only did ERP, like it was ERP or nothing. 

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Like this is the only thing and this is what we have to stick with. This is the only thing that there's an evidence base for. There's no connection between OCD and trauma. Almost this therapeutic dogmatism or fundamentalism and now that's starting to shift. There's research that's starting to come out about the links between trauma and OCD. 

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There's nothing that says trauma causes OCD, but there certainly can be associations, especially with certain subtypes of OCD. But let's take the parts perspective. Yes, I think the parts perspective can be extremely helpful and we can weave in the parts perspective with things like ERP, with things like mindfulness based cognitive therapy, sometimes even EMDR.

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There's some research that shows EMDR can be helpful. So from a parts perspective, for me, it's really quite simple. I think that it's about an extreme protective part. I see OCD as an extreme protective part that's overactive, that's really trying to help prevent whatever bad thing from happening.

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I had a client who was terrified, basically, that if her hands weren't perfectly clean, she was going to cause a deadly illness to one of her family members. Obviously the role of the part is to protect the family, to make sure somebody doesn't get sick. So the way I understand it from a parts perspective is that it's this overactive, extreme protective part working really hard to try to help.

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This part desires 100 percent certainty, which isn't really possible in our human experience. 100 percent certainty isn't possible, but we can learn to relate to this extreme protective part as one who is trying to help. So less resistance to it, less trying to overcome it, more compassionate engagement with the part. 

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My main role is as a trauma therapist, and I have a few clients I see who have OCD. I don't see myself as an OCD specialist, but obviously I work with it and it's deeply personal, as it's part of my story. I don't do much cognitive work, generally. I focus more on parts work and nervous system work and polyvagal theory and somatic work.

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But with OCD, I think the cognitive work is really important. It's really important to weave that in, given that people are experiencing OCD generally up around their head as intrusive thoughts,

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Alison Cook: Yeah. You can hear the beliefs. The all-or-nothing thinking, some of the thinking traps that you do have to attack, so that when you're present to that part, even understanding its good intention, you also have the self-led ability to gently let that part know that reframe of we might have a germ on us, but that doesn't mean someone else is going to get sick, or whatever it is. I could see how that is really vital combined with a lot of these other things.

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Ryan, I could talk to you about this all day. You're such a wealth of wisdom and you see all this with such nuance. In your work now, in your own life, where does the role of spirituality come in? Because you talk about that powerful mystical experience that did give you relief.

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How do spiritual practices help you to this day? How does your spirituality work together with what you understand about the brain now, and some of these different neurobiological aspects? How does that factor in?

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Ryan: I think there's some really beautiful intersection there. I think the intersections between spirituality, neuroscience, and psychology are some of the most fun and the most powerful places to explore. New vistas open up. As I think about my own experience, spiritual experiences and conversations with that really wise priest have helped me immensely. 

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So things that weren't necessarily therapy brought about those sorts of experiences. Certainly given what we know about the brain, they brought about neurobiological changes. I also think about weaving in a little bit of little tiny touching into the nervous system. Those experiences catalyze safety and connection. 

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Those experiences allowed a tether back into the ventral vagal state of safety and connection. That state of home, at least what Chuck DeGroat would call home, where there's safety and connection. It's a sense of, I'm okay and the world's okay. It's not one of the self-protective states. 

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With OCD, there's a sympathetic dominance. There's a hyper-vigilance. Any time there's fear or anxiety, we're talking sympathetic. A lot of the spiritual experiences I've had, or even currently when I'm able to rest in a sense of connection to God, that’s movement back into a state of regulation, back into a state of connection. We've largely historically thought of certain practices that are more therapeutic and there are certain practices that are more spiritual. The reality is, there's so much interplay, and spirituality is going to impact our neurobiology and vice versa. 

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Alison Cook: I could imagine, from your earlier experiences, the simplicity of the deep breaths, where you're regulating that nervous system, but there's a contemplative approach to that might be more beneficial than perhaps something like scripture memorization.

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I'm throwing that out there and it could be different for other people, but there are certain spiritual practices that might be more conducive to you finding that safety with God, that don't trigger the OCD.

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Ryan: Absolutely. Yes. Having grown up Catholic, and I remained Catholic for quite a while, not anymore, but one of my practices used to be praying the rosary. Absolutely. I've experimented with returning to that, and it doesn't work.

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It doesn't bring about that sense of safety, something about the recitation and the repetition. It just doesn't, but practicing the Examen, for example, doing the Ignatian spirituality contemplative practices really resonate with me. They often do facilitate a subtle shift away from sympathetic dominance more into a subtle place. 

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I think that authentic spirituality is embodied. I think authentic spirituality can, and in a way, maybe even should, lead us into a deeper connection to our body and our emotions, rather than bypassing. I found that's been really important in my process.

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Alison Cook: I love that. As you've traveled this journey, I love how you describe yourself as a wounded healer. You've been through a lot. You are helping a lot of people. You've helped a lot of people by sharing your story today. What words of encouragement would you have for someone listening who has struggled with OCD?

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Ryan: Yeah, I think so many things. Often folks struggling with OCD have tried several things and nothing's worked. For those folks, I would say there's hope. There's another approach out there. There are things that maybe could be helpful, a few things that come to mind that are maybe newer modalities that are shown to possibly be helpful.

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Things like ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation. There's some research that says that can be helpful. Maybe you haven't tried an SSRI. That could be a good tool, even if for the short term. Things like neurofeedback, EMDR for OCD, IFS, usually there's something that we haven't tried. 

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I would say there's hope and maybe something else would be a good fit, something that you and your psyche, your soma, your nervous system actually could use and resonate with. I would also say, the words of John O'Donohue come to mind, try to be excessively gentle with yourself.

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There can be so much self-judgment, especially when modalities we've tried haven't worked. There's either implicit or explicit messaging, whether it's from the therapist or being generated internally, that we must be doing something wrong. That's not the case. You're not doing something wrong. 

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As much as you can, try to remember to not fight your symptoms–they're communicating something important. They're not communicating that you're broken. Your mind and body aren't the enemy.

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Alison Cook: I love that. Shame never helps. What would you say to that younger 17, 18, 19 year old? What would you say to him now? What would you want him to know? 

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Ryan: I would say to him, you don't have to hide this. You don't have to hide this. You don't have to be alone and suffer in silence and the pain isn't your fault. Everything you feel, all the symptoms at some level make sense. You're not broken, you're not crazy. What you're experiencing makes sense and you don't have to navigate it on your own.

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Alison Cook: Yeah, I love that. Ryan, what is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Ryan: Some really basic things like returning to the fundamentals of self care and trying to prioritize that and rest and even exercise. It's easy to get out of exercise rhythms, but understanding that is something that is really helpful for my mind and body. I think that's true of so many, but yeah, some of these really basic things. 

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Attuning to the needs of my body and trying to honor my limits and honor my capacity and the capacity of my nervous system. I spent many years, as a lot of us have, pushing too hard and going beyond that

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Alison Cook: I love that. Is there anything else, Ryan, that you want to add, as we wind down?

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Ryan: I want to say thank you for reaching out and setting this up and being able to have this time together to connect and connect with your listeners. Over the years, even before I became a therapist, I thought that maybe there's redemption here. Maybe this gospel idea of the redemption of wounds can be concretized in my life.

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It can be real, and doing things, obviously sitting with clients every day in therapy is one thing, but doing things like this really bring that sense too. I can marinate in that sense of oh, that thing I used to wonder, can that happen? Here it is right now, having this conversation with you. Yeah. Thank you.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. I love that. We had a conversation with David Kessler, who's a grief expert, and he talks about meaning. What I love about what he says, and it's what you're saying, it's, this is hard, we all have our challenges, but this is something I have to work through. And there's an opportunity for meaning.

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It doesn't mean we're saying it's not hard that I had to go through this. What we're saying is, now how can I make meaning out of this part of my journey and out of this part of my story? You've done that today. I can hear all the light bulbs going off. I know it's going to be so helpful to so many people.

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Ryan: I'm hopeful. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

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Alison Cook: Thank you, Ryan. Thanks for being here.

‍

‍How do you move from feeling stuck to finding meaning and healing in your grief?

‍

In today’s episode, I’m honored to speak with David Kessler, one of the world’s foremost experts on grief and the author who expanded Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s original five stages of grief by adding a sixth stage: meaning. We explore how common reactions like avoidance, blame, and bargaining are a normal part of the grieving process, and how finding meaning can be a transformative step toward healing. Whether you’re grieving a loss or supporting someone who is, this conversation will help you better understand the continuum of grief and the power of creating meaning.

‍

Here’s what we cover:‍

* The 5 stages of grief and how different parts of us experience loss

* David’s 6th stage of grief and how it developed out of his own story

* The most important question to ask someone who is grieving

* David’s 7 guidelines for creating meaning after loss

* Why grief is intimately linked to joy

‍

Resources:

• Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook–Tools for Releasing Pain and Remembering with Love by David Kessler
• Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief by David Kessler
• Other books by David Kessler:
  • On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss, co-authored with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
  • Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living co-authored with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
  • The Needs of the Dying: A Guide for Bringing Hope, Comfort, and Love to Life's Final Chapter
• ‍grief.com

‍

If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 98: I Shouldn’t Feel Alone in My Grief—Why Your Grief Matters & the #1 Most Important Support For Those Who Are Grieving

‍

‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
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• Right now get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription - but only for our listeners - at Babbel.com/BESTOFYOU.‍
• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me this week. Today, we are diving into a topic that touches every single one of us at some point in life. It’s grief, whether you've experienced the loss of a loved one, a job, a relationship, maybe the loss of health, either your own health or the health of a loved one.

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There are so many different ways that we experience loss in this life. It's so important to honor the role of grief as an inescapable part of the human experience. We know that Jesus experienced loss. He felt the pain of grief when he wept at the tomb of his friend, Lazarus, even though he knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew the end of that story. 

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Jesus didn't bypass the pain of the moment. He fully entered into the sorrow and heartbreak of that moment as he mourned with those who loved Lazarus. He also grieved over the city of Jerusalem. He lamented its brokenness and resistance to God's love.

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In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus also experienced deep anguish. He cried out to God in the face of his impending suffering. Again, Jesus knew what the end of these stories was going to be. He knew that all things work to good for those who love God.

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Yet he entered into these moments of grief, reminding us that grief is not something to avoid or minimize. Instead, it's a sacred part of being human, one that Jesus embraces with us as we're honest and transparent and open about what we feel.

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The holidays, while they bring joy and anticipation and excitement, can also heighten a sense of grief. I wanted to find a way to honor that paradox. Very often, two things can be true. At the very moment that you feel the joy and hope of the holiday season, you can also get hijacked by a painful memory. 

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Maybe a memory of someone you've lost, of a place you've loved and haven't been able to visit for a long time, or maybe even a dream that feels buried or lost. Those feelings of grief or loss that surface sometimes unexpectedly can be hard to figure out how to navigate.

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That's why I wanted to invite today's guest, David Kessler, to talk with us through some practical ways he's found to help you navigate the very normal human experience of grief. David Kessler is one of the world's foremost experts on grief. He's met with the likes of Mother Teresa and worked with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and he's actually identified a sixth phase to expand upon Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief. He identifies meaning as that sixth stage. 

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He has a brand new workbook out, called Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook–Tools for Releasing Pain and Remembering with Love. I went through the workbook myself and it's such a great resource. I wanted to share it with you on the podcast today.

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Before we dive into the conversation, I want to take a moment to first touch on the foundational framework of grief created by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, whose work deeply influenced David. These five stages aren't linear, as we'll talk about in today's episode, but they allow for different experiences and emotions that are closely related to the grieving process.

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You may notice yourself feeling any one of these things. It could be so helpful to identify, oh, that's what's going on here. So here's a quick overview of those five stages of grief. Again, they're not linear. They don't go in any particular order, but they are very often linked to a process you may be experiencing as you think about a loss that you're grieving in your life. 

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The first one is denial. This is that initial shock or disbelief after a loss, where you might struggle to accept the reality of what has happened. It's really natural and normal to go through a stage of shock or disbelief. I don't know what to do with this, so I'm going to deny it or avoid it. You might notice this in your body more as avoidance or a refusal to process the events. 

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It's like a part of you knows, okay, I think something really painful or really hard happened here, but other parts of you are saying, no, we're not going there. We're not going to process this. This is really normal. It can be really helpful to name. Okay. Whatever this thing is that I'm going through that's really hard, I can't process it right now. This is a stage of grief that's normal and it's called denial.

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Number two, you might notice yourself feeling unusually angry; the stage of anger hits as the reality of a loss sets in. As you begin to process it internally, you might notice a part of you feeling angry. I can't believe this happened. Whose fault is this? I want to blame somebody.

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I want to believe that someone else could have prevented this. This anger might be directed at someone else, where you are so angry that someone else let this happen. You're looking for someone to blame, but it can also be directed at yourself. You might be so angry with yourself, either that you feel the way you feel or you might blame yourself for what happened. 

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Thirdly, you might be angry at God and you can't believe God let this painful thing happen. Again, anger is such a normal and necessary part of the grieving process. It's those frozen parts of you starting to wake up.

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Initially, maybe you felt that denial. You've been avoiding the painful feelings that are associated with grief. Anger is sometimes one of the ways those parts of us start to wake up and break through to the surface. They start looking for someone to blame–either yourself, God, or someone else. If you can notice that and give yourself space to feel that anger, it can really help you move through those emotions and get to the other side. 

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Number three, you might notice yourself bargaining. This is where your parts of you are trying to regain control. Those painful emotions are starting to show up, and another part of you is starting to bargain with God. 

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God if I do this, would you do this? Or, if only I had done this, maybe you would have done this. You're trying to find a logic to your grief when you're bargaining, when so often there isn't a logic to the pain that you feel. Again, these are other parts of you that are beginning to wake up. 

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They're beginning to try to make sense of what happened. They think if you can bargain with God or with other people, or even with yourself, if I can be a better person, maybe I can avoid something like this in the future. Again, this is a necessary part of the process. You need to let yourself move through this bargaining, even as you're aware that this is one part of the overall grieving process.

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The fourth stage is depression. This is where you begin to feel the sadness and the sorrow and the emotional pain of what you've experienced. Again, this is a necessary part of the grieving process. It can feel overwhelming. The anger and the denial and the bargaining are there in many ways, trying to protect you from feeling this deep sadness, this deep sorrow inside your soul. 

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And yet you won't be able to move through the grieving process if you don't also honor the sadness. We talked a little bit in today's episode about how you can honor the sadness with the help of structure and with the help of gentle boundaries so that sadness can be felt without completely taking you over.

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Then number five, you move into acceptance. Acceptance doesn't mean that you're okay with what happened. Instead, it means that all of these parts of you, the parts of you that are angry, the parts of you that want to take control through bargaining, the parts of you that are avoiding through denial, and the parts of you that are so sad, reach a sort of truce.

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They reach a sort of harmony around the table of your soul. You realize that all of those parts of you are valuable and that you're also finding your way through the pain, finding a way to move forward. That is where this beautiful sixth stage that David has identified, the stage of meaning, can really come into focus.

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David describes this work of finding meaning so beautifully. It doesn't replace those other stages; it begins to point to a new way forward that both honors your loss and also honors a new reality. 

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This holiday season, I pray you'll find a way to honor each of these parts of you in partnership with God's spirit. With all that said, I'm so thrilled to bring you my conversation with David Kessler. 

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David Kessler is one of the world's foremost experts on grief and loss. He has authored multiple influential books on grief, including On Grief and Grieving and Life Lessons, both of which he co-authored with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. He also wrote The Needs of the Dying, a book praised by Mother Teresa.

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His book, Finding Meaning, is an incredible exploration of what David identifies as the sixth stage of grief. He recently released his highly anticipated workbook, which provides tools for releasing pain and remembering with love. This workbook is a big hit and a beautiful resource.

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David has such an incredible story. He has really lived what he teaches. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with David Kessler.

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***

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Alison Cook: This is such a timely topic with so much going on in our world, David. Thank you so much for being here to talk with us about grief and about finding meaning. 

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David: Absolutely. I'm so excited to be with you, so thank you for having me.

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Alison Cook: Your work on grief is so groundbreaking and I really want to get into the sixth phase that you've identified. I'm curious if you'd be willing to share with my listeners, what drew you to this work? How does it grow out of your own personal experiences?

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David: I will tell you, I had a challenging childhood with lots of dysfunction. I hold my parents very dear in my heart. They were wounded. They didn't know a way and didn't have the resources we do today to heal. I learned early on that loss takes many forms.

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You can feel the loss of safety. You can feel even the loss of your childhood. Then when I was 13, my mother was very sick and went into a hospital hours away. When she was dying, we were at the hotel across the street, and a fire broke out. People started yelling, fire! They evacuated. 

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We all ran out and on the 18th floor, there were flames coming out of the hotel. The fire trucks pulled up. I was finding it a little exciting at this point because I had been this bored teenager, and then all of a sudden shooting began.

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Alison Cook: Oh my.

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David: This wasn't just a fire, but also there was an active shooter. It went on for hours. It was one of the first mass shootings in the US. So my father got us out, we went across back to the hotel, back to the hospital, and in a couple of days, my mother died. 

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I wasn't allowed to be with her. She was in the ICU. I knew at such a young age, that there was a better way. The only advice I got was from a stranger in the staircase who said, “be strong”, which can feel like, “don't have feelings and take care of everyone else”. 

‍

The grief was never really mentioned again. I grew up down south, so I dealt with hurricanes and loss and the trauma of these events. I thought I was broken for life. It wasn't until I got to Community College that I realized, oh my gosh. There's a language for this.

‍

I took a class and studied this woman, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who had written about these stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Little did I know, I would go on to work with her and learn from her and write two books with her. I always hear her whispering in my ear, “tell them the stages aren't linear”.

‍

There's no one right way to do grief. There's no one right way to do this. Grief is an organic process. I always say, we come from a long line of dead people. All our ancestors have died. We know how to do this. It's our society that tells us often we're doing it wrong. So that's what initially got me into my work.

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Alison Cook: I love that. Thank you so much for giving us that backdrop. How did you begin to develop this idea for the sixth stage? I love your caveat. I’ve never met Elisabeth, but I find myself also wanting to give that caveat every time I talk about the five stages.

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David: Good, good.

‍

Alison Cook: I love that you said that. Somehow you begin to recognize this need for a sixth, also not linear, but another really important piece of the grieving process. Tell us a little bit about how that began to emerge.

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David: I have had this amazing, tremendous career of being of service to others and helping, and it has been my privilege. I got to be with Mother Teresa and spend time with her in her home in Calcutta for the dying and destitute. I've worked in a hospital system and was privileged to not only work in and oversee the end of life care and hospice, but also the clergy there and to work with them and see how our faith comes into this and how we can live our lives fully.

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Even with the tragedies we had, I was to be of service and help others, and I did that for decades. I thought my personal grief was behind me. It wasn't until out of the blue, my younger son, at 21 years old, died unexpectedly…first of all, I was on the floor. I did not think I would get up.

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I had to take my own medicine and go to a grief counselor and go to a grief group and sit in a group with a baseball cap and a group of bereaved parents. My books were on a table five feet away and I couldn't tell anyone that was me. I couldn't be the grief expert. I had to be the father that buried a child. 

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I also saw myself going through the process. Denial. Yep. Oh, I can't believe my son is gone. I was so angry at life, angry at my son, angry at God. Wait, I've tried to be of service and help people. Why me? Why would you do that? I had to really go there. Of course, with time, I eventually realized, number one, I knew my God was big enough to handle my anger. 

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I knew that I had seen people go through all these different places in their grief and that there was life on the other end for them. I wasn't sure how I would find it. I saw myself going through depression and bargaining, the guilt, and then I began to wrestle with the fact that I'm going to have to accept this someday. 

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That idea of accepting it was not enough. I thought, there has to be more. I remember that I had read Viktor Frankl's work on meaning, and I didn't quite understand how meaning and grief played together, because so many times people would trip over, there's no meaning in a horrible death, there's no meaning in all these tragedies we have in our lives, in breakup, divorce, betrayal, tragedy, murder, all these horrible things that happen to us.

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What I realized is that meaning isn't in the horrible event–meaning is in us. It's what we do later, what we do after. It didn't take away my pain, but it gave me a cushion. I was so honored that the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross family gave me permission to add a sixth stage to her iconic stages. Because I think we're a generation that wants more–we’re wanting meaning.

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Alison Cook: That is powerful. The meaning is not in the horrible set of circumstances. It's in what you do on the other side of that horrible event. That's so powerful. It strikes me, especially for people of faith. There's a ditch on both sides of the road of meaning. If you too quickly go to, “God has a reason for it”. That's not honoring the grief.

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But the other side of it is, there's no meaning whatsoever. That can feel very empty and not enough. I love how you've articulated that for us. That's beautiful.

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David: I think we have to hold the divine and we have to hold the human experience.

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Alison Cook: Yes.

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David: An amazing person called me two months in, maybe, and said, how are you doing today? I said, I am so angry! She heard and she said to me, I hear the anger. I hear the anger. She said, would you like to talk about the spiritual aspects of this or the human aspect? I said,
“Both, and start with the human”. 

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So she listened to me in my anger. She said to me, I'm surprised you're not breaking furniture. I thought, oh my gosh, she sees me. She sees that I could take my couch, my sofa, and snap it in half. She saw my anger and she heard me. I always say, anger is pain's bodyguard. She helped me release that anger in a safe way, in a safe place. 

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After she listened so lovingly and patiently, she said, are you ready to talk about the spiritual? I said, Yes. She goes, your son, David, can't die. That was his body, but he can't die. He's eternal. Sometimes, we can almost try to bypass the human experience and go right to the spiritual and go, oh, he's always with you. He's in a better place. 

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And we're feeling like I know that, but I want him here with me.

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Alison Cook: Yes, that's so powerful. I love that she asked you that question. That's such a powerful thing for listeners to hear. Do you want to be human right now? Do you want to be human? Or do you want the spiritual? It might be a different answer on different days. 

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David: Absolutely. If I meet with my minister, I might be looking for the spiritual. That might be the context I'm looking for. Other times, we're in our human experience.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. That's so powerful. What would you say, David, for people who feel stuck in an earlier stage? Maybe they can't come out of the anger, the denial, to even get to contemplating meaning. What would you say to those folks?

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David: Two things. First of all, there is a reason for that. Maybe you're not supported in your life. Maybe it's not safe enough. There are people around us who say, get over it, move on. Grief takes many forms. It can be the loss of a job. It can be a relationship loss. It can be a pet loss. 

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There are so many different losses in our life, but people can easily say, get over it. It's often not like a cold or a flu that we recover from. We have to walk through it, and you might not be supported enough.

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I have online groups. We have 26 different groups because grief is a unique time. Maybe your best friend, maybe your spouse, maybe your sister, your brother, that person who gets you, who is always there for you, doesn't understand this one.

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Grief is a time when family and friends can feel like strangers, and strangers can become family and friends. So if our family doesn't get it, we need to go outside. We need to go to a local group or an online group. We need that. We can get stuck if we don't have that support, that community. 

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The other thing is, it's so important to understand what stuck means. For example, this side of the continuum is stuck. On the other end over here is chaos–it’s too much change. We were thrown into too much change with this loss, and we bounce all the way into stuck because stuck can feel safe.

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Alison Cook: What you're saying reminds me that stuck might be where you need to be for that moment. In the IFS model that we talk about sometimes on the podcast, that part of you is there for a reason, protecting you.

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David: That part might be saying, no more change. We're saying, walk forward into your new life. And that part might be saying, no more change. I've had it. We live in a grief illiterate world. 

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It's interesting. I have a grief certificate program where we train therapists and clergy, and so many coaches and even amazing clergy who are in our programs will say, I got trained on how to visit the sick. I got trained on how to do the funeral. No one taught me how to do the long walk with someone through their grief.

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Alison Cook: That is so true. We live in a grief illiterate world. To your point, grief is not the problem. The problem is living in a culture that doesn't create spaces for it. So tell me a little bit more about this workbook that you have out now, David. It really focuses on the meaning part.

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What are some of the practical ways you walk someone through this journey of grief, which includes this piece of creating meaning? Again, not necessarily finding meaning in something tragic, but finding meaning in that journey. How do you begin to walk people through that?

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David: I almost feel like if I could go back and change the title, I might, because in a lot of ways, the workbook is really about excavating the pain. When you excavate the pain, the meaning gets revealed, but we have to go through the pain. 

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By the way, you can start with the workbook–you don't have to go back to any of the other books. It starts with telling our stories and realizing there's a way we tell our stories. But then I have the feelings wheel, and here's the thing: we can't heal what we don't feel. And we often think we have three feelings. I'm happy, mad, or sad. That's it. 

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So people get to choose from all these feelings to see and to understand, number one, we have judgment on our feelings. I do a lot of work there in uncovering the judgment. When I say to people, you have judgment on your feelings or grief, they're like, no, I don't. 

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But they'll go, I'm not crying enough. I'm crying too much. Those are actually judgments. They'll go, I should be further along. Oooh, that's a judgment. We're the first generation that has the luxury of feelings on feelings. We'll go, I'm angry, but anger is inappropriate. I'm sad, but there are worse things in the world. We have all these feelings that we sort of half-feel and throw behind us. 

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People say to me, if I start crying, I'll never stop. I'll say, oh dear one, I've sat with thousands of people. Everyone stops crying. We might cry again, but everyone stops crying. These feelings want to be felt. Feelings are not facts. They're information. They want to be felt. And then we go to the next feeling.

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One of the tricks our mind plays with us that's so cruel, is our mind will make us feel like this feeling is final. You're devastated, and that's the rest of your life. You're broken hearted forever. You're lonely, always. Those may not be true.

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Alison Cook: Do you think, David, that community or groups are essential for that kind of grief work, that feeling the feelings part? Or can somebody do that in the privacy of their own journal, in the privacy of their own prayer life? I'm curious about that, because I also think sometimes people are nervous about exposing raw feelings to other people.

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David: That's one of my purposes in doing this. Because like I said, I wanted it to feel like we're at your kitchen table. I have an amazing co-author on this book. It's the person who sits down with it. They get to put their thoughts, their feelings, their heartbreak down on paper. They get to experience it, and they get to witness their own grief and see their pain. It helps us feel less alone.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I love that. This could actually be one of your companions, this place that you've created where there's some structure to it. Somebody who knows what they're doing laid this out for me, and can help those parts of you that are nervously thinking, if I go there, I never will come back. No, I can do two pages today.

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David: My goodness, there are some big open ended questions in the workbook, but there are also checklists. You could sit down in two minutes and go, oh, I didn't realize that. There's a place you could mark, do I have shame in my grief? There are some really easy exercises for someone who's afraid to open that book.

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Alison, here's one of the challenges. Someone said to me, I bought the workbook, but I'm not ready to open it. I said, okay, I'm curious. Can you tell me more about that? She said, yes, I don't want to open the pain. I said to her, oh, if only you could skip the pain by not opening the book. 

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If only you could put that workbook in the closet, on a shelf with your pain. But the pain is not in the workbook. It's in you. The workbook is a way to move the pain from you

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Alison Cook: That's so well stated. We treat it like a little box. Once we begin to do that, open the pain in ourselves through these questions, through excavating the pain, what's the alchemy? How does that process work? How might meaning begin to flow from that, in your experience? 

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Is it something that begins to take shape through looking at the pain? Tell me a little bit about what it begins to open us up to.

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David: There are a few guidelines in there to help us think about this. There are seven of them. One, meaning is relative and personal. Two, meaning takes time. You may not find it for months or years after a loss. Three, meaning doesn't require understanding. It isn't necessary to understand why someone died in order to find the meaning. 

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So many times we get stuck in the why. I need a why to find my healing, to move through this grief. There are so many times in life where there isn't a why. Many times we end up getting a why. Maybe the doctor tells us why they died, what happened to their body. I tell people, even when you get a why, it's not a satisfying why. So we don't need the why to find the meaning. 

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Four, even when you do find your meaning, it won't be worth the cost. We'd always rather have our loved one back. I could become the greatest bestseller of all time, and I'd rather have my son.

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Alison Cook: Yeah.

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David: Five, and this is an important one, your loss is not a test, a lesson, something to handle, a gift, or a blessing. Loss is what happens in life. Meaning is what you make happen after the loss. Six, only you can find your own meaning. Seven, meaningful connections will heal painful memories.

‍

I think people can easily get lost in that fifth one. It's not a lesson. It's not a blessing. So many times, people say to me, David, my family is cursed. I say, oh my gosh, tell me why. Oh, the grandparents have all died, there was a cousin, we've had so many deaths. I say, do you know what the death rate is in your family compared to others?

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Oh, I'm sure we're high. What is the death rate in families? I said, 100%. On planet Earth, it has been designed, as far as I can see, that everyone who lives, dies someday. When we can recognize that that's the mystery and the way this world is set up, and be present in that and not fight with the reality, we can find a different life.

‍

Alison Cook: It's a paradox, isn't it?

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David: It is a paradox.

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Alison Cook: There's life in making peace with the reality of death. What a paradox.

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David: It's a strange thing. I live in a really sweet, cute little neighborhood. I ran into someone that I hadn't seen in a while. We worked together 30 years ago and she lives fairly close. She goes, oh, I've been following your work over the years and your career and all that. She goes, I'd like to be friends, but it would be too depressing. I said to her, that's okay. But you know, I don't have a depressed life. I have a really full life. 

‍

Here's where it's hard to understand. Most of my work now is online. But back in the day, when I would go to a hotel meeting room that had a few hundred people, I'd be teaching. Down the hall would be the realtors. Around the corner would be the nurses, then there'd be the Rotary Club. 

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After the day was over, the staff would say, hey, what were you teaching? I'd go, oh, why do you ask? They'd go, because your group was laughing the most. They'd go, wait a minute, I don't understand, what were you teaching? I'd go, grief. Now they're really confused. 

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Here's what people don't understand. Everyone in that room who had been through loss is confused. Many were helpers learning how to continue to help people. They absolutely had to go deeper into their pain. But what we don't realize is their bandwidth was also expanded for joy.

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They laughed a little harder. We understand now, the most precious thing we have is our time. And when we hear this idea of meaning, we think, oh, is it a charity I'm supposed to start? What am I supposed to do? I tell people, meaning can be in those big events, but meaning is also in the small moments. This is one, we have to name it. This is a meaningful moment.

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Someone might be listening that needs to hear this, or have someone they know that needs to hear this, to name those moments of meaning.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I feel that. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for what you've done here. I have two questions for you, David, that I like to ask all my guests. The first one is, if you could go back and say something to that young boy in the hotel room, what would you want him to know now?

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David: You're going to be okay. You're going to get through this. You're going to be okay.

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Alison Cook: I love that. What's bringing out the best of you right now?

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David: Walking with people through these tough times to help them find the light again. 

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Alison Cook: Where can we find more about your work, the workbook, and all that you're doing to help people journey through grief?

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David: If you go to grief.com, you can find information on the workbook, all my books, as well as my Tender Hearts online grief program, the grief educator certificate program, and lots of free resources.

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Alison Cook: It's really amazing. You're shining your light for so many people in, as you said, a world that doesn't always honor the genuineness of this process. It's something we all have to do on some level. It's normal. It doesn't mean it's easy, but I appreciate all that you're doing to help so many people. I appreciate your time coming on here today.

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David: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Do you feel like you’re constantly caring for others, whether it’s aging parents, your kids, or even your career—and there’s little time left for you?

‍

Women in the sandwich generation, particularly those aged 35-54, report higher stress levels than any other age group. If you’re juggling a heavy load of responsibilities as you care for others, you’re not alone. In this episode, you’ll gain practical tools to help you navigate this season with compassion and healthy boundaries, empowering you with the support and nourishment you need.

‍

Here's what we cover:

* Why caring for others can stir up unresolved emotions and how to address them

* 3 key strategies to help you through stressful seasons

* The antidote for constant guilt

* How to set boundaries that protect your emotional well-being

* Practical ways to invite God into your daily routine

‍

Resources:

• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• PDF Questions for Reflection: 5 Steps to Calm Overwhelming Emotions
• ‍The Best of You by Dr. Alison Cook

‍

If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 6: Do I Really Have an Inner Child? What It Means to Reparent Yourself

‍

‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Give your loved ones a unique, heartfelt gift you’ll all cherish for years—StoryWorth! Right now, save $10 on your first purchase when you go to StoryWorth.com/bestofyou!
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Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

‍

Transcript:

‍

Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so glad you're here this week as we dive into a brand new topic. It's a topic we've never covered before on the podcast, but whenever I survey you or ask you what topics you'd like me to cover, this one today comes up. 

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The first way it comes up is simply taking care of aging parents. But then the second way it comes up is, how do I care for emotionally immature parents who neglected me, who weren't there for me when I was young? And now I have to take care of them. 

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This topic of caring for our own parents as they age also comes up in the context of, “I'm still raising my own kids”. I'm still trying to figure out how to launch my own kids, let alone heal myself, let alone care for my own parents. 

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Now there's a term for this. The term is “sandwich generation". This refers to adults who are simultaneously caring for their aging parents while supporting their own children. This could include young children, teenage children, or even young adult children. The point is, you're in a dual caregiving role.

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You're sandwiched between two different generations who have a lot of needs and these needs are very different. The needs of your aging parents or your in-laws are very different from the needs of your children, whom you're trying to launch. Being a part of this sandwich generation presents a lot of really unique stressors as you can feel stuck between all the needs around you.

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Some of you listening are still raising young kids. Maybe you're managing the morning chaos of packing lunches for your six year old or helping your nine year old finish a last minute school project. There's a lot of hands-on needs. 

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Meanwhile, you're also beginning to coordinate doctor's appointments, maybe for your mom or for your dad. Maybe they're starting to show signs of memory loss, or they have a condition that's developing. They might need your attention or your support, or they might need help with groceries or bills or getting health care insurance figured out.

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Some of you listening might be launching young adult children. Maybe you've got a child who's off at college and while they're no longer under your roof, you're still very well aware that they're dealing with a lot of anxiety or a lot of social or academic stressors, and you're still very involved.

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They still take up a lot of your mental capacity. Your parenting work is certainly not over once your kids go off to college. Maybe you even have kids who are out of college, who are working their first jobs, who are maybe getting engaged, maybe getting married, maybe starting to have children of their own.

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Again, your work as a parent is still not finished. In fact, some of these major life decisions that our young adult children are making require even more of our mental bandwidth and emotional support, as they really need our help guiding them through some high-stakes decisions.

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All the while, on the other side of it, you might have a parent or an in-law who's lost a spouse, and so they're dealing with a lot of new norms in their life. Maybe they're more lonely, there might be moves, there might be new financial issues that emerge as your parents age. 

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Some of you maybe don't have kids and yet you're still carrying the stress of figuring out, how am I going to care for my parents? I finally maybe got the life that I've wanted to have. And now I have to figure out how to take on their needs.

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So no matter what your situation is, as you're listening, this sandwich generation, where you're looking at needs, both of the next generation coming up behind you and the older generation, the one ahead of you, it stirs up a lot of complicated emotions.

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Today, I want to follow the framework that I lay out in my book, I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, this framework for navigating complicated emotions. Number one, we're going to name what's hard. 

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Naming what's really happening, both inside of ourselves, the emotions that we're feeling, in addition to the realities of the new stressors in our lives, can really help validate the reality of what you're experiencing.

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As interpersonal neurobiologist Dr. Dan Siegel says, when you name something, you can tame it. It literally stops the firing of the emotional circuitry in your brain, and it helps you tap into the ordering part of your brain.

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So you've named it. You can see it. This is what's happening now. I know what it is. It allows that prefrontal cortex, that part of your brain that can start making meaning that can start creating order, to come online. You start to bring order out of chaos.

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We're going to do some naming work, and then we're going to do some framing work. In particular, I want to help you create a way to reframe the demands and stressors and complexities of what it means to be in these caretaking roles.

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Lastly, I'm going to give you three strategies so you can brave a path through honoring your own needs, where you can love and honor others without losing yourself. 

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The bottom line is that navigating the sandwich generation where you're caring for your aging parents while supporting your own children is a complex and emotional journey, but it's also an opportunity. It's an opportunity to create healthier patterns for yourself and for your own family. 

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I'm going to walk you through how to turn this really challenging season into an opportunity to go even deeper into this work of figuring out how to honor your own needs while providing meaningful care for others, all without losing yourself. 

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Number one, we're going to start by naming what's hard. So, first of all, let's talk about some of the unique challenges and stressors and emotions that being part of this sandwich generation can stir up inside of us.

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The first one is guilt. Often, when we struggle with too many caretaking responsibilities, we start to beat ourselves up. Guilt can get really loud. You might start to notice messages like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I get it together? Why is this so hard when it doesn't seem like it's hard for anyone else? I'm not organized enough, I'm not giving enough, I'm too selfish, whatever the thing is. 

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Often when we have too many caretaking responsibilities, it can kick up a lot of guilt. I say this a lot, but I'm going to say it again. The presence of guilt does not always mean you've done something wrong. It might mean you're doing something brave, something uncomfortable, something hard.

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Guilt is an emotion. It is not necessarily a direct message from God. When we're overwhelmed and we have too much on our plate and when there are more needs than would be humanly possible for us to meet, guilt often steps in like an old clingy friend. The truth is, guilt is often masking other more vulnerable emotions.

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Guilt is so closely tied to grief. It's so closely tied to fear. It's so closely tied to helplessness. It comes up when what we're actually feeling is overwhelm and helplessness. This is so hard. We don't know how to face those more vulnerable feelings. Sometimes it's easier for a part of us to constantly berate and guilt trip ourselves.

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It can feel easier in some ways to beat ourselves up, as if we could be doing better than we are, than to face the reality of those more vulnerable emotions, which is “this is hard, this is painful, I'm struggling, I'm scared, I’m lonely”. So often, those more vulnerable emotions are hiding underneath the constant guilt, especially when we're overwhelmed.

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Secondly, you may notice more anxiety, a constant feeling of being unsettled, chaotic, not able to really find that calm, clear place inside, that deep breath where you can really exhale at some point during your day.

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Maybe you notice that you have a hard time going to sleep at night or your thoughts are racing. You're finding it hard to wind down and rest or relax or log off for a little bit. There's too much on your mind. Oftentimes, when you have a lot of these caretaking responsibilities, you'll see an uptick in some of that anxiety.

‍

You might notice more stress in your body. Maybe you feel more agitated, like you're more inclined to go into that fight flight response. There's a good reason for that stress. The American Psychological Association notes that especially women who are part of the sandwich generation, particularly those who are aged 35 to 54, report significantly higher stress levels than any other age group.

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This stress might be about managing time. How do I get everything done that I need to get done today? It might be the fatigue of managing complicated medical appointments, phone calls, attending school events for children, driving children, and also sometimes aging parents.

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You might be worried about how to keep your own job while you're taking care of all the people who need you in your life. Oftentimes, there's a financial strain as caregivers face increased expenses related to health care, and their own kids' education. All of this can impact your own financial stability and your own retirement planning.

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So there's a lot of added stress that can start to ratchet up the cortisol, where you're having a harder time finding rest, finding calm, finding those moments of deep exhale. And this can creep up on you. It doesn't happen overnight, but suddenly, and this gets to our last thing that you might notice–numbing.

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You might start noticing that you've resorted to old patterns from the past. Maybe even patterns that you thought you'd kicked, patterns that you thought were well behind you, but suddenly maybe you notice yourself reaching for the extra glass of wine or reaching for the extra bag of cookies or binge watching Netflix more than you have been for a long time, or trying to drown out your own feelings in whatever way that you can.

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You might notice those behaviors and then that leads you right back up to the guilt. You might feel guilty. What's wrong with me? Why can't I get it together?

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But the reality is that the overwhelm that you're facing is real. It's not your fault. Something's happened that is hard. There's a lot on your plate. There are a lot of demands on your time. Of course, you're overwhelmed. Of course, you're trying to find quick ways to soothe yourself late at night.

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Of course, you cannot bear to make one more phone call to a doctor on your to do list. Of course, you're getting short fused with your own kids or with your own parents. This is normal when we're overwhelmed. And beating yourself up and shaming yourself doesn't help. If there's nothing else you take away today from this episode, it's that you are not alone.

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There are millions of other women in particular who are feeling the same way that you feel, and I wish we could all get together and sit around a table for a minute and share what's hard about caring for other people, the fatigue that we feel, the frustration, and even sometimes the grief. 

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It can feel like time is passing us by, and it can feel like we're on a hamster wheel instead of fully able to enjoy these seasons of our lives. If we were gathered together, we would probably cry out so many of our frustrations. And then I know without a doubt what we would do.

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We would get busy figuring out how to help each other find a better way through. Since we can't all get together, I want to spend the next portion of this episode talking you through some practical strategies or ways that you can begin to find some peace out of all these crazy pieces of your life, to find some calm out of all the chaos.

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I want to give you what I call a holy reframe. In I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, I walk you through how to create them. It's a way of examining all the complexity of what's hard and creating a bigger, more robust, understanding of the situation. And what I think is sometimes the most powerful way to reframe a hard situation is this reality that two things can be true. 

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This is incredibly hard. And, there's an invitation here for me, for my own healing and growth.

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I'm frustrated with all the people who need me and I want to do right by them.

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I need more space for myself and I want to show up for the people I love. 

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As you begin to honor the both-and, you create a bigger frame. You create more spaciousness inside your soul. I'm frustrated and I'm committed.

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I'm scared I don't have what it takes, and I have confidence I can get through this.

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I'm mad at myself and I see how hard I'm working

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You slow yourself down and you start to make room for all of what's true about your situation. When we're dealing with so many legitimate needs all around us, it really becomes a crucible. If you think about that word crucible and what it means, I like to think of it in terms of pottery. 

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For those of you who are into pottery, you'll know what I mean. But when you create a carefully shaped item out of clay, maybe you create a beautiful mug, and it looks really cool and you've gotten it exactly how you want, the next thing you do is you take that creation and you put it in what's called a kiln.

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That kiln exposes that object you've created to extreme heat. And that heat transforms the clay into something really strong and durable. When that mug comes out of the kiln and it's survived all that heat and that extreme pressure, it actually becomes more resilient, more durable.

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It's ready for everyday use. You can use it every single day and it becomes something really precious. If you never put that mug in the kiln, it would stay really fragile and it would easily crumble. It wouldn't have a lot of use to yourself or to other people. 

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Similarly, a crucible in our lives represents a challenging situation, like being the caregiver for a lot of different people. When you're in that situation, there's pressure applied. You can feel pressure from everybody around you. But if you're smart about how you walk through that crucible, it can ultimately strengthen you and shape you into an even more vibrant, more resilient, more refined version of yourself.

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When you're in this sandwich generation, you're under a lot of emotional, relational, and logistical pressure, and that can start to feel like it's going to break you. When you really honor that process, and you do some of the things we're going to talk about today, it can help you dig even deeper into personal growth. 

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You can learn how to take even better care of yourself, have even stronger boundaries with other people, and learn to heal parts of you that are going to come up to the surface as a result of the pressure. This process can be used for good. 

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Now, I’m not saying it's easy. I do not want to minimize what you're going through. And, I want to encourage you that as you name what's hard and you frame your reality and you apply some of the steps we're going to talk about today, you can come through this season, this fire, this crucible, even stronger than you were before.

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Here are three primary strategies I want you to think about as you imagine yourself in this crucible, in this high pressure situation that you're in. I'm going to give you three words to orient yourself as you think about how to allow this challenging season to do its work for good inside of you. 

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Number one: re-parenting. Crucibles are an opportunity for your own healing. It may not feel that way, but I'm going to show you how that's true. 

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Number two: boundaries. A crucible is an amazing opportunity to take inventory of your own boundary lines and get crystal clear about them. You do not have the margin during this season to take on anything that is not yours to take on, and so this is your chance. If you've ever wanted to really work on your boundaries, this is the time to do it. 

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And then number three: surrender. What I mean by that term surrender is the spiritual antidote to guilt. Surrender is the spiritual antidote to guilt. You're going to work on reparenting. You're going to work on your boundaries, and then you're going to let it all go and surrender. That's how you ultimately beat the guilt. 

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So number one, what do I mean by reparenting? Well, the work of caregiving for others, whether it's our kids or our own parents, often is a seedbed for reactivating our own wounds. Often when we're caring for our own children, there are really beautiful opportunities to do things differently. We can do for our own kids the things that were never done for us.

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And that can be really life giving as a parent, to reparent the parts of you through providing for your own kids the things that you yearned to have for yourself. But here's the thing. As you also step into caring for your own parents as they age, it is another opportunity for you to reparent parts of you.

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Often, as our parents age, their old patterns get magnified. So if you have a parent who likes to guilt trip you or criticize you or constantly give you advice, those patterns are going to intensify. Or if you have a parent who is in avoidance, who doesn't like to deal directly with their physical ailments, or who doesn't like to deal directly with conflict or who is in denial about their own emotions, that is also going to intensify as they age.

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Those patterns don't tend to go away. They tend to intensify as people age, and so you're going to be right back in that proverbial soup in which you were cooked, where mom is criticizing you or dad is in complete denial about his needs.

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You're going to feel frustrated, you're going to feel annoyed, you're going to notice old parts of you come to the surface that you may not have seen for a long time. You might start noticing that fawn response, where you start trying to please them in order to avoid their criticism, in order to avoid their irritation. 

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Parts of you are going to be like, what is wrong with me? I am an adult. Why am I defaulting to this old childlike behavior with my parent? It's so normal, please hear me say. And it is an opportunity for even deeper healing, if you notice that irritation, that agitation, maybe you're going into fight mode more, maybe you notice yourself going into that people pleasing mode more.

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You want to shut it out, even though other parts of you feel that you actually need to show up for your parent right now, no matter what they did or didn't do in the past. So you've got to deal with a part that wants to check out and not deal with this. This is an opportunity to re-parent that part of you that's showing up.

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How do you do that? 

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The first thing you do is get curious about it. Notice it without shame. What's the impulse that you're noticing? For example, I can't stop pleasing my mom. I can't say no to her, even when I know it's not logical. I wonder what that's about. Or I am so irritable with my dad! I don't want to be, but I am. I want to get curious about that.

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That part of me is like a child trying to scurry around to make mom happy. I wonder what that's about. What is she afraid would happen if I say to my mom, I can't do this today. I'll get back to you tomorrow. What is she afraid would happen if dad was irritated with me? 

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And then notice, where do you feel that impulse, that urge in your body? Are you hunched over? Are you tense? How old does that part of you feel? Is she 16 afraid of getting in trouble? Is she a five year old part of you afraid of losing their love?

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It is so normal for these young parts of you to show back up in these stressful situations. Get curious about those parts of you. 

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Number two, extend those parts of you compassion. You want to let those parts of you know, I get it. Dad's temper was scary back then. Mom's criticism hurts. It is hard to feel like I can't make them happy. Whatever it is that those parts of you feel, honor the validity of those feelings. 

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Simultaneously, let those parts of you know that you're here now and that you know how to manage yourself and your parents in ways those young parts of you never did. Update them about all the things you've accomplished in your adult life, that you know how to speak up for yourself. 

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If someone is criticizing you, you know how to set healthy boundaries and tell someone, no, I can't help you with that right now. I'll get back to you in a couple of days when I can. Let those parts of you know that there's an adult in the room who can handle this and that they don't have to.

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You might ask yourself, what are those parts of me afraid might happen in this moment, if I don't get it right, if I don't make everyone happy, if I can't solve the problems in front of me? If I can't make all of my family members content at all times, what am I afraid might happen? Am I afraid of losing love? Am I afraid of being a failure? What am I afraid might happen? 

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Honor the fears that come up. And then as you're noticing these parts of you that are anxious or scared or stressed out or fearful, what might happen if you invite God to be with those parts of you? What burdens from long ago need to be released into the arms of God? 

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Do they need to release any burdens of wanting to be perfect, of wanting to earn love, of wanting to keep the peace at all costs, of feeling responsible for everybody else's problems? Imagine yourself letting go of those burdens and taking a deep breath.

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As you work with these young parts of yourself, you're learning to reparent yourself in ways. These parts of you need you to show up for them. They need you to make time for them every single day to ensure that you're not placing burdens on them that were never theirs to bear.

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You will take care of these other people in your life. You will. But you will care for them so much more wisely, more strategically, more sustainably, if you first tend to these tender, vulnerable, young parts who still live inside of you.

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This work of reparenting yourself is a practice every single day, and I've got some resources for you, some questions that might be helpful for you. I will post a link in this episode’s show notes, where you can do some work of tending to these young parts of you who show up in the face of overwhelm, especially when you're giving out so much care to others.

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Number two: boundaries. As you do that inner work of identifying misplaced burdens that were never yours to bear, you're also going to want to set some external boundaries to help safeguard some spaciousness for yourself. You will not be able to meet all of these needs around you if you don't take some time to renegotiate your external boundaries.

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Some practical ways to do that, number one, I want you to think about making a weekly self-care appointment. That could be with a therapist. It could be with a pastor. It could be with a spiritual director. It could be with a sibling or a good friend. But I want you to set aside some time regularly to check-in with someone about your own needs.

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When you're caring for a lot of other people, it's incredibly important to make sure that you set apart time for someone else to check in on you. Number two, you might need some sort of daily practice such as journaling, where you give yourself space to write out all the things you feel you don't want to lose touch with yourself.

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Often what I'll say to people is, set a timer. Don't overwhelm yourself. 10 minutes every day, five minutes every day, to write down your stream of consciousness. This is hard. I'm struggling. I'm mad at these people. I hate this. Whatever it is that you're feeling, give yourself permission to feel it. 

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And then number three, make a list of all your commitments, including the caregiving commitments that are in front of you. I want you to rank them and I want you to cut out the commitments that are not essential. Especially those things that are not life-giving.

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Now's the time to cull your schedule. If there are a few things you've got lingering on and you don't really enjoy it, you don't really feel called to it anymore, maybe you've taken on an optional responsibility at work that you could let go of. Maybe you're doing some volunteer work or you're on a committee at church and you feel responsible for it. 

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But honestly, it's hard. It's a drag on your time and you don't have the bandwidth for it right now. Now's the time. Now's the time to take that off your plate and to say the hard no’s. You've got a lot you need to say yes to in your life right now. So you've got to get extra clear about your no’s. I have a ton of resources about how to figure out your yes’ and no's in my book, The Best of You, if you want to go deeper on that. It's a super practical resource on boundary setting. 

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Now's the time to cull if there are relationships that are a drain. Now might be the time to say to that person, I care about you and I have so much on my plate that you may not hear from me for a while. And I want you to know that this is what I've got going on. I may not be available. 

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So this is a time with boundary setting to schedule time for yourself intentionally. To make sure you've got some sort of daily practice where you're giving yourself permission to feel what you feel, such as journaling. 

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Number three, culling your schedule and taking things off that you don't have the bandwidth for. You're increasing the amount of time with people and activities that are life-giving for you and you are decreasing the amount of time with the people and activities that are life-draining for you.

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Lastly, this word surrender. God meets us when we are hurting the most. God meets us in our overwhelm. Now, listen, we have to do our part. We have to work at our boundaries, we have to work at our inner lives, at reparenting ourselves, and noticing what's going on inside of us.

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That's our part of the equation. But the third part is God's. And God meets us when we are overwhelmed. God meets us, especially as folks who are giving so much care to others. And that word surrender, it doesn't mean we're giving up. In fact, I believe surrender is the antidote to false guilt.

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Guilt tells us, I'm letting everybody down. But surrender says, I am limited, but God is big enough for all of us.

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Guilt tells us, I have to be perfect, but surrender says, I'll never be perfect. And God's grace is enough. 

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Guilt tells us, I should be doing more, but surrender says, I'll give it my best and I'll trust God with the rest.

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The antidote to guilt is a radical acceptance of our dependence on a good and kind God. It's choosing to bravely work out what we can, what is in our control, and leaving the rest to God. God, I don't want to disappoint this other person. I don't want to make a mistake. I don't want to let anyone down. 

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But I have to be brave. I have to make decisions. I have to live within the limits of my finances, of my time, of my own humanity. There is a profound shift that happens when we surrender, when we glimpse the end of ourselves and we reach the boundaries of our own capacity. A moment of surrender is quite possibly one of the most profound moments we experience this side of heaven. 

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It's not that our challenges magically resolve themselves. It's that when we become aware of our own frailties, of our own finitude, of our own human limitations, we discover that that's where God loves to enter in. It's where we stumble upon a deeper strength, one that doesn't come from inside of us. It's bigger than that. 

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We're doing everything in our power, and yet these problems are too much for us at times. We've reflected, we've prayed, we've journaled, we've set boundaries. We've done our part. We throw ourselves into the arms of grace and in that moment of surrender, all that mental work, all that anguish, all that stress, all that worry comes grinding to a halt.

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We stop. We breathe. We release our grip. And in that moment, something miraculous happens. Our loving God, who has been there all along, breaks through a little bit. That divide between where we are and where God is disappears for a moment, and our minds calm. Something inside our body shifts. We take a break. 

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We take a walk. We might call a friend. We might let the tears fall, dance to a favorite song, or laugh out loud at the absurdity of this life at times. And then we get back up, and with God's help, we take it one brave step at a time.

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If you are feeling overwhelmed by the needs of everyone around you, you're sandwiched between caring for different generations, including your own soul, right in the middle of it all, I want you to remember these three words: re-parenting, boundaries, and surrender.

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Reparenting turns pressure and stress into an opportunity to nurture and care for the younger parts of you that still carry wounds from the past. When caregiving triggers those old fears or reactions, it's an invitation to pause and get curious. 

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What is this part of me afraid might happen? As you show compassion for those younger parts of you and invite God to be near, you'll begin to care for yourself even as you give out care to others. 

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Boundaries will help you navigate this season with strength and clarity. Setting limits doesn't mean you love others less. It means protecting your capacity so you can give out in a sustainable way. Sustainable boundaries will help you avoid burnout and allow you to care for others in legitimate ways without sacrificing your own wellbeing. 

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Lastly, surrender. No matter how hard we try, we can't fix everything or control the outcomes for other people. Surrender invites us to release what is not ours to control and trust that God is present in the midst of the mess. It's about doing your best and letting go of the rest, knowing that God's grace has no limits.

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In my experience, God loves to surprise us by showing up in those moments when we feel the most defeated, the most overwhelmed, when we throw ourselves into the arms of his love and his kindness. He reminds us that we're never actually alone. And he cares so much more than we do about these other people and about the parts of our own souls in need of his care.

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Do the holidays bring a mix of joy and complicated emotions for you?

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We're "supposed" to feel grateful, and parts of us do. But other parts of us feel nostalgic, driven by guilt, exhausted, or even angry. In this honest, vulnerable conversation, author and spiritual director Anjuli Paschall joins me to explore the emotions that surface during the holiday season. We talk about how to navigate these feelings with grace for ourselves, and how these emotions can be gifts in disguise. We cover. . .

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Here’s what we cover:‍

* How to distinguish between true guilt and false guilt

* The surprising connection between anger and exhaustion

* Why nostalgia can be both comforting and bittersweet

* Practical ways to honor all your feelings during this emotionally complex season

* Anjuli’s practice of praying through complicated emotions and finding God’s presence in them

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Resources:

• Feel: A Collection of Liturgies Offering Hope for Every Complicated Emotion by Anjuli Paschall
• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍Lovealways.anjuli on Instagram
• ‍anjulipaschall.com

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If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 30: Protecting What’s Good Without Denying What’s Hard at the Holidays

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Go to thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!
• Whether you're exploring distant lands or enjoying a staycation at home, Cozy Earth has your back. Visit cozyearth.com and unlock an exclusive 35% off with code BESTOFYOU.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this very special Thanksgiving episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am so thrilled to be with you on this special day and the days that follow Thanksgiving for this well-timed episode.

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I recorded this conversation a while back and realized it was the perfect episode to share with you today. This is a day when we often feel like we should feel all the things, like gratitude, joy, peace, and serenity. But the truth is, other emotions often show up on the holidays. 

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It's so normal to feel a variety of different emotions on a day like Thanksgiving, or the day after Thanksgiving, or days when your kids are not at school, or days when you're spending lots of time with family members that you love, but also bring up complicated feelings inside of you.

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In honor of all the emotions you might be feeling this Thanksgiving, I'm thrilled to invite you into this conversation I had with Anjuli Paschall. She's a spiritual director and she's written a beautiful book called Feel: A Collection of Liturgies Offering Hope for Every Complicated Emotion. 

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What I love about this resource is she goes through 75 different emotions, offering a way to name them and also a way to bring those different emotions into your conversation with God. If you've read my book, I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, I talk about the importance of naming tools. 

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We need ways to name the different things that we feel. Sometimes it's so elusive. We don't even really recognize the uncomfortable feeling or sensation that's tugging at the corner of our soul. We don't even realize we're feeling it until after we've had a meltdown or after we've lashed out at someone or after the day is over, oh my gosh, I was agitated all day long. 

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In this book, she's offering you a way into your different emotions so that you can take charge of your emotions, not the other way around.

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I found this conversation with Anjuli to be so therapeutic for my own soul. We dive into three emotions in particular that tend to surface unbidden at the holidays. We talk about guilt, including true guilt versus false guilt.

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We talk about nostalgia, which is such an interesting emotion. I loved what Anjuli and I stumbled upon as we talked about the role of nostalgia in our lives. we also talk about anger, which often shows up unexpectedly spoiler alert.

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It's closely linked to exhaustion. it's so important to recognize the tug of anger on our soul before it takes us over.

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This is a beautiful conversation. That's real. It's raw. also deeply prayerful. I love the language through which Anjuli honors these emotions, even as she's constantly bringing them into conversation with God.

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I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Anjuli Pascal.

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***

Alison Cook: Anjuli, I am so thrilled that you are here today. I'm so thrilled to have this conversation with you. You've written this beautiful book, all about feelings. I'm so curious to dive into a little bit of your own relationship with feelings. You talk about how we want to avoid, run away from, and control them. You also talk about wanting to indulge certain feelings. 

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Tell me a little bit about your younger self, whether it was your early twenties, before you had kids, or as an early young mom. What has your relationship with your emotions been like in the past?

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Anjuli: Yeah, that is a great question. I grew up in a pretty typical evangelical church and home. My parents were very connected to ministry and so I grew up really with this idea that there are good feelings and bad feelings. The good feelings are happiness, creativity, joy, and then bad feelings like anger and fear, even disgust. 

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I spent a lot of my life focusing on how to get to the good feelings. Because I even grew up thinking that anger and fear and disgust were sinful too. In my childhood, I was so happy. It was this optimism, happiness, and focus on good things. If anything bad comes up inside of me, get rid of it, or something's wrong with me, or it's sin. 

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It took a lot of time to start unpacking, realizing that feelings are not bad or good, they're true. They're not always right, but they're true.

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Alison Cook: Say a little bit more about that. What do you mean by that? I could hear some folks going, what do you mean by true? Let's say I'm feeling really mad at a friend or really resentful of someone. How can that be true?

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Anjuli: That feeling is a true feeling. I recently went through an experience where there was a lot of misunderstanding in a relationship. The feeling of being misunderstood is very uncomfortable. It is a true feeling. But it's not necessarily right. There could be different causes or different reasons, or I don't know the whole story. I can interpret the feeling incorrectly. But the feeling itself is true.

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Alison Cook: I think you're saying something so wise. The feeling is something to be honored. There's something true, and we can misinterpret the feeling. I might feel misunderstood because my friend in fact misunderstood me. I might feel misunderstood and she in fact did understand me and I didn't understand her reply to me.

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Anjuli: I think it has taken a lot of work to untangle the family dynamics that I grew up in, but also untangle some of the messages that I heard from the pulpit or from church, well-intended or not. I came to believe if it's good, present it, speak it, perform it. If it's bad, stuff it, ignore it, pretend it isn't there. 

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That really got me in a world of trouble. It works when you're young, you can get away with pretending and performing, but eventually it catches up with you. I think probably in my mid-twenties, it really caught up with me. Turns out you can't really outrun anger. Turns out you can't really stuff fear. 

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It'll catch up with you eventually. My mid-twenties when I was actually in seminary, and I had to confront these feelings that had been stuffed for so long. It really felt like a serious breakdown. You can only keep that ball underwater for so long until it then becomes like a bomb. That's what it felt like, this bomb going off inside of me. 

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Until I was really doing some internal deep dive work and letting some of those feelings that had been ignored or suppressed come up, was I able to actually find integration in a healthy way.

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Alison Cook: That makes so much sense. You hit that rock bottom of the overwhelm of the feeling, and there's no way out but through. I love that you're saying that you began to untangle the knots of your emotions. Then you go into becoming a mom. You're also a spiritual director. 

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In both of those roles, similar to me as a therapist, our job in many ways is to keep our feelings on the back burner, as we are present to the feelings of others, whether it's our kids, whether it's someone you're mentoring, a spiritual directee, someone you're sitting with for me as a therapist. 

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It's my job to keep my feelings a little bit in the back as I am helping others navigate their way through feelings. I think that's a really interesting role where you're learning to honor your own feelings, but not necessarily have them be front and center in some of those roles. How do you navigate that inside of yourself as you try to stay healthy emotionally, internally?

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Anjuli: That's a really great question. I would say it looked a lot like stumbling. It looked a lot like confusion. It looked a lot like the question, what's wrong with me? I think especially becoming a mom, I had already done so much previous training in soul care. I thought, I know what I'm doing. I have all these tools now. 

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Becoming a mom really was a shift for me. It took some time to integrate real life with heart knowledge. I think what really became the outlet for me is honesty. Because you know about all the shoulds. And, becoming a mom, I should be happy. I should love every minute of this. I should be grateful. I should not want another life. 

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I bumped up against all these “shoulds” when I had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 kids. Especially when I had one or two kids, I noticed how lonely I was, but I shouldn't be lonely. Because this is my dream. This is what I've always wanted. But I'd go to parks and just, I remember being weepy. 

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It seems like everybody else is having the best time pushing their kid on the swing while I'm over here being like, this is slow, boring work. I don't really know how to play. I don't know how to do this motherhood thing.

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When I say honesty, Alison, I’m talking about those feelings of loneliness and sadness and grief and even some helplessness and connecting to my feelings. Being honest with them and actually feeling them, giving myself permission to feel them and then to speak them, be it online or with my friend or at my MOPS group table, it actually became the means for intimacy and connection with other people.

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I guess I wouldn't look at it like I'm attending to others as one thing and I attend to myself as another thing, but as I attend to myself and my heart and honor that, I'm actually able to attend to others and my kids and make space for them in a much better way. 

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Alison Cook: Attuning to your own emotions, you are actually more able to attend to theirs. When you started being more honest, what were some of the reactions you got, both negative and positive?

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Anjuli: I'll give you a personal one. When I shared about my early mid 20s, when I started to notice, what is this feeling? What is this fear and anxiety? Oh my goodness, anxiety. I remember sitting in a parking lot with my best friend and sharing that with her, how actually really scared I was. I was sweating. I was like, dripping sweating fear.

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She looks at me and says, yeah, of course you feel scared. And I was so empowered then. Oh, I'm not gonna be rejected in my fear, but also I'm gonna find friendship. I can also find more words for it, which led to so much more community.

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With motherhood, that's where I started writing online. I was talking about this honest place of motherhood for me. People came out of the woodworks, like me too. Oh my gosh. I'd get these messages from moms weeping and feeling the depth of their own shame and guilt. It actually became such a bridge for relationships.

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Alison Cook: You have an amazing presence, both in person and online, and you really do have a ministry. You're so authentic. You show up so honestly, so vulnerably, in a way that invites others to feel seen. It's a very beautiful gift that I hear from what you're saying came out of your own experience of, I have to be honest about this. I have to be honest.

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Anjuli: And I'm scared to death. It's the scariest thing ever to step into vulnerability, but it's also true. 

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Alison Cook: Yeah. It's true. The truth sets us free.

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Anjuli: Turns out.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. So, your book highlights 75 different emotions. First of all, I want to know, how did you come up with your list? Second of all, I'm curious, which ones were the hardest for you to write about and pray through as you led us through them?

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Anjuli: I broke the book down into the six core emotions, which are surprise, fear, anger, happiness, disgust, and sadness. You can find variations of the core emotions, but those are the ones I really stuck to. Under each core emotion are subcategories of feelings. Each one was challenging for me, but probably the hardest was, it sounds so funny now that I say it, but playful was a really hard one to write. 

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Another hard one was anxiety. However you feel, you can open up to that chapter and the first section is language for your feeling. Because oftentimes, we don't even know how or why we feel what we feel.

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I did my best to take from my own journals, my own diaries, if you will, of how I experienced that feeling, to help the reader connect to their own feeling of agitation or worry or guilt. The next section is a liturgy of that feeling, opening the heart to God. Anxiety was tricky, because anxiety itself is really the fear of not feeling other feelings.

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It was hard to name and write because not everybody, but a lot of people feel anxiety, and they feel it very differently. I didn't want to miss somebody and neglect or dismiss their feeling. But I also didn't want to overshoot it either. So I rewrote anxiety like 18 times.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. I could see that, because anxiety is very familiar, but it also surfaces in so many different ways. I thought it was beautiful. I'd love to even hear maybe a snippet of one to think through, man, I'm feeling this and now I can go use this tool to walk myself through it. 

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Anjuli: Yeah, if you are feeling anxiety, you would open up to the chapter on “Anxious”, and it gives a general definition: it's the feeling of avoiding other important emotions. In the language for feeling anxious, this is how I begin. 

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“I can't even recall when this feeling began. My body can't settle down. Everything itches. A slow growing panic pulsing through me makes it difficult to breathe. I am anxious. I can manage many things, but not this. 

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Fear races through me, and I can't rationalize, organize, or talk myself out of my escalated state of anxiety. It has a mind of its own. It is the boss. Trying to regain right thinking, a right posture, a right plan, is exhausting. There is a war within me.”

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I go on for another paragraph, “I want to manage it and control it, or I want to suppress it, or I fall prey and let it take over sometimes, and I don't have a way out.”

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Then the next section is a liturgy for when I feel anxious. I want people to pay attention to feelings in their body. I think that's really important. But ultimately, for people to open their heart to God with how they feel. 

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“God, when have I felt this in my story before? God, please do your deep healing work in my life. Help me, God, to be curious about my pain and the wounds that remain in me. Help me be kind to myself as I enter and feel all that remains unfelt in my soul. Gift me words for my heart. God, this anxiety takes me on a journey that is rather painful, mysterious, and unknown. 

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But God, you are here with compassion and care and understanding. With you is an ocean of compassion. With you is a dwelling place for comfort. With you, I am made clean.” 

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It goes on to share more about opening your heart in prayer and then every chapter ends with a simple verse about prayer and meeting with God and your feeling.

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. Is there an audiobook version and do you read it?

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Anjuli: It's coming! Alison, it’s coming! Unfortunately, I don't get to read it this time. I've had a lot of vocal cord issues, but I got a good reader and she's awesome and I'm entrusting the Lord to that.

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Alison Cook: Yeah, because it's beautiful to hear it. I actually wonder, we're going into the holiday season, which is a time when a lot of emotions get stirred up. What's a section of the book that might speak to the listener, who is feeling maybe some sadness, maybe some frustration, even some anger, and feels like they shouldn't feel that way going into the holiday season?

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Anjuli: The two that come up for me are nostalgic–I feel really nostalgic during the holidays–or definitely as moms, guilty. Like we can never do enough. 

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Alison Cook: We need to have a live poll here. I'm very curious about nostalgia, but I think guilt is so baseline around the holidays.

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Anjuli: Always. That's why I'm telling you, we go into debt every December, because oh, one more thing, one more gift, one more party, one more stocking stuffer. Yeah, guilt is very related to fear. Fearing that punishment awaits you for a crime or wrongdoing you have committed.

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I think it's so important to pay attention to true guilt versus false guilt. False guilt comes with a lot of shoulds. Have you actually done something wrong?

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Alison Cook: Exactly.

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Anjuli: I'll read an excerpt from that. I want to invite people to pay attention instead of reacting. Especially with guilt. Like I said, we can go into a lot of unnecessary debt because of guilt. When we stop and pay attention to ooh, what is that thing I feel? I'm afraid of losing relationships with a spouse or a kid or a parent or a sibling. We react by doing something. Pay attention: am I actually doing something wrong?

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When that guilt comes up, pay attention to even your temptations in it. Do I power through it by buying more gifts and doing more things and always saying yes, so that hopefully the guilt monster will go away? That's one temptation: we power through. 

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Do I suppress it? Do I push it down and ignore it, stay busy, avoid it, don't look at it? Don't pay any attention to it. Just stay busy. That's another temptation. Then the other temptation is, we fall prey to it. We let it consume us and we lose all of our agency.

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Instead of powering through, suppressing, or falling prey to the feeling, I want to invite people to name it. Oh, there's that guilt again. There it is. I see you. I see you there. The second thing I want to invite people to do is actually feel it. Feel it. Where do I feel it in my body, in my chest, my neck, my back, my throat?

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Give yourself permission, for a moment, to feel what you feel. Then lastly, I want to invite people to give your feeling a sound. If it's a sigh, if it's an exhale, if it's tears, and if you're even able to give it some words–hopefully, this book will be a resource that gives you some words for your guilt.

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Here, I'll read a little part.

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“God, I feel guilty. Search my heart, oh God. Help me listen. Right now, all I can hear is my guilt and it plagues me. I'm afraid of being found out. I'm afraid of punishment or condemnation. Help me know if this guilt is from you or from another source. I want to know if I'm feeling false guilt. Am I trying to keep laws and rules that you didn't ask me to obey?

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If I haven't, if I have not actually broken a command of yours, this guilt is not from you, but from a false god in my life. God, if I did something that is truly wrong, I seek forgiveness. Help me accept forgiveness. God, forgive me for my wrong. Yet even as I speak these words, conflict is provoked within me.

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I want to atone for my own guilt, be it pride or vanity or greed or self-righteousness. Deep within my will, it is incredibly hard to accept that I can't save myself. I want to prove myself, restore myself, and I hate that I can't. God, you invite me to feel my fear. Guilt at its core is about fear. This is painful.

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When fear emerges, help me greet this feeling with gentleness instead of hiding. Let fear be what leads me to you instead of lying, covering, and pretending. Lord, no fear can separate me from your love. Your love lives at the core of my existence. May I be with you even here as you are with me.”

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. That's so good. These are naming tools. These are tools to help give us language for what we're feeling. You're helping us get in there. What is it? What's connected to it? It's through a conversation with God, where it's totally safe to tease out the threads of the knot of emotion.

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I'm curious to hear a little bit, whether you want to read or share, tell me a little bit about nostalgia. I think that's such an interesting feeling that is sometimes hard to pinpoint. I think sometimes nostalgia, especially around the holidays, can be tinged with grief, but sometimes it can also be life-giving. I can find myself sometimes wanting to bathe in nostalgia, kind of wanting to let it linger over me. 

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I'm like, is that healthy? Is that not healthy? So let's talk a little bit about nostalgia. I think that's a really powerful name.

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Anjuli: Yeah. It's interesting because it's such a nuanced feeling. Sadness is sadness. There's a purity to it. Anger is anger. It's all the way through. There is frustration and rage in there. But nostalgia–imagine a skier, a downhill skier, the slalom skier. It goes back and forth. It goes between sadness, it goes into fear, and then it goes back into happiness. 

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Alison Cook: To gratitude.

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Anjuli: Yes! Yes!

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Alison Cook: There are a lot of ways nostalgia can go.

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Anjuli: As I was doing the research for this book, it really, at the core, was happiness. Even though it can feel many different things. So I kept it in that category. But really, nostalgia is the longing for home. And that's what the holidays do to us, doesn't it? 

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If it's your childhood home, those young memories of youthfulness, where there was safety, where everything was as it should be. I think the word “bathing in nostalgia” is actually pretty accurate, because there's a soothingness, even though there's sorrow. There's comfort in it.

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Alison Cook: I love this naming because I actually will seek it out sometimes to soothe. I'll go seek it out, if I've been working too hard or if I'm a little burnt out or if I can't get out of my head. Because that's part of my bent–it's hard for me to sink into my emotions.

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I'll go drive past an old memory. I talk about this in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. I went back and found an old apartment and those memories flooded over me. It takes me to a different time. There's something very soothing about that. I sometimes have to chase it. I have to pursue it.

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It's so interesting to hear you name that, because I've not put that name on it. It's a tug at my heart, and it's exactly what you said, for something elusive, some memory that brings me to a different place that is soothing.

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That's a great word for it. It's soothing. I think happiness is the right category for it, because even though there's a little bit of nostalgia, a little bit of, oh, what was is no longer, it doesn't take me down. It does something inside my body that feels soothing. I think that's an interesting naming. I love that.

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Anjuli: It's comfort. Especially the holidays, when we have that cocoa that we had when we were little kids, or we sit in front of the Christmas tree and remember what it was like to be a little kid and looking up at a tree instead of at the tree, and these songs that just take us to the core of our being. 

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I think with nostalgia there's still those temptations. We can power through it. We are going to feel this, we're going to have this amazing memory-making experience and you're gonna go down memory lane with me.

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Or we ignore it because there is a sorrow to it. Just keep the ball under the water. Don't look at it. 

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Alison Cook: It feels like too much maybe, so we want to avoid it.

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Anjuli: Yeah, especially if there's been a lot of trauma since that experience. If you've lost a loved one, that can be painful. Then there's indulging in it. I tend to do that with nostalgia. I hear what you're saying. I drive past all my old houses all the time. My kids, I drive them crazy. They're like, mom, can we go home? 

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Alison Cook: I'm a little bit of a nostalgia junkie. 

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Anjuli: I love that. We need a shirt.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. It's very comforting, but I understand what you're saying. It can also evoke sadness. I get why. The thing for me is sometimes other folks like in my family aren't as much and I get it. It's because some of those memories also have a lot of pain. It's not that mine don't, but for whatever reason, the way I'm wired, tapping on it doesn't evoke the pain. It evokes comfort. 

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What are some other ones that surprised you or that you noticed yourself particularly drawn to? Maybe even ones you were like, I don't want to go there. I don't like that one.

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Anjuli: You may have noticed we have not even talked about anger because man, anger. I could live in sadness. I could swim in sadness. I find consolation in sadness. It's like my long lost friend, but anger is terrifying. Anger is very vulnerable. Growing up in the church and in my family, anger was dangerous.

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If someone was angry, something was being thrown, something was being slammed, someone was driving away. In the church, it was like, don't let the sun go down in your anger. So I was like, okay I guess I'll suppress it and pretend it's not there because the sun is setting. Anger was so hard for me to write because that's probably the one I've resisted experiencing in my life the most, because it was bad or sinful or scary.

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Alison Cook: In writing it, you have to tap into it.

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Anjuli: Yeah. Anger can be as small as laziness. That surprised me. I know that turned my head. Laziness is anger turned under; it is anger suppressed. You push your anger way down. it actually numbs you out and you become lazy.

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Anger goes from such a range, from laziness to furious anger. That is a range of feeling. Alison, actually, vulnerability was why my vocal cords are so damaged. It was because I went through a pretty traumatic experience a couple months ago.

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For me, screaming was absolutely necessary for me to find healing. It was this experience for over a week. It was like a discipline. I had to force myself to get my anger out. So I'd go for drives and scream and it was scary and hard, but you know what? It was freedom, getting it out of me. It was one of the greatest gifts God has given me, my anger.

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Alison Cook: It's mobilizing, it's empowering, it's hard. Like you said, it's so scary. I can only imagine putting myself with you in that car. There's something about a car. I've noticed for me, I'm the opposite. I don't love anger, but I have a hard time with sadness and I've noticed when I really need to cry it out.

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This is a thing I've since learned. I will get in my car because there's a container. There's something about a car that's contained, or the shower is another one people talk about. There's like a time limit. You can't be there forever. But you can get it all out. I can sob it out and then I'm going to get out of my car and close the door.

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I could see for anger, getting in your car and screaming it out. I could feel it in my body. There's a containment for it. There's going to be an end when you're going to get out of the car. That's really powerful. But you are allowing that emotion to flow through you versus stifling it or indulging it, letting it live with you all the time.

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Anjuli: And it’s so painful to do that. Then it leaks on all the people you love the most.

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Alison Cook: How did you feel afterward?

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Anjuli: Gosh, aren't feelings in so many ways quite mysterious. Most of the time after I would scream, I would start crying. It's weird. I think for other people it's the other way around. Sometimes they cry and it leads to screaming. But it's certainly a journey of the body and the heart of processing and moving through true pain.

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Ultimately brought an immense amount of freedom. It was like breaking out of jail. It felt free. My hands were tied and then I was free.

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Alison Cook: That's powerful. My sister used to always say to me, when I would go through seasons. She has a higher tolerance for the big emotions, which I'm super grateful for. She becomes one of those people that can help me when I need to feel something, but I don't want to.

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She used to say to me, anger is going to kick in the butt on the way out. That's what you're saying. You got to get it out, and then often on the other side is oh, now I'm hurt. You also need to feel that. As we close down today, I would love to hear some of your words that you speak to God through anger.

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Anjuli: Let me find some.

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Alison Cook: I love this. I could do this all day.

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Anjuli: I could do resentful, furious, exhausted–exhausted as anger, isn't that interesting?

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Alison Cook: Tell me more about that.

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Anjuli: Exhausted is beyond tired and it's like you are exhausted to the point of anger. It's a tight, deep tiredness that aggravates your bones.

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Alison Cook: I’m thinking of the holidays. This is another thing we hear. I'm exhausted. It's so interesting, even tying together what we've been talking about. I call it guilt-driven love. I've been guilty. So I'm doing. Then I'm exhausted and angry.

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Anjuli: This is how it comes out and I will do this with my husband. I buy all the presents. I'm the buyer. I purchase them, I pick them, I get them, I store them, I hide them, then I have to wrap them, which is the thing I hate more than anything in the world. Wrapping a bazillion presents.

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They're all under the tree. Then I'm so exhausted. Now I'm not exhausted. I'm angry at my husband as though it's somehow his fault, that I took it all on myself, but that's where it turns to him. It's anger.

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Alison Cook: Even at your kids for their existence, and it's nobody else's fault. That's a really powerful naming again. That level of exhaustion can be a form of anger. This is so interesting. The three emotions we picked, guilt, nostalgia and anger. There's that anger guilt thing at the holidays. I'm feeling it. I'm seeing the pattern in my own life.

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Anjuli: Happy holidays. Gear up.

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Alison Cook: I had a conversation with Alli Worthington on the podcast about her new book about parenting. She talked about the bitterness of family holidays, and she didn't want to bring that into her own holidays. It's what we're talking about–sacrificing everything for you and then I'm mad at you.

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Anjuli: Totally. Yes, I'm making you this amazing dinner, which no one asked me to make. Spending all this money on the food, making the table as beautiful as ever, having the right music on, and then the kids don't eat it, and then I'm mad at them. That's exhaustion. Deep tiredness that fuels anger. Maybe I'll close with that.

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Alison Cook: I think that's good.

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Anjuli: “God, help me believe in the good of the journey I am on. The good is for others in my care. The good is for the spreading of the gospel. The good is for the healing of my own pain. God, help me endure because I can't do it on my own anymore. I can't carry this cross alone. It's harder than I imagined. It is hard to not harbor anger.

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It is hard to forgive. It is hard to let go. It is hard to relax. It is hard to surrender. It is hard to believe that you care about my life more than I do. You understand exhaustion. You took space to be with your Father when your soul and body were weary. May I learn from you how to rest in God's love.

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If it would be your will, please deliver me from this pain because it is hard to bear. If my circumstances do not change, may your grace be enough to sustain me. I pray it would be one moment at a time. What you have entrusted to me, I entrust back to you. I give you my life. Even as weary as I am, may my life be an offering to you, Lord. Hear my prayer.”

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Alison Cook: Beautiful. I could listen to you read those prayers all day long. What a beautiful gift to give to people, to tease out the nuances of each feeling in conversation with God. I'm so grateful for you for sharing it with us today. You cover so many different emotions and I love what you're saying. You could pick it up to the one that stands out to you, maybe it's a surprise, maybe you're not sure.

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So you flip through the pages and see which one leaps out at you and go into it. I think it's going to help a lot of people and I'm really grateful that you are here with us today.

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Anjuli: Thank you for endorsing it and your friendship and always championing other people. Such a gift.

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Alison Cook: Before we close, two questions I like to ask, sometimes I forget, but I like to ask 90 percent of my guests–

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Anjuli: That's good. 90 percent is good.

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Alison Cook: What would you say to that younger you back when the bottom was falling out from suppressed emotions? What would you want to say to her now?

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Anjuli: I would probably say, and even in light of this conversation, anger is a gift. Because it leads you to hope and the love of God.

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. What is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Anjuli: Backyard fire pit conversations. We go out there and sometimes a kid joins us and sometimes they don't. But I feel like when it's dark and there's the glow, the warmth of the fire, it brings out the best in me. Great question.

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. I love it. Thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you? Where can they find your work?

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Anjuli: Yeah. I'm on Instagram a lot, so it's lovealways.anjuli or my website where I have a few courses that I offer, anjulipaschall.com.

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Alison Cook: Check it out. Thank you so much again.

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Anjuli: Yay. Thanks, Alison.

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