Science-backed tools.
Spiritually-based wisdom.

Do you want to learn how to strengthen your relationship over time?

Do you want to have better communication and deeper intimacy with your partner?

In this very honest episode, you'll learn strategies from top marriage & relationship experts combined with Biblical wisdom to work through pain paints, set realistic expectations, and practice constructive conversations with your partner.

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Here’s what we cover:‍

1. The most important way to improve your relationship

2. How to identify bad advice vs. a helpful confidant

3. Naming paint points in a healthy way

4. 3 ways to frame a relational pain point

5. The 4 most destructive qualities to a relationship

6. The 4 most important skills to a vital long-term relationship

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Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here.

Do you have questions for Dr. Alison?⁠ Leave them here.

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Additional Resources:

• Boundaries For Your Soul, The Best of You, and I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• “It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it” –Esther Perel
• Matthew 7:5
• Episode 1: What Is Narcissism Really?
• Episode 2: What Should I Know About Gaslighting?
• dralisoncook.com/podcast
• The Four Horseman The Gottman Institute
• Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix, PhD

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‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 105: 4 Lies We Tell, the Mental Health Benefits of Honesty, & How to Stop Lying In Your Relationships
• Episode 89: When A Relationship Has to Change—How to Tolerate Discomfort, Face an Attachment Void, & Resource Yourself

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

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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.
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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.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am glad you're here this week. I'm glad you've been joining me for this series, “Therapists on Therapy”. I've enjoyed getting to know some other therapists and their work and bringing some of those resources to you.

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I'm glad you're choosing to spend these next few minutes with me. I really cherish these times when I get to come on and speak directly to you. It feels like there's a genuine connection between us. I don't know how exactly that works, except I believe it's somehow by the power of God's Spirit that there's a way in which he enables us to connect through these airwaves and really join together. 

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I'm grateful to know that many of you out there are really leaning into this healing work of bringing more goodness, more wholeness, more healing, more beauty, more joy into this world. It buoys me up. It gives me much hope and encourages me. So thank you for being here with me. I'm prayerful as I prepare for these episodes, especially these solo episodes.

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I really try to think about what I've been noticing are some pain points in the world around me and the folks that I'm talking with in myself, in my spirit. I pray through what I think God wants me to add into the conversation. I always get much out of preparing for these episodes and it truly feels like we're coming together to learn and grow and become more whole and more fruitful and bring more healing into the world together.

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So thank you again for being here. Thank you for your questions, for your notes, for your emails. I always appreciate hearing from you. You can find the link to The Best of You Podcast question form in the show notes for this episode. Cindy, my media coordinator, and I will take some time to answer your questions in an upcoming episode.

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We really want to hear from you. We're grateful that you're engaged in this work. So for today's episode, we're going to be talking about relationship pain points, primarily within the context of marriage or intimate or dating relationships, any committed relationship where you're trying to stay in it with someone over the long haul. But this episode is also for you if you're not in a committed relationship. 

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Maybe you're single, maybe you're recently out of a relationship–I promise you that these strategies and tips that we're going to talk about today also apply to you because they really apply to everyone in any long term relationship where you want to have a healthy, vibrant relationship over time.

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Every single one of the books that I've written, Boundaries For Your Soul, The Best of You, and I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, all of these books include chapters with strategies for relationships. In Boundaries for Your Soul, We talk about dealing with the challenging part of a significant other or loved one.

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In The Best of You, I talk about how you can begin to use your voice in relationships with very specific scripts and strategies for learning how to use your voice and speak up in a relationship. In today's episode, we're going to use the framework that I teach you in  I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, the “name, frame, brave” framework, and apply it to the context of pain points within an intimate relationship.

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Those books are such helpful resources if you want to go deeper, if you want to go further in your relationships. All of what I'm going to teach you today is embedded in those resources. If you've been listening for a while, my area of specialty is to combine the best of science and psychology with the best of faith-based wisdom.

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I've really scoured the marketplace for some of the top marriage and relationship experts. Experts out there many of whom are not necessarily Christian by background, but they bring such incredible insight into the realities of relationships. In today's episode, I'm going to introduce you to some of those people whose work has influenced me and how I've integrated their work from a faith perspective.

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To start out, I'm going to start with a quote by a woman who I think is brilliant at helping us understand that our deepest desire is for intimacy. This quote by Esther Perel, esteemed psychotherapist and bestselling author, really anchors this entire episode. She says this, “it takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it”.

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I want you to hear that from me today. Whatever you're struggling with, whatever pain point you're dealing with in your relationship, it took two people to create that. A hundred percent that is true. Also, it only takes one to change it. What that means is, you have some power to change your relationship. It's not only up to you, but there's a good part of it that is up to you. 

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Today we're going to focus on what you can do to show up with your loved one more effectively. What is in your control? Because there's a lot that isn't in your control, but there are some things that are in your control. That's what we're going to focus on in today's episode. Change in your relationships starts inside of you, and I'm gonna unpack what I mean by that because I don't mean that it's only up to you. 

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I mean that if you really want to change your relationship, you've got to start by looking at yourself first. Jesus says it this way: Matthew 7:5, take the plank out of your own eye first. Is there anything inside of you, any method or strategy or process that you could change inside of you that might shift a dynamic inside of your relationship? 

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In the context of what Esther Perel is saying and what Jesus is saying, what we're trying to do today is take a look at what's on our side of the street. What do we have control over? What dynamics are we participating in, in an unhealthy way? Where are we not articulating what we actually need and want out of the relationship? Where are we avoiding a hard conversation? Where are we participating in an angry, defensive, critical, or toxic dynamic?

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What can we take control of? What is in our power to change? Look at yourself, look at your own dynamics, look at your own needs, look at your own patterns. If you do that work, first, I promise you, you will have more successful outcomes when it is time to communicate and enter into the hard conversations with your loved one. 

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Here's the thing. Even if you end up realizing, I'm in a toxic relationship, this is untenable. This is unsustainable. If you've done your own work and you arrive at that conclusion, you will have much more clarity about the decisions that you end up making. This is the work. This is how you change your relationships. Any step toward change and transformation will start inside of you.

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Now, listen, if you're with someone who is demonstrating toxic patterns of behaviors, please go back and listen to episode one on narcissism and episode two on gaslighting. Go to my website, dralisoncook.com/podcast and do a search. There's a search bar for toxic behaviors.

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If you are in a relationship with someone who is consistently demonstrating abusive or toxic patterns of behavior over time, you are going to brave a different path than someone who's in a mostly healthy relationship that has hit a rough patch or a pain point.

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Okay. So those episodes are there for those of you who are wondering about that, but regardless of the nature of the pain point in your relationship, the change is going to start when you look deep inside yourself first. You can name, frame, and brave your way into a healthier relationship. 

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Number one, I want you to name what's hard. This is work you do inside of you you can get really honest with yourself, with God, maybe with a trusted advisor. What is the pain point within your marriage, within your intimate relationship?

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This is not the time to be empathetic or try to get into their perspective. This is your opportunity to get really honest with yourself. This is what hurts me. This is what's hard. He doesn't understand this about me. I feel criticized in this specific situation. I feel alone in this area of our relationship. I feel hurt and I can't stop feeling this way. 

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This is your opportunity to really get specific about what's hard. For this specific pain point that you're feeling, name what's hard. Start with yourself. What do you feel? What emotions are stirred up and what is the specific set of circumstances that stirs up that pain point? Is it when you talk about a specific season in your marriage? 

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Is it when you talk about your kids? Is it when you talk about work or vocation? Is it when you talk about a dream that you have? Is it that you're not talking enough or at all about things that matter to you? What is that pain point that's making you feel hurt? 

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Name that honestly. At this point, we don't have to analyze it. We don't have to try to understand their perspective on it. You don't have to try to justify it, or even feel guilty for feeling the way that you feel. This is a pain point that you're feeling. You're naming what's hard. You're naming what's true for you in this moment without claiming that you understand the whole truth of what's going on in this situation.

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When you name what's hard, honestly, with yourself and with God, there's humility in it. You might even say, I don't want to feel this way, but I do feel this way. You're getting really honest with yourself when you name what's hard about a person that you love, about a person you're committed to, about a person you're doing life with every single day.

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It can be scary to name what's hard. In that situation, you don't want to feel that way. I want to give you permission, in the privacy of your own journal, in the privacy of your own prayer time, to talk to God about it, to talk to a trusted advisor about it. Someone who will honor your relationship, not someone who's going to rip apart that other person. That's not what we're after when we're naming what's hard. 

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Please hear me say that. Be careful who you confide in when you're naming what's hard about someone you love. Can that person validate what you're feeling without tearing down the relationship or that other person that you love? That's a special kind of confidant. You want that person to honor what's hard while still honoring your devotion, your commitment to that other person.

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Someone who won't come to you with an agenda about what they think you should do in the relationship, but someone who can be objective. Someone who can be empathetic, someone who can honor you and say, I don't know how to help you, but I get that what you're feeling is real. 

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We know we have that person in God. We know we have that person in Jesus. He comes into the hardest pain points of our relationships, where the person we love the most, the person who is supposed to get us, the person who was supposed to love everything about us, has let us down, has hurt us or disappointed us. Jesus comes into those moments and says, I get it.

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I get that you're disappointed. I see it. The beauty of Jesus is that he also completely understands that other person. So he stands in the gap there and says, I can hold it. I can hold the honesty of what you feel at this moment. I can step in here and show up for you in a way that this other person can't right now.

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It's powerful when you can name what's hard to Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit. It's also an exercise in what psychologists call differentiation. You're differentiating from that other person. You're saying, I love this person. Also, in this moment, I'm separate from them. I'm different from them. I'm seeing this thing differently from how they're seeing it. 

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It's breaking my heart, God, because I want this person to get me, but they're not getting me here. I can hold two things in this moment. I can hold the validity of what I'm feeling, even as I can hold the heartbreak that this person I love isn't getting it in the way that I wish that they would.

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God steps into those moments with us and something powerful happens when we name what's hard with God or with someone who can hold up the mirror of God for us. In those moments, do not be afraid to name what's hard in the privacy of your own soul with a God who loves you, who is for you, who doesn't gaslight, bypass, or deny the reality that sometimes other people, even the person you love the most, doesn't get you.

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It's hard, and God doesn't deny that reality. That's number one in this process of transforming your relationships. It's learning to differentiate enough from that other person to be able to name what's hard, honestly, while simultaneously honoring that you care about the relationship. You wouldn't be hurt by this other person if you didn’t care.

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So you can honor both of those things with God buffering you, holding you, helping you understand yourself well, before you even get to the point of trying to do something or to instigate a change in your relationship. We don't even know the circumstances yet.

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That leads us to number two. I want you to frame your reality. Again, you're not yet going to the other person. You're still doing this in the quiet of your own soul with God, with that trusted advisor. You're trying to get to the root of the problem. When you frame it, you're trying to understand key questions. I go through the “frame” acronym in detail in chapter three of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way.

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You can get the first three chapters of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way for free on my website, but I'm going to quickly go through it now. F: What are the facts? What actually happened? Not what I feel about what's happened, but what are the facts about what has happened? Are the facts that there's something that my spouse or my loved one does that is really objectively hurtful? They're hurting me. Maybe they're even hurting other people. That's the fact. So what are the facts? 

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R: You might look at the roots. When did it start? How long has it been going on? You might ask yourself, what have you tried in the past? Have you tried talking about it? Have you tried bringing it up? What happened? What worked? What didn't work? What have you tried that  time and time again doesn't work to bring change? 

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Then we get to M. What are the messages that you're telling yourself about this? It is important to look at the messages inside your own mind. Are you telling yourself it'll never change? Are you telling yourself that it's your fault? That if you'd done things differently, this never would have happened? Are you shaming yourself? Are you really judgmental of your loved one? 

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Do you hear a critical voice in your head about the other person? It's all their fault. If they weren't selfish, if they ever thought about someone other than themselves…Now, listen, even if there's some truth to that, harboring an attitude of judgment and criticism never leads to change. If you're looking at facts and going, the facts are I'm dealing with a very selfish person. That's a fact. 

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You can honor that fact from a healthy distance without feeling deep-seated contempt, criticism, or judgment for that other person. John Gottman talks about the four horsemen that kill relationships. One of them is criticism, and the biggest one is contempt. You cannot heal a relationship when you're feeling contempt for that other person.

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So if you notice in your mind, either self-shaming, self-blaming, or self-contempt, that's not going to help you brave a new path. Or if you're noticing deeply critical, contemptuous, judgmental feelings toward your loved one, that's also not going to help you brave a new path. 

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Honestly, where we're shaming and condemning ourselves is very close to where we're also going to be shaming and condemning our loved one. In the words of Jesus, we tend to do unto others as we do unto ourselves. Where there is self-hatred, self-blame, and self-contempt, there tends to also be hatred, blame, and contempt of our loved ones. 

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Can we face that honestly inside of ourselves? Say, man, I've got to start learning how to be a little kinder to myself through this pain point in my relationship. You know what? Maybe that little bit of self-compassion that you start to offer yourself might open up a tiny window of compassion toward this other person that you love.

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Maybe they're also not able to do any better than what they're doing right now. Doesn't mean you have to move right into empathy. It means that right now, I might need to frame where I am in this relationship as, oh my goodness, a part of this tangled up knot is that I don't like myself very much in this.

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The bravest thing I could do in this relationship is first work on healing that shame inside of me, so that I can strengthen my resilience. I can strengthen my reserves. I can start to show up more genuinely, more authentically, with more inner core strength in my relationship.

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Okay. So you need to notice, what are those mental messages that you're telling yourself. As you frame what's going on in the specific pain point of your relationship, you look at the facts, you look at the roots, you audit what you've done and tried, and what has worked and what hasn't worked. You really examine those internal messages that you tell yourself.

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You really look at what you're believing about yourself and about your loved one. Then I want you to create what I call “a holy reframe”, that accounts for the whole truth of the situation. It gets at the larger frame, and that larger frame is what's gonna help you figure out the brave steps you need to take. 

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Here are some examples of three different frameworks you might arrive at as you frame your situation. Number one. Is it a toxic dynamic? In other words, is it a co-created dynamic where there's a specific pattern of relating that you both contribute to? Maybe it's around household chores. Let's use that as an example.

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Maybe you feel really resentful. You believe that you're doing everything around the house, that your spouse isn't doing anything to help. Whenever you bring that up, they feel criticized and underappreciated. They get defensive and you get really critical.

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Maybe a part of you pipes in, a kind of a lawyerly part of you, that pipes up and presents all the data that proves that you are in fact the one doing way more of the household chores. By golly, you are right. You've won the argument. They're completely mad. They're now stonewalling you because they feel completely rejected, completely criticized, completely shut down, completely undervalued.

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Both of you together in that moment have created a worse situation instead of approaching a legitimate pain point–household chores. It’s a very legitimate pain point in many relationships and many marriages with a toxic dynamic. If you're framing it that way, you've got to wrestle with the fact that okay, there's a toxic pattern here. The brave step is going to be, what's my part in that? How do I change how I show up in that pattern in that situation?

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Number two, you might frame your particular pain point as something that hurts, but can't be changed. What I mean by that is maybe the other person has a trait or a habit or a set of beliefs that is really hard for you. But it's probably not going to change.

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Maybe you married someone who is really adventurous and creative and takes you on all these adventures, but they're not very responsible around the house or they tend to show up late for things. Or maybe you married an exceptional problem solver or somebody who's really steady and really disciplined, but they're not great at showing empathy. 

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They don't know how to validate your emotional experiences. Part of your relationship can at times feel lonely. Maybe it's a habit that they have. Maybe they work a lot and you wish they would relax more. Maybe they relax too much and you wish they would work harder. You begin to realize, the pain point in my relationship is related to something about this person that's probably not going to change. That framing will lead you to brave a different path. 

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Then lastly, as you frame your pain point, you may begin to notice that a lot of it is your own communication style. Maybe you don't even know what the other person thinks or what their beliefs are, how they would respond or how they would change, because you haven't actually figured out how to speak up for what you actually need, what you actually want, what you actually dream of for your relationship. 

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Or what you're worried about, or what you're concerned about, or what you fear or where you're feeling left out or where you're feeling lonely, but you haven't actually figured out how to talk about. Your brave path is going to be a little bit different in terms of how you frame it. The bottom line is this: when you do the work of naming the pain point, getting really clear about what it is and framing it and understanding the bigger picture, the deeper context of what's happening, when you're really honest with yourself and with God, when you've done the work, I promise you, you will set yourself up much better for when it's time to take action.

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This leads us to braving. You've done the work, so much of the work inside yourself. You've named what's hard. You've framed your reality. You understand the bigger picture. Now it's time to brave a new path. I cover this acronym BRAVE in chapter five. There are dozens of strategies and tools and tips in that book, but I'm going to lay out four key strategies specifically related to pain points in your relationship.

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As we close out this episode today, here's the thing: no matter how you've framed your pain point, no matter what's going on in your specific relationship, I want you to bear in mind those four horsemen that John Gottman identifies those four destructive forces that never lead to good in a relationship.

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That's criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and what he calls stonewalling, which is sort of this extreme avoidance where you almost physiologically shut down. You don't want to deal with anything. Any of those four horsemen won't help you brave a healthier path forward.

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Instead, when you think about braving, I want you to think about braving any and all of these four antidotes, the four constructive forces, the four healing forces, the four helpful ways to build more health, more vibrancy, more vitality into your relationship. The first one Gottman calls self-soothing. Learn how to soothe yourself through some of those rough patches, especially in your communication. 

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This requires the skill of differentiation, learning to differentiate out from some of those painful dynamics, where let's say you tend to get defensive or maybe you tend to get critical, whatever it is that you've identified, you're setting aside, first and foremost, your need to win, your need to change the other person. Instead, you're going to brave the path of shifting your part in that dynamic. 

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You're going to practice not doing anything in this first step to change your loved one, not doing anything to change your partner. You're going to practice this differentiation and this internal self-soothing. What is it like inside my own body to notice that impulse, to get defensive, to spiral, to criticize, to get reactive? What if I take a deep breath and ground myself inside my own body? 

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I differentiate. I notice, man, what they're saying right now really activates me. I really want to defend myself. I really want to argue. I really want to criticize and show them where they're wrong, but instead I'm going to brave the path of self-soothing. I'm not going to gaslight myself. I'm not going to be a martyr. Instead I'm braving the path of self-soothing. 

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I'm taking a deep breath. I'm not going to engage in what they're saying. I'm going to breathe. I'm going to notice what I feel inside. This is hard. This hurts. This makes me feel criticized. I wanted to defend myself, but I'm going to breathe. I'm going to witness what that feels like. God sees it with me in this moment. You're not gaslighting yourself. You're soothing yourself.

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You're staying with yourself. You're maybe not saying anything to that other person. You're  breathing. You're shifting how you show up in this specific pain point. Remember that quote from the episode's beginning: it takes two people to create a pattern and one person to change it.

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You might practice saying different scripts in that moment. Maybe you say nothing. Maybe you let your partner know what you're doing. Listen, I'm trying to show up in a different way. So I'm slowing myself down. I want to be healthier. This topic is hard for me. I might need a minute. I might not respond right away. Maybe I'll get back to you later. Maybe I'll get back to you tomorrow.

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Regardless of whether you say something or you really soothe yourself through it, you're relinquishing a need to be right, a need to criticize, a need to defend, and you're changing the dynamic in your relationship. I'm telling you right now, if you shift how you show up in that dynamic, if you learn to differentiate and be with yourself and relinquish those and relinquish that critical defensive posture, it will change things in your relationship. 

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They'll have to reckon with it. You're creating a growth opportunity by simply shifting how you show up. They're going to have to figure out how to show up differently. It's extremely powerful. It might buy you a little more peace of mind. You know what? I can't change them fundamentally. I can't stop them from doing this, but I can be different. 

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I can care for myself through this and release my need to be right in this particular set of circumstances. It's a really powerful move and it leads into number two, what Gottman calls personal responsibility. As you shift how you're showing up with them, you're taking responsibility for your own self. It's really empowering and feels great inside when you see, man, I can engage this differently. 

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I don't have to participate in this old pattern. I can do something differently. That feels really good inside of you. There's some intrinsic reward in noticing that you can change how you show up, regardless of what they're doing, that you can shift out of a critical mindset, that you can shift out of defensiveness, out of argumentation, out of criticism. 

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You can shift from trying to point out what they need to do, to thinking, this is what I can do in this situation. I can remove myself. I can soothe myself. I can change something about how I show up. I can shift out of avoidance, which is shutting myself down, and instead find constructive ways to take care of myself.

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You stop focusing on the work that they need to do and stay very present to your own growth and your own healing. And you see what happens. Some of this has to do with shifting your expectations for the relationship. Harville Hendrix has this quote that I think is really helpful in his book, Getting the Love You Want.

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He talks about how sometimes we have to relinquish our need to be right in our relationships. Even when we're right about the growth that our partner or significant other needs to take in their lives, he says, do you want to be right? Or do you want to be in a relationship? Because you can't always have both. 

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When you're learning to differentiate, to self-soothe, to take responsibility for your own growth first, you're honoring that reality that you're not always going to get your partner to see what you want them to see in key moments. You're letting go of that and you're surrendering that to God and you're saying, God, you know that better than I do. 

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In this moment and in this particular season, and in this particular pain point of our relationship, I'm gonna focus on what I can do, on the invitation to grow in my own life because I actually wanna be in relationship. And how I stay in relationship in this moment is to work on myself and work on breathing through this particular dynamic and learning to shift how I show up. 

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I'm not being a doormat. I am exercising power when I do that. You're exercising power in a constructive way. This leads to number three, what Gottman calls the gentle startup. Some of you may need to raise a hard conversation. Your growth curve might be, I need to start speaking up for what I need or for what I long for out of my relationship. That may be your brave step as you're differentiating.

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You’re self-soothing as you're taking responsibility for what's yours to take responsibility for. You may need to also practice a general startup where you do raise a concern. You do raise something in the relationship, but there's a skill. There's a way to do it. Both Gottman and Hendricks emphasize the importance of being positive when we raise something in a relationship. 

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Again, eradicating that critical posture. Criticism is never helpful in an intimate relationship. That's why it's important to do this work inside of yourself first. So if you do decide you need to practice a general startup and you decide you might want to have what I call a negotiation conversation where you want to negotiate for something a little bit different in your relationship, it is important to begin with the positive. 

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In The Best of You, I lay out detailed scripts and exercises for identifying inside yourself first, what is the positive thing that you're wanting? I call it the deepest longing. You're not going to that person with, I want you to change this, or I want you to do this. Instead, you're going to frame it positively and pragmatically. 

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You're not going to go to them with the problem. You're going to go to them with your deeper longing. Man, here's what I love about us. Here's what I long for. You're going to cast a vision, that's presumably something they would want too. I long for us to share more activities together. I long for us to create more time to connect in deeper conversation. I long for us to talk more about parenting together. 

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You're going to frame it in the positive. This is the gentle startup. Here's what I love and here's what I long for even more of. You're also going to give them practical ways that you think that could happen, where you've spent some time considering realistic steps you could take to achieve this vision that you have for both of you. 

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Here's the difference. It's the difference between going to your spouse and saying, I am frustrated that you never help out with the kids, which is immediately putting them on the defense, and instead going to them from the positive place of saying, man, you know, I would love for us to be on the same page with parenting and life is busy for both of us. What would you think about meeting once a week to talk through some parenting challenges? 

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Or what would you think about engaging a professional once a month as a place where we could talk through some of these challenges together? It would mean so much to me if we could do that together. You're framing it in the positive versus from a critical place.

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Or instead of going to your partner and saying, you never listened to me or you never help around the house, or we never go on dates anymore, instead, you're going to them and saying, man, I miss you. I love spending time with you. Could we do something this week? I'd love to play tennis or go out on a couple's date. What do you think?

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Or I'd love to explore the Enneagram together. What would you think about listening to some podcasts together? You're coming from a place inside of yourself where you've soothed your own disappointments and you're not laying those at the feet of your spouse.

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You've soothed yourself. You've differentiated. You've done your own work, you've taken responsibility for what you really love. Then, you're creating a moment for a gentle startup with your spouse. What if we try something new together? You're meeting them at a place that's practical for the two of you. 

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You're not asking for too much, but you're not also asking for too little. You're proposing something realistic that sets you on a path for a new adventure together. You're stating your longing and a pragmatic path toward getting that need met in a way that works for both of you. 

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The bottom line is that you're not leading from a place of emotional reactivity. You're leading from a calm, clear place inside, that allows you to lead with creativity and playfulness and even confidence, where you're like, why wouldn't you want to do this with me? This will be really cool for us. This will be really fun for us. You're giving your relationship a fighting chance to rise to a better place. 

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Finally, this gets to Gottman's fourth antidote: you're building a culture of appreciation and a culture of friendship, which entails recognizing the legitimate limits of any relationship. You're not asking that person to change on a dime. You're not asking them to be someone they're not. You're considering your needs. You're considering who they are, and then you're braving a path toward more friendship, toward more connection.

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One brave step at a time. Where are the overlapping points of connection? Where do we overlap? You're not asking them to meet all your needs. You're asking them to join you In creating a culture of friendship and a culture of appreciation. It's powerful, your understanding that there are two key ingredients in any relationship. 

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There's your togetherness and your autonomy, and you're releasing your need to have all your needs met. That's your autonomy. There are some needs you can get met from God and from other friendships, but you're really focusing on that area of overlap, that area of togetherness as being one character primarily by friendship and by appreciation. That's so powerful. 

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When you really focus on fanning the flames of friendship, what are the areas we do agree on? What are the activities we do enjoy? What do I genuinely and legitimately appreciate about this person? Why am I deeply grateful that this person is in my life? What keeps me going in this relationship? 

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And really doubling down on that. Here's where we shine. Let's go all in with that. Then I can continue over time to do this work of releasing the areas where I'm not going to get my needs met, where there is some hurt, where I can soothe myself through that, and it takes you into a deeper relationship with God, into deeper relationships with others.

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It becomes this dance of growing deeper with your loved one, and also simultaneously going deeper into your own work with God and going deeper into relationships with other people, and you begin to tap into this virtuous cycle of love and of healing. It's the place where growth happens. You're changing. You're becoming a better, healthier person. 

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You're creating more opportunities for more health and for more wholeness in your relationship, and you will start to notice change. You'll start to feel what hope feels like, because we know as we go back to that pain point, suffering is a part of every relationship.

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But suffering, when suffered wisely, produces perseverance, which is that differentiation, that self-soothing, and that perseverance produces character, which is the dexterity and the agility to understand when you need to sit on your wisdom, when you need to soothe yourself versus be right, which is that courageous conversation rooted in love and a vision for who you are at your best in your relationship.

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Character produces hope–glimpses of the goodness and the beauty and the joy of a healthy and always healing relationship. This is the virtuous cycle of love that God wants to pour out on each and every one of us as we engage this of healing ourselves and showing up in a healed and whole way within the context of our most intimate relationships.

Do you struggle to let go of pain from your past?

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If so, you don't want to miss today's episode! Kobe Campbell is a trauma therapist and the author of Why am I Like This? She joins me today to discuss her own journey through healing trauma and insight from her work as a trauma therapist.

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Here’s what we cover:‍

1. Kobe’s personal experience with trauma

2. The burden she picked up as a twin

3. How she found a therapist

4. Can you heal from trauma?

5. Kobe’s favorite tools for healing trauma

6. How to advocate for yourself with a therapist

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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.
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• Go to thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!‍

‍

‍Additional Resources:

• You can find me on Facebook or Instagram @DrAlisonCook and leave a comment for me under any post.
• The Best of You Podcast question form
• Email us at info@dralisoncook.com!
• Why Am I Like This?: How to Break Cycles, Heal from Trauma, and Restore Your Faith by Kobe Campbell
• The Dwell app
• kobecampbell.com

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Related Episodes:

• Episode 97: I Shouldn't Feel This Anxious—Insights on Trauma & Healing with Monique Koven
• Episode 4: What Do I Need To Know About Trauma?

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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. Welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am thrilled that you're here for this series where I'm getting to talk to some amazing therapists and mental health experts and thought leaders at the intersection of faith and mental health.

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This is so fun for me. I love this intersection. You all know that I talk about it every single week and it's really a treat for me this summer to bring to you the benefit of so many others out there who are providing some great resources in this integrated space.

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Before we dive in, remember–if you have questions about a specific area of therapy, a specific issue, a specific diagnosis, or a specific approach to therapy, please leave us your questions. If you have any questions based on these conversations we're having with different experts throughout this series, please leave us your questions. You can find me on Facebook or Instagram @DrAlisonCook and leave a comment for me under any post.

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We'll also link to The Best of You Podcast question form in the show notes. So you can leave your questions there, or you can email us at info@dralisoncook.com. We are always looking for feedback from you about what you want us to address, what questions you have, and how we can help you on this healing journey. 

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Today's guest is Kobe Campbell. She's an award winning licensed trauma therapist, a bestselling author, and she's also got a really helpful and insightful Instagram account where she shares wisdom from her years of work as a therapist. Kobe's first book is called, Why Am I Like This?: How to Break Cycles, Heal from Trauma, and Restore Your Faith.

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As you'll hear today, she brings such genuineness, kindness, and wisdom to everything she does. She's got some really helpful insights into trauma and into how she helps her clients heal from trauma. She's so real about her own journey, her own experiences, and how they inform her work as a therapist. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Kobe Campbell.

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***

Alison: Kobe, I am so thrilled to have you here with us today. I got my hands on a copy of Why Am I Like This? It's a great book. Thank you for coming on to talk with us today. We're in a series talking to different therapists on therapy, and I was so intrigued by how you opened the book with your own story. You talk about your own pain and your own trauma, and I want to get into that a little bit for the listener.

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It almost got the best of you in a pretty dark moment in your life. I was highlighting and highlighting this part, because I was so grateful for the way that you phrased some of these things. You said, “my head knew the truth of God's love for me, but my heart had forgotten its touch”.

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Kobe: Yeah.

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Alison: That was so beautifully stated. Then you talked about how it's not that you hadn't been trying. You say, “I would change for a few months or weeks at a time, but I'd find my way back to the old patterns that made the truth of God's love feel like a dream I was chasing rather than a reality I was living in”.

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So put the listener back in that pretty dark moment where things came to a head, where you had a faith background, and yet the pain of your life and your experiences and the stories and the trauma had caught right up to you. Talk to us a little bit about that.

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Kobe: Yeah. I wrestled with whether I wanted to start the book that way because I felt like it was too vulnerable, too intense. I hadn't read many therapy books that started that way. for me, I realized I clicked with the clients and really felt a deep connection to and a really a deep sense of service to clients whose stories mirrored mine.

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One thing I found in common is we all felt like we're asking the same questions internally, but we're not allowed to say them out loud. I wanted to start my book by saying the things out loud that a lot of people didn't feel like they had permission to say out loud that I love God and I'm still depressed.

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I love God. I still feel anxiety. I'm going to Bible study. I'm reading my Bible. I'm praying. I'm seeking the Lord. I know God's love is real and present. But I am struggling to experience it right now, and that there's some people who find themselves wondering, does God really care about me? Does my life really matter? 

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I know I had reached that point because it felt like all the answers people were giving me were answers that made me feel like I wasn't feeling right. If you worked harder, if you did more, if you were more diligent... I started off by sharing my own story because I wanted the readers to know, I'm in this with you.

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Sometimes when you're talking to a therapist, people, especially when people have no concept of what therapy is, you can feel so nervous. If this is an expert who's never gone through anything, how do I convey my pain in a way that is honest, but doesn't make me feel “crazy”?

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I've had clients say that before. I was like, this book, I pray reaches the people who want to go to therapy, but are really skeptical. If they're skeptical, they need to know that I'm a person too. That I was first in the same seat as them before I was in the seat of a therapist.

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Alison: That's exactly right. We're fellow pilgrims on this journey. As therapists, we have our own pain that we bring to the table. I loved it. I thought it was really a powerful story. I can imagine it was very vulnerable to share. As therapists, we're trained in a way, not to bring forth our own stories. So that adds another layer of dissonance sometimes, about sharing from behind the scenes. I really appreciated that you did that. It's really powerful. 

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One of the things you talked about was what it was like growing up as a twin. I thought this was so interesting, Kobe, and I wanted to touch on it because we often think of trauma in the context of our families of origin.

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I thought it was so interesting that sometimes these sibling relationships, even siblings we love, can evoke feelings of shame and trauma inside of us. You talk about being the “bad twin" and how it was almost sanctioned by that narrative about you. There is a moment you describe where some family members, it was your aunts, even verbally are like, yeah, you're the bad twin. 

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You know what I thought? Oh my gosh. It's just, it's one of those things that's so relatable. I know so many of my listeners are like, yeah, I was the scapegoat. I was the bad one. And that creates this narrative in our mind. Talk to me a little bit about how that affected you and how that damaged some of your own internal self concept.

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Kobe: Yeah, absolutely. I talk to my clients about the ways that we find ourselves aligning with things that people say; my clients may say something like, oh, I'm not allowed to do that. I can't do that. I'll say, whose voice is that? They'll be like, what do you mean? I'm like, if you weren't saying that to yourself, who's the first person that comes to mind who would say that to you? We forget that we absorb the voices.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Kobe: I found out at 25 that I know all the words to Shania Twain's song. I'm like, oh, I guess I have heard this so many times that my brain just learned it. I didn't even know. I wasn't sitting down to learn the words.

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I absorbed it because my brain was hearing it and my brain kept it. And that's how it was for me being labeled the bad twin. I had absorbed that. Also, when you have two people who have similarities in every way, people love dichotomy. People love a hero and a villain.

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People love yin and yang, good and bad. They love that differentiation. I was the loud, excited, athlete, theater kid. My sister was a little more quiet and reserved and artistic. I started to live, and I say this in the book, that we live in the stories we tell ourselves, but the stories we tell ourselves are often stories that were told to us first.

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I was told the story that I was a bad kid. Then I started regurgitating to myself that I was a bad kid. Then I started living out what I thought a bad kid would be. Yeah.

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Alison: It's so true. Even listening to you, I have an older sister and we weren't twins, but there was a narrative around, she was the writer. I still remember to this day, I've now published several books and it's still, “I'm not a writer. This isn't who I am”. Because the narrative in our family is that she was more literary. I love what you're saying. Whose voice is that? Whose voice is that? Because sometimes we don't even know we've subconsciously absorbed and believed the story and it feels so true. 

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Kobe: Absolutely. One of the examples I give to my clients is, if I say twinkle, twinkle, little, and I stop there, I said what happens? They're like, my brain says star. I'm like, yeah, your brain filled in the blank before you had time to even think about the fact that there was a blank. If I asked you, when's the first time someone taught you that song, you probably couldn't remember.

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Alison: Yeah. Powerful. Thank you.

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Kobe: That's how those narratives work.

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Alison: Yeah, it's just, I'm the bad twin. It's almost subconsciously, you could fill in that blank and it's hard to take that out and examine it for the truth of it without first becoming conscious that you even have that belief hidden in there.

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Kobe: Yep.

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Alison: So you become a therapist. What was that leg of the journey? Like, how did you decide I want to not only heal, but I want to study this so that I can help others.

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Kobe: Do you want the honest answer? I feel like I found out I wanted to help people after I got into grad school. I knew that I wanted to help people, but I was in a space where I was like, maybe I'll be a campus minister. I want to help people. I didn't know exactly how. So I was like, God, I'm going to apply to grad school. I only applied to one school, Gordon Commonwealth. I was like, if I get in, it's a sign. 

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So I got in and I was like, oh, okay. I loved my program in many ways, but I really struggled finding a therapist who understood my African context, who understood my black context, who understood my Christian context.

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So it felt like I had to choose. I had to choose either a Christian therapist or a black therapist. I couldn't find any African therapists, and I felt like I couldn't find someone who I didn't have to spend time educating. I thought, you know what? I will be one, I'll be one more person in this space that people can come to and know that there is someone who understands the nuances and the complexities of what it means to be all these things, including a twin. What it means to be all these things. 

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When I got into the field, I knew that I wanted to learn diligently, but I also knew that I didn't want to lose who I was as a person. The book really demonstrates that. I was like, I loved therapy and sometimes I felt like I had to pull the personality out of my therapist. Are you a human? Are you connecting to me? Do you see my pain? Does this hurt you too?

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I knew I wanted to be that therapist. I wanted to be a therapist who obviously honored all the ethical guidelines and all the legalities and stuff, but I wanted to be a human being. I knew that was something, even when I look at my African background, I look at my Christian background, stories are core to trust building and core to community healing.

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I knew that in the way that I did my work, I would put part of my story as a tool and maybe not in the clinical settings all the time. I sometimes reflect off clients' experiences. But this book was a really great way for me to be able to do that in a way that honored my boundaries as a therapist, but also helped serve in a way that aligns with my personal values.

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Alison: I love what you're saying. I'm a human as a therapist, right? My whole self is in this. The book reflects that. There's so many different ways you reflect in the book, those different elements of your story as a Christian, as a Black woman. You talk in the book about how specifically for your client case studies, as we know, when we write up client case studies, composites are composites.

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We are always very careful. But one of the things you said is, I'm going to intentionally use African names for my clients as a way to honor that part of my heritage. I loved that. There were so many ways. It's all those threads. We bring all of that. I love that you're doing that. I love that you're creating that space for other people. That's so beautiful. 

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One of the things you're saying is so important for the listener to hear. Sometimes we have to work for that. Sometimes we have to wrestle for that person who really gets us. It's not sometimes so easy to find a therapist; sometimes we have to work for it. Internally we might be like, oh, this isn't really a fit or they're not really getting me. 

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There's a little bit of wrestling, and sometimes it can take a minute to find that person where we're really like, oh, this person gets me. Along your journey, whether in graduate school or after, have you found some folks who have stood out in that landscape and what was that like for you?

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Kobe: You know what's really interesting? I found those people, but I found those people only after I accepted that maybe the most important thing is that my needs get met. They didn't always fit the bill. I was like, I want a therapist like me. I was sent therapists that were completely opposite of me in thought, in, in religious belief in race, in all of it. 

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Those were the people that were so powerful for me. It was like, I had to get desperate enough to say, is this person qualified to help me process trauma? Yes. After going, I realized it was rewriting the internal narrative–maybe I don't need all the things that I keep telling myself I need.

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Maybe all these rules I've set on myself to make healing possible and accessible are really barriers to me getting well. When I started accepting that someone does not have to meet all of my specific criteria, I started finding the right people at the right time in my journey. I found the right therapist for when I really needed to process some trauma.

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I found the right therapist for when I really wanted to navigate the nuances of marriage. I found the right therapist when I really wanted to process what it meant to become a mom, the right therapist as I built my business, and It was really cool. Sometimes even in those different stages, those therapists evolved with me, which is really cool.

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Therapists get training and they try different modalities and it was cool to be on the receiving end of that, even as a therapist. But I love the fact that my therapists were not always the people that I thought I needed. And yet they shifted the trajectory of my life in ways that I can't express because I was willing to be open.

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If anyone's listening, I would say put the first thing first. Put the first thing first. If you're really struggling with anxiety, find someone who specializes in anxiety and let yourself be surprised. If you're surprised in a way that you don't like, it's okay to change your mind.

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Alison: I love that. It is first and foremost, a relationship, and then first and foremost, it is about the specific thing that you're struggling with. There is an expert, there's someone there who's trained. People always ask me if you should only see a Christian therapist.

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All I can say is, in my experience, it really depends on the topic, but one of the therapists who's been the most helpful to me does not share my faith background at all. What's been so helpful is she can actually see the ways in which I can defer that subtle spiritual bypassing, using, “oh, wait, now, wait a minute, let's examine that a little bit”. 

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It's still very respectful of my beliefs. It's always been really interesting to me, to your point, sometimes help comes in the places we least expect it.

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Kobe: Yeah, I tell my clients who ask similarly oh, I'm only looking for a Christian therapist and I'm like, I'm sure it'd be great to have a Christian therapist, but also let's say you're looking for a therapist and they're not Christian. How do you know if they're a good fit for you? I said the best, the most powerful marker of someone who could truly help you is their humility and their curiosity. Are they willing to believe you? That you're the expert of your experience?

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Because I'll say, sometimes, that can be hard for Christian therapists. Sometimes we're like, oh, I know the spiritual answer to this in Mark chapter eight. We have to remind people that, like I mentioned in the book, my greatest breakthrough in my walk with Jesus at that time was with a therapist who did not believe in Jesus at all.

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She was like, Oh, Jesus is so kind. Why is he always mad at you? If he's so full of grace, how come every time you talk about him, like he doesn't sound very graceful? We're doing EMDR and she was like, do you want to invite Jesus into the room? I was like, yeah. It was a moment that literally shifted my entire life and my entire way of doing therapy.

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And she was not a believer.

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Alison: What a powerful story. I love that. She held up the mirror to you about your own beliefs and challenged some underlying assumption there that wasn't really about Jesus, but it was about, again, to your point, these messages that you had picked up.

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Talk to us a little bit. About your understanding of trauma, how you talk about it with clients, how you understand it, how you look for it as a clinician.

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Kobe: Yeah. We love to talk about trauma nowadays, especially on social media, but I come from a more subtle point of view. There's a lot of people who experienced trauma who do not recognize it as trauma because it's not a car crash, it's not an assault, it's not a tornado. I tell my clients, trauma is any past event that affects how you show up in the present and how you perceive the future. 

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I differentiate between something that hurts and something that's traumatic. Something that hurts does not shape the way you live your life from that moment forward.

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Alison: That's good.

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Kobe: It does not create a sense of anxiety, worry, fear, or self-loathing from that moment forward. When we experience trauma, it really is us experiencing a level of distress that far surpasses the skills we have to manage that distress. So your body is reliving, not remembering, it's reliving those experiences from the past in the present, which is why you have distress in the present.

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I try to help people understand that trauma are these wounds. In Greek, the word trauma translates to the word wound; they are wounds that need to be healed and tended to, and some wounds heal up perfectly and you can be good as new and run as fast as you did before. There are some wounds that will leave scars and some wounds will leave a little bit of a limp, but there's always healing that can happen. 

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That's something that is really important to say. It sounds so simple, but as much as we have educated people about trauma online and in our work, we have not educated them that you can heal from trauma. There is a world in which you can not meet any of the criteria for PTSD. 

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I remember one of my clients' faces. We've been working together for three years and I was like, hey, let's go through your treatment plan. I said, how do you feel? She's like, I feel like a new person. I'm going through all the things. I'm like, you no longer meet the criteria for PTSD. She was like, what do you mean? I was like, you no longer meet the criteria for PTSD. 

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This diagnosis is no longer current. She was like, I thought when you're diagnosed with something, you have it forever. I said, there are some things that are on the more chronic side, but no, there is a resolution to trauma. There can be a resolution to trauma. Anytime I talk about trauma, I promise myself that is something I will say out loud. Trauma can be resolved the same way it can be inflicted. It is the same way that it can be resolved.

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Alison: Yeah, that's really good. I really appreciate what you're saying. We had a psychiatrist on the podcast last week and we were going back and forth on the value of diagnoses. One of the things he said was, it should help us mark the path toward healing, as opposed to putting a label on, this is my identity.

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To your point, sometimes we have a diagnosis that will be with us for a long time, but it should help us. I love what you're saying there, especially about PTSD. We want to name it. It's so important to name it for what it is, so that we can get on the right healing path therapeutically, but not so that we have to just live in it for the rest of our lives. It's so hopeful.

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Kobe: Yeah. It helps us see exactly what is being healed.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Kobe: I no longer have flashbacks and I had flashbacks. I no longer have nightmares and I had nightmares. That has been healing for my clients. They're like, wow, because when you're along the journey, sometimes you miss the ways you're being healed. As soon as one thing is restored, your mind is like, now we need to focus on this. 

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Sometimes it's so good for you to look back and be like, wow, these are all the things in the last three years of therapy that I once carried that I no longer carry as a daily experience.

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Alison: I love that. I love the intentionality with which to pause and look at that. Because if we don't do that, life is challenging, and new challenges will come up. We'll have new relational challenges. Our kids will go through stuff. We're always going to have stuff, but to pause and go, in this particular part of our healing, look at how far we've come.

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That's really beautiful. In both your personal experience and in your work as a clinician, what are some of your favorite practices or modalities or your favorite ways to get into the deep tissue work of trauma work?

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Kobe: Yes, this is one of my favorite questions. I love psychodrama and sociometry. 

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Alison: I love it. Yeah.

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Kobe: Because the world is virtual, there's a lot of adaptation and we don't get to go as deep, but I truly believe that imagination sometimes gives us access to a heavenly reality that already exists, but we haven't had the courage to access yet. Pretend you're not yourself. Pretend you're somebody else. Pretend you could go back. 

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It is such a powerful reminder that the trauma is in the present because the moment I set up the room and we pretend like you're back there, you're actually back there. Your body feels that way. The tears are there, the feeling, the shaking, and we can go back with the resources of the present to the wounds and apply them to the wounds of the past. 

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We can take the wisdom of the present and apply it to the wound of the past. I love that about sociometry and psychodrama and gently, skillfully replaying some moments that are deeply wounding and giving people a chance to do it again.

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I had a psychodrama moment with a client who got to go back and say goodbye to her father who passed away. She missed that moment and she went back and said goodbye. It did something. Movement, action–healing is holistic. It's not something we think ourselves into. It's something we move ourselves into. I can talk about this forever, but my favorite is seeing people access the reality that play and imagination are our core to healing.

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Alison: It's one of the things I love about IFS, the internal event where you can go back to that. But I love how in the book you actually talk about your own experience in a group.

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Kobe: On site. Yep. At on site.

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Alison: Even when you said that right now, I could feel in my body, some things I'm working through with some family of origin stuff, even at my age, with older aging parents. When you said it, I could feel it in my body. Oh, wow. That's what's going on. I'm back in that 10 year old self where it's like, oh, I can't say this. I can't do this. I can almost feel the tears come to my eyes. 

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Because current situations and different life transitions bring up those old memories, those old emotions, and to have that opportunity, like you're saying, to go back with someone else witnessing you. It's so powerful. It's so powerful.

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Kobe: Yes. Even thinking about the reality that community is such a powerful context to heal in. But that doesn't mean we always have to heal in community in the way that we've always been taught. So for that client, they were really struggling with the reality of, I can't break down because this other person in the room needs someone to be strong. All the strings were attached to my reaction. 

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But when you go back to psychodrama, there are no strings attached to your reaction. You get to become more aware of the strings attached to your reactions, into your emotions, into your expression. But when it's time for you to really release, there are no strings attached.

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These are strangers. We'll never see each other again unless you want to keep in touch. This gets to be about you, in the context of your unresolved pain, without you having to carry the burden of how other people will think and react.

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Alison: Man, I love what you're saying about community because you're right. Coming out of church backgrounds, it's so different what you're describing. I want people to read that part of your book where you talk about your own experience at Onsite. It's with anger. It is powerful and it's a different layer. It's not talking, head-confessing all these things. You were in it. You were in it. 

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Kobe: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's my favorite thing. I had a retreat this year in February, where we were in the Charlotte area and I did a psychodrama trauma intensive. It was in a beautiful lakefront house and we were screaming and crying and it was great. I loved it. It was amazing. It was so fun. Sometimes people think, but I can't do that. No, you can, but you're right about the fact that it's not safe to do it in that context.

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Alison: Yeah. Yeah. You couldn't do it then. Here's a different context in which, what is it like to experience that with people in the room who can hold the bigness of it? Of what you're feeling and of who you are in this moment, all those fears? I love that. So now you are, man, you're, you've written this book, you're speaking, you're seeing clients, you've got two kids.

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Kobe: Babies.

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Alison: Babies. There's so much going on in your life. What practices are you personally engaged with that help you, because as you and I both know, the process of healing is a journey, it's a practice. So what practices help you stay grounded, stay inwardly attuned yourself, to your own needs in the midst of all that matters to you?

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Kobe: I try to make sure that every morning I read my Bible and pray and do some breathing exercises. The Dwell app. This is not an ad. The Dwell app has been incredible for me. They do guided meditations, Lectio Divina, breath prayer, and I facilitate that with lots of clients. But you can't facilitate it for yourself as easily.

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Sometimes it's nice to be led. So I try to do that in the mornings, get outside, drink water, and take my vitamins. I also go to therapy. I love my therapist. She is in many ways a lifeline for me. I have my therapist and I lean into my community. There's something really cool about having a community in which no one carries everything.

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There is a time, especially as a church girl, you can be like, oh, I have my small group and they are my community and they hold everything for me. Or my husband holds everything for me, or my best friend holds everything for me. But there's been a powerful shift for me, where I've been able to say, nobody has to hold everything for me.

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It's been cool to be able to say, I have to hold some stuff for myself. I have an incredible husband who holds things for me. I have incredible friends who show up for me and I love showing up for them. I have a therapist, I have a church community. So I have been really leaning into the season being connected because I think, honestly, I'm still dealing with some of the effects of COVID-19 from 2020. I know it feels long ago, but I was pregnant the entirety of COVID. I found out I was pregnant with my son two days before the lockdown started.

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I was so excited. I was like, yes, a two week break. This is going to be so great. Remember when we were excited? Lord, we didn't know. We did not know. I was so excited to have that break turned into a season of anxiety, of fear, of all the things. Reinvesting back into community and giving of myself to community and letting myself receive community has been the biggest ritual for me.

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Alison: I love what you're saying about not putting it all in one place, diversifying in a way, making sure there's different pockets. I also think you're making a really good point. I've noticed this as well, to not underestimate the ripple effects of that shutdown. Especially on our rhythms of community. 

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There have been so many changes, even the virtual space and all the things, so we shouldn’t underestimate how we continue to work through that. I'm curious, we have this category when we think about therapy. I don't know if the listener is aware of this, but we tend to think of, are you in maintenance, which means you're essentially doing well, but you continue to see a therapist to stay tuned up, versus when you're going because you need a very specific targeted intervention. Do you keep up a maintenance approach to therapy for yourself?

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Kobe: Yeah, absolutely. I realized that by the time I'm realizing something is wrong, something's been wrong for a while. So the way that my brain naturally works is that you definitely know what it means to have book deadlines and see clients and you're showing up on social media, you're engaging in your personal community, you're trying to engage your online community, you have a family, like you have your own world outside of this digital world.

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Probably two years ago, when writing my book, if I am like, whoo, something's not right, I need to talk to someone. It's probably not been right for a little bit.

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Alison: I love that self-awareness. This is a proactive thing I can do, to keep having someone check in on me. I agree with you. I've got to have someone asking me, because yeah, you're right. By the time you're asking for help, it's an emergency.

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Kobe: Things change so quickly. Truly things change so quickly. We've seen this week, and current events, and I've realized it is much better to go to therapy and have nothing to talk about than to have to reestablish a therapeutic relationship and see if a therapist has an opening.

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As a therapist, my books are full. Some of my clients have been discharged and decided not to do maintenance. Sometimes when they want to come back, I would love to, but there's no time on my schedule. So part of it is also protective, like knowing that I always have access to support whether I feel like I need it in a dire way or not.

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Alison: Oh, that's wise. There's so much wisdom in that. I would say to the listener, if you find someone, especially someone that you connect with that really can help you, that's a relationship. I understand there's a cost, there's expense. That's hard.

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Kobe: I'm cosigning you. Don't let ‘em go.

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Alison: And you can talk to them about that. Say, I want to keep this relationship. Could we go to monthly? Could we go, especially if there's a financial burden to that, talk that through with a therapist and ask about that. 

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Kobe: Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself. I had a client who was like, can I do 15 minute check-ins? Can we prorate it to 15 minutes? I was like, sure. So now we do 15 minute check ins. When we started realizing that the 15 minutes was getting a little tight, she was like, can we do 30 minutes? I will. 

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I don't typically advertise 30 minutes, but we've built such a longstanding therapeutic alliance. I've been seeing this person for years and that's also the benefit of working in private practice. I'm able to add things based on people's needs. Then it was, hey, can we go back to a full session? Yeah, we can go back to a full session. 

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So don't be afraid to ask once you've built a relationship with your therapist. Don't be afraid to ask if they're willing to accommodate the way they provide services to meet your needs. Because sometimes the answer is yes.

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Alison: That's right. I love that. Advocate for yourself. I love what you're saying. Because I've had that happen where I'll be like, oh, I need a little tune up. Then suddenly I'm like, oh, we'll be doing some major deep work for months.

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Kobe: See you next Tuesday.

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Alison: Yeah, exactly. We are all in that boat. All right. So I am so thrilled for you joining us. I have a few questions I like to ask all my guests, but before we go there, I want to ask you, where can people find your work? I know all my listeners are all going to want to come work with you. So where can people find you? At least they can get your book because it's so good.

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Kobe: Absolutely, you can go to kobecampbell.com. All my social media handles are kobecampbell_. So YouTube, Instagram. TikTok, all of those spaces. Unfortunately, there are a lot of fake pages and I'm not verified on all platforms. So remember it has an underscore at the end of it.

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You can get my book, Why Am I Like This, really anywhere where books are sold. Target, Walmart, Amazon, Books A Million, Barnes and Noble. Yeah, you can grab it in any of those spaces.

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Alison: Such a great resource. Strongly encourage everyone to check it out. It's so good that you go really deep into what some of these interventions look like and how you apply them. The ACEs, you talk a lot about the history of trauma, how it's been understood.

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It's a really great resource. All right, Kobe, what would you say to that younger 20 ish girl who you opened up the book with, what would you say to her now, if you could spend a little time with her?

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Kobe: I would say to her, “you have no clue what that seed of courage created in your life, that life gets so much better, and even though this moment feels so big, there are going to be some days where you forgot it even happened”.

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Alison: I love that.

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Kobe: And you go girl. Add that in there too.

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Alison: I love that. I'm so happy for her that she has you.

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Kobe: Thank you. Me too.

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Alison: Yeah. What is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Kobe: What is bringing out the best in me? Talking to my friends. Friendship is one of the relationships that we forget also needs maintenance. It's been so cool to, as my career has evolved, to let my friends into different nuances of the career. Because I realize that I published the book and none of my friends knew what publishing entailed.

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When I was stressed out about deadlines and editing and stuff, they didn't know how to comfort me because they didn't know. It's been cool, saying this is what I do and this is how I do it. This is why it stresses me out sometimes. This is why I love it. That has been great and moving my body. Moving my body and deciding that there does not have to be a limit or a goal.

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Kobe: Five minutes dancing, walking, whatever it is, it's about moving my body. Reminding myself that I'm alive, reminding my body and my limbs that they're still needed and not about achieving any goals.

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Alison: I love that. I love that. I love what you're saying about updating your friends and bringing them into your professional life. It can be easy to create a dichotomy there, I know I've discovered, so I love what you're saying. Sometimes our friends don't know something over here has changed.

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It can happen with vocation. It can happen when you become a mom. It can happen in different seasons of life where our friends don't necessarily know, to take the time to go, hey, I want to let you into this. I love that. That's beautiful.

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Kobe: Yeah.

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Alison: Last question, what needs or desires are you working to protect?

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Kobe: Oh, that's a good question. I'm protecting my need to rest. I'm rediscovering what rest is. I recently went on an eight day vacation and I brought my laptop and I realized that my idea of rest was being able to work without interruption. 

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Alison: I relate to that.

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Kobe: Every time I tried to open my laptop, I couldn't do it. The entire eight days, it was probably the first eight days of my life since summer break in high school that I did not work a single moment. I was like, whoa, like it was mind blowing.

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I was like, oh, this is rest. Then protecting that, like I'm discovering that rest. It's truly delighting in the present without a constant need to try and work for what I need to be reaching for in the future. I'm trying to protect that. I got a lot of self-talk of, it's okay if this doesn't happen. This being book two. If it doesn't happen in this time, it means that you are a better person when it comes out.

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Kobe: If you're healthier, if you're more well. I’m trying to present the best. 

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Alison: That's good. I love that. I love that. I honor that in you. The both-and. The part of you that strives and the part of you that's okay. Good for you. I love that. I love that. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your time and presence and talents and words of wisdom with all of us.

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Kobe: Thank you for having me. It's great talking with you.

Why do I struggle with mental health?

How do I respond to Christians who claim there's no such thing as mental illness?

What does my mental health diagnosis mean?

If you've asked any of these questions, you don't want to miss today's episode! Join me as I discuss these crucial topics with Duke University psychiatrist and theologian, Warren Kinghorn, a leading expert in integrating Christian faith and mental health.

Here’s what we cover:

1. Does anxiety come from inside of me or outside of me? (7:22)
2. The most important questions we must answer as human beings (11:03)
3. What are the 7 benchmarks of mental health? (30:57)
4. What is a Christian vision of flourishing? (34:27)
5. Warren’s response to John MacArthur’s claims that there is no such thing as mental illness (41:08)
6. How to think about diagnoses & what to look for in a clinician (46:23)

Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here.

Do you have questions for Dr. Alison?⁠ Leave them here.

‍

‍Thanks to our sponsors:

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‍

Additional Resources:

• Connect with Dr. Alison on Facebook or Instagram
• Leave your questions here
• Wayfaring: a Christian Approach to Mental Health Care by Warren Kinghorn
• The Best of You by Dr. Alison Cook
• Romans 12

‍

‍Related Episode:

• Episode 45: Strong like Water—Finding the Freedom, Safety, & Compassion to Move through Hard Things & Experience True Flourishing with Aundi Kolber

‍

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.

I'm so thrilled to introduce a brand new series called Therapists on Therapy, where I've invited some amazing thinkers and thought leaders at the intersection of faith and mental health to talk to us about current best practices in the field of mental health, as well as some specific areas of specialty that many of you have asked about–things you've struggled with in your own life or loved ones have struggled with. 

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I wanted to bring in some of the wisdom of the room to go deeper into some of these topics. And my goal is to equip us to understand how to advocate for ourselves, how to get the support and the help that we need. Life is hard. We are all facing a lot of challenges. I know so many of you, whether it's in your own life or whether you're parenting kids or whether you have friends or spouses who are going through hard challenges—You're trying to get to the root of the challenge that you're facing, and figure out the best way to get help through it. And in this series, I want to introduce you to some of the leading voices and the leading topics in the field of mental health so that together we can equip ourselves to become the best version of ourselves in partnership with God's spirit.

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If there is a specific topic you'd love for me to cover or a specific therapist you'd love for me to invite on for this series, please let me know. You can find me on Facebook or Instagram @DrAlisonCook and leave a comment for me under any post. I'll look for those there. You can also leave a review for the podcast. In that review, you can tell me a topic that you'd really love for us to cover during this episode. 

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Finally, you can send an email to info@dralisoncook.com and we'll get that there. And we're also going to link to The Best of You Podcast question form in the show notes. So wherever you're listening to this episode, go to the show notes and you'll see that link where you can leave a question for us. You might have a question for us that you want us to answer during this series, or you might want to let us know about a topic you'd really like for us to cover.

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To kick us off in this series,  I could not be more thrilled to have one of the world's foremost experts in the topic of Christian mental health,joining us for a conversation about what is mental health? How is it different from mental illness? How can we begin to move toward a picture of wholeness, a picture of health that applies to all of us?

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Every single one of us wants to be moving toward mental, emotional, and spiritual health. And what does that even look like, especially for those of us who are Christians who are seeking to follow Christ and incorporate our spiritual lives into our mental and emotional health?

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Dr. Warren Kinghorn is a psychiatrist and theological ethicist at Duke University. His work centers on the role of religious communities and caring for persons with mental health issues and how Christians in particular can engage in mental health practices. He is on faculty at Duke Divinity School, as well as on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center. He is the co-director of the Theology, Medicine and Cultural Initiative at Duke Divinity School. And he practices psychiatry in the Durham VA medical center. Warren got his MD at Harvard university and his doctorate in theology at Duke university. He's brilliant. He understands the science of mental health, and he is a deep and faithful Christian.

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I loved this conversation with Warren Kinghorn. I'm always thrilled to find folks who are thinking on such deep levels about the intersection of Christianity and mental health. He has a brand new book out called Wayfaring: a Christian Approach to Mental Health Care. It's a fascinating, well-researched deep dive into the history of mental health in this country including some of the problems about how the field of mental health developed. It also includes a deep integration with Christian theology, spirituality, and practice. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Warren A. Kinghorn.

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***

Warren, I am so thrilled to have this conversation with you today. You are bringing such an important integration to light with this book, Wayfaring: a Christian Approach to Mental Health Care. One of the things I love, you argue that in light of the gospel, we see that mental health care at its best is not about fixing broken machines, but rather about attending and guiding wayfarers who are loved by God, who are on a journey to God, and who are invited by God's grace to freedom, wonder, rest, and loving relationship with God and others.

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I just, I loved that. That's the whole thesis of this book. We are not problems to be fixed. We are humans to be invited into a loving experience with God and with each other. And as a psychiatrist, as a Christian, there's a whole lot underneath that. I guess I wanted to start in the book, you spend a lot of time at the beginning talking about this medical model that psychiatry-to-date has really been a part of. What is that? What do we mean by that? And what are some of the issues with that, that you're trying to address in this book?

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Warren: First of all, Alison, thank you for having me on, and you so beautifully stated the central themes of the book. I do think that the medical model is tricky when we think as people of faith about flourishing and about mental health. I'm a psychiatrist, which means I'm a physician. I went to medical school, and I'm trained in medicine.

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I do believe in the goodness of medicine and of psychiatry, and there's ways in which thinking medically can actually lead us on the wrong track. There's a long history within modern medicine and also within psychiatry of thinking about the human being as a kind of machine, about the body as a complex machine, about the brain as a machine, about the mind even as a machine.

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And when things aren't going well, we sometimes think what's wrong is that the machine is somehow broken. There's something wrong in either neural circuits or in the brain or in the endocrine system. And we need to find what's wrong with the machine and find ways to fix the machine and to set it right again.

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But humans aren't machines. We're creatures and we're organisms. One of the things that I talk about in the book is the specific way that this machine way of thinking can show up in psychiatry. It's not always specifically related to thinking about the body being broken, but it has to do with how we organize our experience.

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So I'm a psychiatrist in the VA system. I see veterans and I'm really proud and honored to do that, but as a psychiatrist, when people come to me, they come with what we might consider unwanted experience or behavior. They're not doing well. They're having emotions they don't want to have. Their relationships are not going well. 

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In my clinic room, I listen to that and I say, oh, I now understand what's happening with you. These are symptoms. I rename the unwanted experience as symptoms. So the symptom might be lack of sleep or lack of interest in pleasurable activities. And then I aggregate those symptoms into diagnoses. 

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A certain number of symptoms over a certain period of time in psychiatry becomes a diagnosis, like major depressive disorder or ADHD or bipolar disorder. And then I can reach into my toolbox of evidence-based treatments and pull out treatments for this diagnosis. That could be a medication. It could be a referral for a form of talk therapy. It could be another kind of treatment. 

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I send the patient on, and then the patient comes back to see me a week or two or three or four weeks later, and I say how are things going? And in the medical model, if the patient comes back and they say my symptoms are improved, and I say great, the treatment's working and we're going to keep going with that–now there's a lot of good about that way of thinking. I want my patients to be in less distress. I want their symptoms to improve. 

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That way of thinking about mental health as symptoms that need to be improved, is one way of thinking about how we can develop new forms of therapy, but there's a lot that's left out with that as well. One thing that happens when we think about mental illness as this collection of symptoms that has to do with something that's broken in the body as a machine, is that it tends to focus attention on the inside. 

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We think that mental health problems are things that are inside us. They're internal to us. They're our unique problems. And we may not always focus on the relationships that we're part of, the communities that we live in, the broader culture that we live in. Another problem is that the focus of treatment is often on symptom reduction. So if I can prescribe a medication that is focused on symptoms and a patient says they're doing better, I think great, I'm doing my job as a psychiatrist. 

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What if that reduction of symptoms actually isn't helping the person to live more fully and wholly in the world and to experience a kind of fullness of life? Am I really doing my job? 

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People often think that the problem is that their brains are broken or their bodies are broken, and that leads people to think about biological treatments like medications as the first line of treatment. When maybe that shouldn't be the first line treatment–maybe talk therapy or other things should be first. 

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I think another problem is that that way of thinking often doesn't address the kinds of questions that we most need to answer for ourselves and with each other as human beings, which is, who am I? Do I matter? Am I loved? And what communities do I belong to or not? These are deeper questions that often can get ignored if we focus on this kind of mechanistic view of mental health treatment as managing symptoms.

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Alison: It's so profound what you're saying, especially from within the medical community. I know as an early therapist, training in a clinical psychology program, to your point, I remember a client specifically who was telling me all about her anxiety. She couldn't sleep, all the symptoms you're describing, that would classify as some sort of generalized anxiety disorder or specific anxiety disorder. 

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But as she told me her story, it turned out that her parents had kicked her out of the house at the age of 12, and that she was living by herself. She was 18 and having to support younger siblings. And I thought, of course you're anxious. Of course you're anxious. I write about this in The Best of You. As a human being, versus a therapist, the human being in me is saying, you need support. This is a community issue. The anxiety is not inside of you. 

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And that's what you're teasing out here. Seeing patients and then trying to figure out, what is actually the most helpful to this person in this situation? Is it a medical diagnosis that we treat with medication, or do we look at the whole context of this story? 

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Warren: And to be clear, when somebody comes in and they're really struggling with anxiety, they deserve and need care and help, and there's help for them. And that help may well be in medication. So medications can be very helpful as well as other kinds of treatment. But I think that it's important to think, what kind of picture are we looking at?

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Anxiety is a great example, but when I teach medical students and residents at Duke and my work as an academic psychiatrist, I often encourage them to think of what's happening with the patients for whom they care in two different ways. In my experience, it's really hard to keep these two things together at the same time.

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So this is a little bit simplistic, but I write about this in the book. One of them is what we might consider the “inside out" model of mental health problems, which is this basic idea that if I'm in distress, if I have anxiety, for example, then the problem starts from within me. It either starts from my genes or my neurotransmitters or my serotonin levels or maybe something deep inside my personality.

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Then that shows up in my relationships and in my community and in the way that I live my life. But the problem is on the inside. And it starts on the inside, and therefore I need to fix what's on the inside. Maybe things on the outside will get better. I encourage my trainees to think, what if we actually invert the view?

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What if we think of the primary problem not as something that starts on the inside of someone; maybe it starts in relationships or starts in the way that a community lives together or a school or a class or a church, or what if it has to do with our culture and being a place that there's so much uncertainty and fear and polarization?

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What if the anxiety that we feel is not something that starts from the inside, and shows up from the outside? It's something that's a reaction to very real challenges and stressors and trials that are happening all around us, and then it shows up on the inside of our experience, but also it marks itself in our bodies. We get tense; we start to have fight or flight responses. There's ways in which that affects us. 

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What if mental health problems are not problems on the inside but rather fundamentally problems of community and culture and relationship that then show up on the inside? How we respond isn't going to be like, how do I fix myself? It's going to be, how do I acknowledge what's happening around me and think about what that means?

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Alison: I love that. I want to pause here for a second. I love what you're saying. It resonates with my experience with clients. What does that mean then for how we approach care, if we're going to take into account the whole context? I know one of the things you talk about in the book is shame.

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That locating the disorder “inside the person” can really evoke shame. I'm imagining one of the ways this outside-in model is saying, this is a systemic issue. It's not your fault. Let's try to get to the root. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but how does it change how we approach our suffering and our clients who are suffering?

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Warren: Yeah, in part it has to do with not thinking that our struggles and our suffering are something that only has to do with us as individuals. We all become who we are in-relationship. We have an ongoing need for relationships, even if we don't necessarily always see that or acknowledge that or feel that in the same way.

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We experience it differently, but the way that we are together as human beings is really important. Much of our distress is a response, is a reaction, to very real things that are happening around us–to trauma, to stress, to violence. So the communities can either be accepting and loving or not.

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There's all sorts of ways in which we can respond. Social media, the way that we've become both polarized on social media and we're always thinking about, I'm not measuring up to others. My experience is that shame is a deeply important dynamic within a lot of mental health problems that's actually not talked about in that way, maybe as much as it should be.

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I think most broadly, and I love the work of Brené Brown on this, I love the work in the Christian world of Curt Thompson on this, but I think of shame as a kind of response that has to do with two ways of thinking. One is that I am not _______ enough, where the blank is whatever I perceive to be absolutely necessary to belong to a community that I really either want or need to belong to.

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I teach at a university, so that blank might be I'm not smart enough, I'm not well-read enough, I'm not social enough, I'm not orthodox enough, I'm not progressive enough, I'm not, all sorts of other things. That's the first thing. And the second, that because I am not _____ enough, when other people actually realize that, they will exclude me, and I'll no longer be welcome in this community.

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Shame is that fear that we are actually not enough for our communities and we're going to be excluded by them. And the natural response to shame, and we all feel shame at different parts of our lives and over the course of our lives, there's some unhealthy responses.

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We can try to block it out, and that doesn't help very much. We can try to numb our emotions through pleasure seeking behavior or substances or sex or lots of other things. We can shift it off by deflecting the responsibility to other people, which may be actually truthful in a way, but it doesn't necessarily help to deal with the dynamic.

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My favorite way of coping with shame over the years has been to work harder, to keep going, stay busy, keep achieving, so that I can convince myself and others that I am enough to be here, in whatever place this is. And that doesn't work well either. That's how people in mid-career, like I am, often get burnt out because they have worked harder and you cannot outrun shame forever.

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In the Christian world, the response to shame and I think even therapists would say this, is to accept it. To accept its reality, and to allow ourselves to take the risk to be vulnerable with ourselves and in relationships and in those communities. To realize that those shame-thoughts that we think we're going to be excluded may actually not be the case. To take the risk of showing up in vulnerable relationships. 

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As Christians, I think we have this incredible promise that no matter who we are, no matter what we've done, no matter how we've achieved or not, that God knows us and loves us and holds us and sees us as part of God's good creation. And that's such an incredible gift to us, because we come into this world loved, and nothing can ever take that away.

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Alison: I love that. It's beautiful that we have that resource as part of that shame resilience. What you would say to someone who is struggling with shame or is struggling with anxiety and has really felt like, “oh, this is something broken inside of me”. What would you say to that listener?

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Warren: To someone who's either struggling with shame, or with anxiety, or with anything else and thinks, oh the problem's me, then I think one is, don't try to fix it yourself. Bring that experience honestly to someone else, and for some people maybe that's not a professional. Maybe it's a trusted friend or a mentor. Maybe it's a pastor. There are lots of people who I think could help, but do consider bringing that into a relationship with a therapist and being open and honest about that.

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Frankly, when we're trapped in ways of thinking and feeling that have gone on for a while, and we think the problem is within us, it's almost impossible to talk ourselves out of that easily. Having someone else reflect our experience back to us to say, hey I hear what you're saying. Is this right? Maybe what you're feeling makes sense in a certain context of your relationships. 

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But also, being willing to talk about our experience with someone else in a way that makes us actually take some risks and feel vulnerable, that someone else is listening. The experience of speaking to someone else and having them reflect our experience back to us in a way that's loving, that's not immediately met with judgment, that allows a space to hold, that is itself freeing. 

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That itself is a treatment for shame, because it's no longer ours to bear alone. It's to be brought before others, and I think the way in which we can bring our shame, our anxiety, our fears, our experience that we don't want anybody else to know about, that's the path of healing.

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Alison: Yeah. To your point, it's such a paradox. So much of our pain, all the things that we struggle with, happen in the context of relationships. They're also healed in the context of relationships.

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Warren: That's right. That's right.

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Alison: There's this beautiful quote that you have about emotions that I wanted to ask you about. We talk a lot about emotions on the podcast. A lot of my listeners, including myself, have received messages from faith communities about emotions being bad or emotions being wrong. You're not supposed to have certain emotions. 

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We talk a lot on the podcast about honoring emotions as cues. You have this incredible quote, you look at emotions as “powerful signs of love that can orient the journey of the wayfarer”. Talk to us a little bit about that. What do you mean when you say emotions are signs of love that can orient us on our journey? That's powerful.

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Warren: Yes. In a lot of the book, I draw on the thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas, who was a philosopher and theologian who lived and wrote in the 13th century. A lot of people now would say, how could a 13th century thinker possibly be helpful for thinking about modern mental health care? But I try in the book to unpack how I think Aquinas is helpful.

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Aquinas was a Christian philosopher and theologian. He was himself someone who had a deep spiritual worship life and his central image of the human being was of the human being as a wayfarer, as a pilgrim, someone who's on a journey to God. So our lives are those of people on a journey, and we find our fulfillment in God.

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That's the vision that Aquinas gives to us. But one of the things that he was really emphasizing is that emotions (he would have said “passions”) are part of the good embodied human nature that God has given to us. It's good that we're feeling, passionate creatures. That's part of who we are and actually, when they're rightly ordered, that all the emotions actually are good for us.

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And Aquinas believed that we by nature are lovers. We can't not be lovers, because we're always loving those things that we think will either be good for us, or that are beautiful, or that will in some way lead us further on the journey. We're always drawn in love to people or things that we believe are life-giving and good for us.

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So it's not like we have a choice about that. We are lovers. Then all the other positive emotions take their form of helping us on that journey into our loves. Aquinas has this incredibly beautiful vision of us, drawn to someone or something in love.

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We have this desire to be close to that person or that thing. It's obviously very different in different contexts, and that when we find ourselves attaining union with, say, someone that we have not seen in a while and we love, and we're finally with that person, we feel a deep sense of delight and joy.

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Our lives are in this constant cycle of love and desire and delight and that helps to lead us on the journey. But then the negative emotions, or what we might think of as the unpleasant emotions, are also actually there for us. They're there to help us when we perceive something blocking our loves, or something that gets in the way of what's good for us or in the way of what will lead us into what's good and true. Then, we feel an aversion to that thing.

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If we find an obstacle that's coming toward us quickly, then we feel fear because we feel the need to get away. If we find ourselves oppressed and trapped by something that we don't feel like we can escape, Aquinas says our natural response then would be a kind of sadness. And maybe if we feel like we can actually escape, a sense of anger. 

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What Aquinas does is he encourages us, and I think he's speaking as a Christian here, not to see our emotions as these like unwanted things that happen in our bodies that we want to get rid of in whatever way, but to attend to how the emotions are in some ways signs of whom and what we love.

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If I'm feeling anxious about something, rather than seeing oh, I'm anxious, that anxiety needs to go away. What is my anxiety telling me? Maybe what I'm worried about is getting in the way of a pursuit toward what I love? Maybe it's that I'm in an academic program and I really want to finish and I'm anxious about a test and I'm worried that the test is going to get in the way.

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In some ways, even though I don't like that anxiety, it's a sign of what I'm being drawn toward. It's a sign of what I love. Thinking about our emotions in that way allows for a kind of freedom and a kind of celebration that even our negative emotions can in some ways be oriented toward the good and become things that we can accept and embrace as beautiful.

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Alison: Yeah. I love that as opposed to problems to solve. It’s part of this beautiful complexity that makes us human, makes us bearers of God's image. There's complexity to who we are. When we reduce all that complexity to a symptom to be solved, we miss out. So that leads me to the question then. What then is the goal? I think about this a lot. What is the goal of this healing journey, of this wayfaring journey? As we're talking, I don't think the goal is to eradicate some painful emotions or even emotions we don't like. I don't think the goal can be to eradicate all of the hard things because relationships are hard. In even the healthiest relationships, relational challenges surface. So sometimes I find myself asking, what is the goal of all of this, as we think about what it means to be human, as we think about what it means to flourish, as we think about mental health?

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Warren: Yeah. It's a great question because one of the curious paradoxes of mental health care is that we talk a lot about mental illness or mental disorder. We talk about mental health as a broad concept, but most people don't actually, in the clinical world, define what mental health is. We define disorders, but we don't define what we actually mean by mental health.

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I think there's a number of reasons for that, in part because when you really begin to try to pin down what mental health is, you start getting into these personal moral questions about what it means to live a good human life. And in the world of mental health, we're always a little bit leery of being too directive about that. 

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I talk about this in one of the chapters of the book–there are some areas of consensus about what mental health is in the broader world of mental health care, boiling down to these seven different things:

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One, mental health has to do with the security of our bodies and of our persons. It's hard to be mentally healthy in the midst of an abusive or traumatic relationship. Mental health does entail at least the capacity for a positive regard for ourselves and for our lives. The capacity for a full range of emotions, the capacity to feel sad when there's sad things that are happening, or angry when there's injustice happening. 

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The capacity to find meaning, the capacity for purposeful and engaging activity, the capacity for intimate and fulfilling interpersonal relationships, and then this general concept of the ability to respond flexibly and creatively to challenges.

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So mental health has to do with flexibility, with capacity, with ability to engage in relationships. When we talk about mental health in the broader world of psychiatry and mental health,I think we're aiming at something in that area. Christians can take it a step further and can say yes to all those things. All those things are good. We want to embrace all those things. 

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Certainly as a psychiatrist, I want to embrace those things for my patients and for myself. But Christians are going to say yes, but if any of those things are pursued as if that is the highest goal of our life, like if you live only for security, or if you live only for particular kinds of relationship, or if you live only for positive emotion, you're going to end up getting sidetracked because you're going to make those things your highest good.

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They're going to become a kind of god for you, and you're going to pursue those. Again, I'm drawing from Thomas Aquinas here. He'd say that anything that we pursue as our highest good is going to end up disappointing us. Christians believe that only when we pursue God as our highest good, when we're constantly allowing ourselves to be drawn in love for God and for God's creatures and for the world around us and for ourselves, can we really fully know the kind of fullness of life that God has for us.

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I want to embrace all these things that are said in modern mental health care, but also to say for Christians, we can think in a broader range because we believe that we're creatures of a God who loves us and who wants us to be in union with him. And that's really important.

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Alison: That is so interesting what you're saying. A couple of thoughts come to mind. There's a way in which science can give us those baseline categories that are important and valid. You can also see in the growth of the self-help and wellness space, how those can become gods. Sometimes I'm like, oh my goodness, I could spend my whole life pursuing those, and it almost feels exhausting to me. And yet they are important. We need to have resilience. We need to have the capacity for emotions–I won't repeat the whole list, but we need to have the capacity for all of those things. 

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And yet it's almost exponentially magnified when we bring the spiritual/theological dimension into it. What does that vision look like when we magnify those baseline goals of mental health and infuse them with the power of the Holy Spirit? What does that picture look like?

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Warren: Yeah, what does a Christian vision of living fully and wholly and look like? And how does that relate to the way that we talk in mental health care? I might start by saying that we are creatures of a God who loves us and who knows us and who wants us to be drawn into God's life and so we start there.

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Christians believe that God loves us and therefore we're able to love God. And I would say that it's God's love for us that is first. In God's grace for us, that then allows us to love God, to love ourselves, to love our bodies, to love our experience, to love the natural world around us, to love other human beings, even those who are enemies, to love all things, and we love it in the love of God. 

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We find ourselves as Christians loved by God, and able, in God's love, to love God, and ourselves, and our experience, and others in return. Our lives become, what does it mean to become deeper lovers of God and of all that God is and all around us? I think Christians believe that we are God's good creatures, that God knows us and loves us. 

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We believe that we're made in God's image, which I talk about in the book, there's a lot of wrong ways to interpret the image of God, but I interpret it as us having a kind of connection with God. A way of being part of God's life that can never be taken away. Christians believe that in grace, we're invited to participate in the very life of Jesus. We find ourselves in the Christian life loved by God, drawn by God into God's life, and invited to participate in Jesus’ life and in the life of the church. 

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That means that we become more and more able to love as Jesus loved. We become more and more able to give and to extend mercy as Jesus did. We become able to find, when we suffer, that we're in some ways joined by Jesus. Not alone, but able in some ways to be able to find ourselves in solidarity with Jesus and his suffering and Jesus in ours.

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We're able to know that death and suffering and sickness is not the last word, because we are part of a life who's overcome death and who is now raised and ascended and so we don't have to fear. In all these ways, being drawn in love toward God into Jesus' life, again, this is not something that you can talk about in modern psychology, but it is something that Christians can and should, I think, embrace as part of what it means to find fullness of life in Christ.

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Alison: I love that. I think about that as someone who straddles both worlds. Sometimes I'll find a client in my mind. I'm like, oh, this is almost pastoral. They need spiritual encouragement here. And then sometimes with clients, as I'm sure with you, you find, oh, we need to learn some skills here about emotional regulation. We need to learn some skills here about calming the nervous system. We need to learn some skills here about buoying up some resilience. We need to do some naming here of relational patterns that are toxic, that are hurting the person. So there's this psycho-educational intervention or psychological intervention.

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And then almost as often, even sometimes in one session, there's alongside of it, this deep spiritual grounding of, you are not alone. In all of this, every step of the way matters to God. If you leave here and you continue to have these anxiety attacks, God is with you in that.It's such a different picture: you're not alone in it. Every piece of the process matters. Even as you're learning these new skills, even as you're learning to enter into psychological healing, you're simultaneously being buoyed up by the spirit of God. It's hard to describe if you don't straddle both worlds as I think you and I both do.

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Warren: Yes, and you're mentioning the Holy Spirit–the Holy Spirit helps us in the process. The Holy Spirit is around us and preparing our hearts and our lives for these capacities to be drawn more deeply into love of God. So I think that's really important. It's all important. The kind of things that psychologists talk about everywhere, emotion regulation and and resilience and post traumatic growth. And all of these are goods. 

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To someone who's really struggling to find ways to live in the midst of overwhelming emotion or maybe thoughts of self-harm or other things, then the kind of things in the mental health world can offer to help people find freedom and to find ways to live with that, that's good and that's part of the journey and that's what's needed right then. 

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We don't need to be always going to these broader theological concepts all the time. Sometimes what people need is to find ways to care for their bodies at a particular point in time or to stay safe at a particular point in time and that's what's needed for the journey.

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Alison: Yeah, it's really the both-and.

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You mentioned that you had some thoughts on what John MacArthur said recently, I know it created a lot of buzz and a lot of firestorm. I don't want to talk so much about him per se, but I am curious about this, the persistence of. of that type of thinking in some Christian circles. How would you respond to that kind of a broad brushstroke of, "there is no such thing as a mental illness"?

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Warren: Yeah, John MacArthur created headlines recently by calling a lot of different psychiatric diagnoses, including ADHD and PTSD and bipolar disorder and depression, he called them noble lies, and he then later wrote a blog post on his church website, I'm forgetting exactly what it is, he called them noble lies and he called psychiatry a formidable obstacle to scripture or something like that. 

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I think that where MacArthur's coming from, he's been saying this kind of thing a long time, and he's by no means alone in the Christian world. He's worried about ways of thinking about mental health where people go to a clinician and they say, I'm having these experiences and the psychiatrist prescribes medication and they never talk about what's happening in a person's life or anything else. So in a way, I don't like that form of mental health care either.

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The problem is, that's not what most mental health care is. I think it was dramatically over-simplistic and wrong for MacArthur to say that. He questioned the existence of these diagnoses, but I think it's very important that we not question the experience that brings people into the clinic that ends up getting named as these diagnoses. 

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PTSD is real in people's experience and ADHD is real and bipolar disorder is real. Of course, these diagnoses are real. The central problem with MacArthur's perspective is that he's trapped in what I would call the “moral medical divide”, where he basically says our experience is different. When the body's sick, then that's a medical problem.

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So if someone's having a seizure or a meningitis, that's a medical problem, and doctors need to get involved in it, but when it's anything that has to do with human choice or action or motivation, it's no longer a medical problem. It's a moral problem. And in his perspective, it's the pastor that has authority over moral problems.

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Just as pastors shouldn't try to treat seizures, neither should clinicians try to treat depression, because he sees depression as a moral problem. And I think that's profoundly over-simplistic. Because anyone who either has experienced mental health challenges or who cares for people with mental health challenges knows that our experiences are embodied.

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They have to do with how our bodies work. The knowledge and practices of medicine and psychology and mental health care disciplines can be really helpful. But also, how we live with mental health challenges is part and parcel of how we live and how we respond to our experience and how we seek connection or not.

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How we act in response to our experience is really important and how we live through mental health challenges. We have to acknowledge that mental health care is a kind of moral guidance, you might say, and that it's a way of encouraging people to think about themselves in certain ways and to live in certain ways and to think about certain kinds of choices rather than others and certain kinds of things rather than others.

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It's also medical guidance that draws on the knowledge and practices of medicine and psychology and the mental health care disciplines. It's both. And I think it's important to acknowledge that it's both. I think where MacArthur goes wrong is also this idea that only pastors should be involved in moral guidance.

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My opinion is that it's practically not helpful, because there's a lot of people out there who have a long experience with helping people in distress to be in a better place or in the mental health disciplines. But also, I think about Romans 12, where Paul talks about the number of different gifts that are given to members of the body. There are gifts like leadership and preaching and teaching. But there's also the gift of mercy and an interesting gift called paraklesis, which is often translated as encouragement or exhortation.

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The Greek word parakaleo means either to encourage, to comfort, to exhort to console and it's used a lot in the New Testament. As a psychiatrist, a Christian psychiatrist, when I'm working with Christians, I'm in some ways bringing in my practice as a psychiatrist, something that can help with this spiritual gift of paraklesis.

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It is really important to think about that kind of care, not only as the pastor doing that. All the pastors do have a really important role, but also others of us who have particular forms of training are able to be involved as well. I respect some of what I think MacArthur is trying to aim at, but I think the way his critique is framed is profoundly over-simplistic.

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Alison: Yeah. I appreciate you speaking to that. I think for those of us in the community, yes, we see issues. There are some issues. As you're describing in Wayfarer, there are issues within the way that mental health is being addressed. It works itself out in the field of psychiatry, in the field of psychology. We're not blind to that. And also, it's not that simple. There's so much, even, you and I could go round and round about, oh, do I like the DSM 5 or don't I? Do I think there's a place for diagnosis? 

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Sometimes I find it very helpful to categorize a cluster of symptoms and put a name on it so I know what I'm dealing with. That's not the end game for most of us. I would argue for most of us practicing, it's very hopeful to give you a directional aim in which to begin the work of healing. There's so much more to it.

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Warren: Yeah, I've thought a lot about the DSM, and obviously I work with the DSM a lot as a psychiatrist and the DSM is an important document, but I think it's important to think about what it does well, and what it doesn't do well. At its best, the DSM is a guide, a list of diagnoses with particular definitions that psychiatrists mostly and psychologists and other clinicians have. over decades, put together, that helps to facilitate the work that we do.

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It's at best what the DSM IV called “a helpful guide to clinical practice” and it's informed by science. But it's also informed by the professional interests of people, psychiatrists, it's informed by a lot of complicated debates about what should be included and shouldn't. And it's not like it's dropped from heaven on tablets of stone.

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It's put together by people, but they're typically put together by people that are doing the best they can to try to think about what we see in clinical practice. There's often a concern in the general public that if something shows up in the DSM, that therefore it's being claimed exclusively by psychiatrists as a mental illness.

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There's often talk about the overdiagnosis problem. Most recently in the DSM 5 TR, “prolonged grief disorder” was introduced as a mental disorder. And there's been a lot of debate about that, including Christian circles, of, should we be medicalizing grief?

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And my position on that is that grief is a sign of love. It's a natural process. It's also the case that sometimes people can get stuck in grief in ways that can be really harmful. They can be having thoughts of suicide. They can be distancing from all forms of relationship. There's things that, especially grief therapists, can offer that might be really helpful in helping people through. 

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So it's not the fact that something shows up as a diagnosis that's the central problem. It's if people then respond to that diagnosis in ways that are mechanistic and impersonal rather than with the journey of the wayfarer in mind. So it's not diagnosis, it's how we respond to the diagnoses and how we live with diagnoses that really matters.

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Alison: It's a naming tool. I look at it as a naming tool. It helps us give a name to something, which we need to practically get at it. But then what we do with it, as you said, then you bring in, I love your vision of the Wayfarer. Okay. This is a spot on your map. In this part of the map, this is the name of the place at which you've arrived.

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You've arrived at the field of anxiety. Or you've arrived at the field of PTSD. This is what we're going to call it. It's a tough spot. It's not your destination. It's not who you are, but we can give that name to it, which will then help us figure out how to help you find your way through it and even out of it and into a different place.

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And maybe some of that will be using medicine. To help you see clearly again, some of that will be unpacking your story. My sense is that most of us working in the field understand that, but it does become really inflammatory when folks grab sound bites or reductive ways of viewing some of the work that we do. I appreciate you speaking to that. I think it's important.

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Warren: Yeah. I tell my trainees at Duke that a good psychiatric diagnosis is one that leads to a helpful pathway forward. And an unhelpful diagnosis is one that doesn't lead to a helpful pathway forward, even if it actually meets the criteria in the DSM. One clinical example, I won't go into any identified detail, but I had a patient a couple years ago, this is one example.

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The diagnosis of borderline personality disorder is often assigned reluctantly because they're concerned that it will lead to stigma. And I actually don't personally share that, but I think that's something that often is seen. I had a patient that came in a couple years ago who had a whole list of diagnoses when he came to see me.

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One of which is bipolar disorder, another of which was PTSD. There was an anxiety disorder diagnosis, and we talked about his experience. And one of the things that had been frustrating to him was he cycled through medication, after medication. It was mostly focused on treatment of bipolar disorder, and he wasn't actually getting better.

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He was feeling maybe less emotionally reactive, but he wasn't really getting to where he wanted to be. We talked through, “I wonder if you've considered this diagnosis of borderline personality disorder”. And we talked through in very general ways, like what kinds of life experiences often accompany that diagnosis, and what kinds of experiences people have when they live with borderline personality disorder.

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For him, It was really helpful and he wrote me a week later, and he said, “I've been reading about that diagnosis and it matches my experience so well”. For him then, it was a pathway, not to get him off of all medications, but it was a pivot from thinking about medications as the primary solution to his problems toward thinking about DBT and trauma-focused psychotherapy as the place where he would most want to invest.

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It shifted the way that we thought about treatment, and in that way, borderline personality disorder was a helpful way of naming his experience that helped to lead him to a health pathway forward. Diagnosis can be really helpful and important in that.

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Alison: Yeah, it's all how you use it. I love that nuance. I want the listener sticking with us through this conversation to hear, this is what you want to look for in someone who is providing care to you, someone who will help you find a well fitting name. I talk about that in my last book. What's a well fitting name? Not to pigeonhole me there, but to your point, to help me open up a path toward greater healing, greater understanding? The truth sets us free in that sense toward greater freedom. I love that. That's beautiful.

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Warren: I think you want somebody who's not going to be coming in as an expert saying, oh this is what you need and I'm going to prescribe this. But rather somebody who can come alongside you, who can look the other way at the world along with you and can say, what journey are you on? And what's needed right now?

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Alison: That's right. I love that. Thank you so much, Warren, for sharing your expertise, your wisdom. You have so much on your plate. You're doing so many things. Tell us where folks can find your work, especially your new book Wayfaring. It's called Wayfaring: A Christian Approach to Mental Health Care. It's an incredible deep dive into the realm of this integrative space that we talk about all the time on the podcast, Christian mental health. Where can people find the book and where can they find more about you?

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Warren: Yeah, thank you. The book can be found in pretty much any online outlet or bookstore. It's published by Erdman's Publishing and it came out in 2024. I'm easily searchable online and a number of my works are found by searching for my name and you can find some things that I've written online.

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I'd also invite anyone who's interested to learn more about our Theology, Medicine and Culture Initiative at Duke Divinity School. I have this unique experience at a faculty role at Duke where I teach in the medical school, but I also teach in the divinity school. And we actually invite mental health clinicians and and other clinicians to come and study with us in a seminary, in a program of Christian learning and formation. 

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Anybody who's interested in that could easily find us online at the Duke Divinity School Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative.

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Alison: I will be looking that up personally. That is very exciting. That sounds really cool. Thank you so much for your time and for all the work that you're putting into bringing so much goodness into the world. I know sometimes it's a unique journey as clinicians and as folks working in the field and I appreciate all that you're doing.

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Warren: Thank you, Alison. Thank you for having me on podcast and I'm really honored to speak with you. Thank you.

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What if anxiety isn't your enemy? What if it's trying to help? We all feel anxious at times. As we close out this series on Inside Out, we're bring you some powerful tips about how to transform anxiety into a powerful ally.

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Here’s what we cover:

1. The most important strategy when you feel anxious (12:59)
2. How to recognize the voice of anxiety (14:03)
3. The relationship between anxiety & numbing (18:07)
4. Healthy “escape” vs. unhealthy numbing (21:22)
5. How to understand passages like “Do not be anxious” in the Bible (22:36)

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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. Become the best version of yourself and get 15% off Ned products with code BESTOFYOU.
• Go to helloned.com/BESTOFYOU or enter code BESTOFYOU at checkout.
• Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code BESTOFYOU to receive UP TO 39%!
• Go to thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!

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Additional Resources:

• Inside Out 2
• Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller
• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
• Matthew 6:27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

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‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 67: The Link Between Faith & Emotional Healing—Gen Z, College Life, & A Hidden Search for Meaning with Cindy Gao
• Episode 39: Boundaries for Your Soul—How to Navigate Your Overwhelming Thoughts & Feelings
• Episode 41: Boundaries With Fear And Anxiety—How to Calm the Chaos Within and the Joy of Internal Boundaries

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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.‍

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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. We wanted to take this week to answer some of your questions. We noticed that there were several questions about the topic of anxiety, which made sense in light of the fact that we've been talking about the new Inside Out movie, Inside Out 2, where anxiety is a main character in the movie.

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So we wanted to take the opportunity to respond to some of your questions about anxiety, how it shows up and how it relates to different parts of your internal landscape. To facilitate this conversation, I asked my media coordinator and assistant Cindy Gao to come on and join me to have this conversation about anxiety.

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Cindy's story is a fascinating story and does involve confronting some of own experiences with anxiety when she was an undergraduate in college, and how that led her to an experience of faith in Jesus. You can find her story in Episode 67: The Link Between Faith & Emotional Healing—Gen Z, College Life, & A Hidden Search for Meaning with Cindy Gao. It's a powerful episode. She's also studying to become a counselor herself so this is a really rich conversation between Cindy and me as we try to answer some of your questions about anxiety.

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We also mention in today's episode a masterclass I did on the topic of anxiety. It was called, “I Shouldn't Feel Anxious”. It was a pre-order bonus item for those of you who ordered my book I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. I Shouldn’t Feel This Way takes you through three steps to name, frame, and brave painful or conflicting emotions.

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This masterclass was a bonus item I wanted to give you specifically about the topic of anxiety. So toward that end, if you listen to today's episode, as we're talking about it, and you want to get a recording of that masterclass, for a limited time here, I'm going to reopen access to that class. If you're interested in getting the recording of that masterclass, email your receipt for your purchase of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way to infodralisoncook@gmail.com. It could be the audio book, ebook, or the paperback copy.

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That's infodralisoncook@gmail.com and we'll send you a link to that masterclass. It's really designed to work in conjunction with the book. So we'd love to get that over to you. I know there is so much happening in our world right now that evokes feelings of anxiety. It's a normal emotion–all people experience anxiety from time to time, which is why I'm so glad that one of the questions that we address at the end of today's episode is specifically about those passages in scripture that caution us not to worry and not to feel anxious.

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We get into what I really believe Jesus wants us to know as we experience worry and anxiety, soi please stick around to hear that portion of this episode. I think it's so needed by so many of us right now, including myself. I'm so grateful that you're here. And I'm so thrilled to bring you this conversation between myself and Cindy Gao Higgs, all about anxiety.

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***

Alison: All right, Cindy, you've gone through some questions and you have some questions for us from listeners about anxiety. What are you finding? What are people asking?

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Cindy: Yeah, so the first question is inspired by Dwayne. Can you talk about the internal dialogue that our anxious parts might engage with when they're activated?

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Alison: Interesting. So he's asking how we become aware of the internal dialogue. Yeah. The voice of anxiety, it sounds like?

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Cindy: Yeah, or what might those anxious parts be saying to us, and what might the consequences be?

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Alison: Got it. Yeah. So this is very relevant to the movie that we've been talking about a little bit in this series, Inside Out 2. You've seen it, right Cindy? There's one scene in the movie where the anxiety part of Riley, the main character, there's a great big office cubicle with all the workers and every single one of the workers is busy trying to come up with worst case scenarios. Do you remember that part?

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Cindy: Yep. That was a great visual.

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Alison: And it's really a great creative depiction because it's not like we necessarily hear in our minds or in our spirits all of those worst case scenarios, “you're going to fail, people are going to hate you, you're going to look like a fool”. We don't necessarily perceive anxiety like that. It feels so chaotic inside of us. 

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But when you can slow the tape down, often it's those kinds of really self-defeating messages. Sometimes I like to think of anxiety like an antenna part of us that is serving the future. It's very future-oriented, looking for all the things that could possibly go wrong. Every single thing that could go wrong. 

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It's very subtle, though, especially when we use language from the internal family systems model, the IFS model, we're blended with it. We're not aware that it's the voice of anxiety–we think it's ourselves. It can be very subtle, but it's very futuristic. It's very oriented toward preparing for the worst. 

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Cindy: And I appreciate the language you've taught me from IFS of how it really is trying to protect us. It's not trying to ruin our lives, and you can see that in the movie as well. The character of Anxiety really wants the best for Riley. But, I don't know if there's too many spoilers in this–

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Alison: We'll give a blanket spoiler alert. If you haven't seen the movie, we're probably going to spoil it a little bit. It's still really worth seeing. These are not key plot points.

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Cindy: Right. So I'm thinking about when anxiety creates this hurricane, and what was also really beautifully depicted in the movie was Riley being able to ground herself with her five senses. Also, an embrace of anxiety is what ultimately led to her reaching a more calm space, not shaming anxiety because that would make the situation worse.

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Alison: Exactly. Exactly. Now they showed that so beautifully. I would say that in general, if we're really thinking about this internal dialogue that anxiety is feeding us, in Riley's case, it was all rooted in this fear of not being liked, not being loved, not being accepted, not being valued by her peers, a sort of social anxiety in a way.

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An interpersonal anxiety, almost terror that she had, that she wasn't going to have any friends. She had found out that her two best friends were not going to be joining her in that next season. She was feeling really alone and rejected. This is a really common route of anxiety. I'm reverse engineering here–let me rewind that to your point, Cindy. When you're working with anxiety, the paradox of it is that you're often trying to get to the root of the fear because the fear is usually really valid. 

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And by valid, I don't mean it's going to come true, but that it's a really normal human fear. What if I do fail? What if people don't like me? What if I do completely bomb at work or at school? And we see that in Riley's case, there was a deep fear that was really legitimate and really understandable about not being liked by her peers, by being left out, by being rejected, by not being accepted, but because she wasn't really dealing with that fear head on, the anxiety, like you said, like a hurricane was swirling around or trying to scenario plan to avoid something she hadn't really even come to terms with in a realistic, grounded way.

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I see that in my life. I'm curious about you, Cindy but in those moments where I notice that anxious dialogue, it's usually what about this? What about this? What about that? It's this very erratic, chaotic, it's not manageable. It's trying to help. It's trying to show you all the things that could go wrong. And it shows up as a lot of chaos and turmoil and kind of that amped up energy. 

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It's definitely more in the fight/flight side of the nervous system response. It's energizing in that way. We can get a lot done when we're really anxious. I can feel it in my body, all revved up. I get all the things done, because it amps us up. In that sense, it is protective. When we are able to slow ourselves down, we do want to get really curious about: what is at the root of all of those fears, all those constant fears?

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What's the real deeper root? So in my case, often it comes down to, what if I make a miserable fool of myself? What if I fail? What if this is a catastrophic failure? What if I get exposed in some way that feels really vulnerable? And when I can get to the root of that failure, I can actually then address that in a more meaningful way.

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How about you, Cindy? Are there ways that you notice anxiety showing up in your mind? How do you become aware that it's there?

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Cindy: Yeah, for me, Inside Out 2 really resonated, because I think the core belief that Riley started building for herself was the idea of “I'm not good enough”. And that's something that I notice in myself that kind of turns into a hurricane. If something happens, then that thought will come into my head and then I will feel the fight/flight like you described. And I usually notice myself shutting down afterwards.

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I feel overwhelmed. But being able to notice that process is incredibly helpful and I can know that I'm really overwhelmed right now. I'm not going to be able to make good decisions when I'm feeling this way. And I usually give myself some time to try and reach a place of calm.

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And then I can actually, it almost feels like reality testing, of what are these things that I'm believing? What are the conclusions that I'm drawing about myself because of what happened? I can't do that when I'm super anxious; the reality testing aspect doesn't work when I'm in that mentality of high stress, high anxiety. I have to wait.

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Alison: You're exactly right. We talked about this in the masterclass on anxiety. To Dwayne's question, when those parts of us start their chatter, it's usually more than one part. There's usually a little bit of anxious energy with all the different parts of us when they're getting ramped up.

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It's also often heady. It's often in our minds. We're not gonna fight the logic of an anxious part with more logic. It's too much. We really have to drop into our bodies, which as you said, they show in the movie Riley finally drops into our body and begins to notice the puck and the ice and everything around her.

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She drops into her body, which slows down all that firing. And it's when we get a little bit of that calm and we drop into our body and get a little bit more grounded that we can begin to realize, oh I'm scared. There's that root fear underneath all of that. And that's when we can begin to confront it.

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As you're saying, it's very hard to do when we're in that activated anxious state. So I think as far as the question goes, really learning yourself, learning what it feels like in your body, in your mind, learning the behaviors. Sometimes the behaviors can be your cue about the voice of anxiety in your life. I know for me, when I start compulsively need-meeting and people-pleasing.

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That is a cue that I'm anxious. And sometimes I don't experience it as anxiety. I experience it as being a helpful, nice person. But when I start to compulsively, I've got to do this, it’s like being in a batting cage where there are baseballs flying at me and I have to hit every single one and I'm exhausted, but it doesn't matter.

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That's how I become about meeting needs, responding to emails, responding to texts, getting things for my kids. And my husband will notice it. He'll be like, take a breath. There's an anxiousness in those responses, even though I'm doing things that conceivably could be good things. Again, we see that in the movie with Riley; initially, the anxiety helps her make a lot of goals. She's getting that puck, but it was the intensity with which she was doing it and the fear-based feelings behind it.

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Cindy: Yeah, that's really helpful, to notice behaviors that can point you to your inner experience. Because sometimes it can be hard to be super clear about all these inner thoughts you're having. But you can definitely notice your own behaviors. And that's a really helpful pointer to what you're feeling inside.

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Alison: Yeah, we can have high-functioning behaviors, overachieving behaviors, over-helping behaviors, that actually point to anxiety.

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Cindy: Great. We can move on to the next question that's inspired by Hailey and Sierra. The question is, is there a relationship between anxiety and the emotional numbness or lack of pleasure I feel?

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Alison: Wow. That's a great question. So to answer that question, I want to talk a little bit about the three categories of parts, according to the IFS model. You can get a deeper dive in Episode 39, where I go into a map of the parts of your soul. We talk about it a lot on the podcast. It's the topic of my book, Boundaries For Your Soul.

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There are two categories of protective parts of us. The manager parts are protecting us by trying to prevent pain from happening, and anxiety is very much a manager part. Usually there are more than one manager parts, and anxiety functions as a manager. It's trying to prevent pain. If I can work harder, if I can please more, if I can do more, if I can be more perfect, I won't have to experience pain. 

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Numbing parts belong to the second category of protective parts of us called firefighters. They're called firefighters because they're trying to put out the flames of pain after pain has surfaced. So if we have an injury, we get our feelings hurt, someone says something, we don't make a team, we get a bad grade–something happens and it hurts and we don't know what to do with it. So we numb, we shut down the pain. 

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These are parts of us that reach for the chips, reach for the food, reach for the booze, whatever it is, the shopping, the relationship. This is again, very academic. We don't always experience it this way in our systems. Anxiety amps us up. There's a proactive component to it. And we need a little bit of anxiety because it does help us in planning.

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It does help protect us when it's within healthy boundary lines. The opposite thing goes into effect when we're numbing, we're trying to shut it down. And you described that a few minutes ago, Cindy, when you notice the anxiety and the overwhelm, the next thing that you notice is shut down.

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That's your system trying to vacillate between the fight/flight of anxiety and then that rest and digest, that parasympathetic nervous system. Instead of being activated, you're trying to shut down the activation, but it's an overcorrection. Neither of those responses really help us look at what's hard, which is usually a vulnerability, that exile.

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We have to really be present to it from that calm place inside. So there's definitely a relationship between numbing and anxiety. Often we can turn to numbing to try to help shut down the overwhelm of anxiety.

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Cindy: Yeah, that's really helpful. And I can see a relationship of being anxious for so long, and then your body is just burnt out, and then it can very easily lead to numbing, because you can't be super activated and anxious forever. That depletes a lot of your energy, and you have to find a way to rest somehow.

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Alison: That's right. And we turn to these strategies. Again, you can look at it by the behaviors. Numbing behaviors might be, I don't know why, but I binged watched Netflix for 12 straight hours. Again, sometimes we do need to check out through watching a show for a few hours, because we had a really hard day.

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And I talk about this in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. The difference between numbing in an unhealthy way where we're trying to avoid what's going on versus healthy comfort, I need a break, is our level of conscious awareness. Am I waking up the next day and going, wow, I shut myself down for a day. What's going on? What's going on inside of me? 

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Or where we get an unhealthy inner landscape is where we're vacillating from the hyped up anxiousness to the shutdown of numbing. And we're never really engaging in that calm, clear place inside the Holy Spirit-led self, which is a calm nervous system, where we can really be conscious and wise about the decisions that we're making. 

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Cindy: Right. So moving on to our next question. This one is paraphrased from Rebecca: what do we do with Paul's command from Philippians 4 to have no anxiety about anything? And Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 6, “do not worry, for which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to your life?”

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Alison: Oh, I love this question. This is a great question. I am curious, Cindy. What have you bumped up against with these passages in your own life?

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Cindy: Initially, as I've read these passages, I have this feeling of, this is not nuanced enough. What do you mean do not be anxious about anything? And these instructions feel, just, I feel uncomfortable. But then I remember other parts of scripture, like in the Psalms, when David sounds pretty anxious about his enemies coming after him, and he's very honest about his anxiety.

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And I see that there is a place for anxiety; it's been canonized in scripture. I hold both of these at the same time, and it helps me realize that I don't think God is calling us to never feel anxious, that whenever you feel anxious, it's a sin. I really appreciated your masterclass on anxiety where you talked about how there's different types of anxiety and anxiety could be rooted in something that is more close to reality and other anxieties can be rooted in something that's less real, not really close to reality. And depending on the level of anxiety you feel, the consequences and the behaviors that it leads you to, some can be helpful forms of anxiety, and others can not be helpful. 

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So I think there's nuance when we take in all of scripture. To understand that, okay, these parts of the New Testament, we're told to have no anxiety, but in other parts of scripture, anxiety is present and it's not condemned. It helps me have a more nuanced view on anxiety when I take everything into account.

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Alison: I love that, Cindy. And one of the things I think about as you're talking is, what do we know to be true about Jesus and about his character? Was he condemning? Was he shaming? Was he judgmental? No, we know that this is not Jesus' character by anything we read about Jesus in the gospel or by anything we know about the fruit of God's spirit.

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What are the fruits of God's spirit? What are the signs that God's spirit is present? It’s love, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, joy, self control. We have to take, to your point, the whole context of what we know to be true about Jesus and God from all of scripture. So that's number one–I do not believe there's a tone of condemnation in these scriptures. 

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I think to myself, so what is Jesus trying to say? And I return again to IFS. We talk about this in Boundaries For Your Soul. I imagine Jesus, when you do IFS work and you engage an anxious part, or you engage the fearful, vulnerable, exile underneath that's terrified, we imagine how would you be with a young child who was scared and fearful? 

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You wouldn't say with a tone of harshness, don't be anxious. You would say, honey, I'm here. I'm here. It's okay. You don't have to be anxious. You don't have to worry. I'm here. I'm with you. That presence, that attunement, that secure attachment of I'm here. I'm with you. There's nothing to worry about because I'm here. I've got you. 

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It's a whole different tone. And we know this. When we're with a young child, where we're holding them and they're scared, we're not judging them or shaming them. We're with them in that fear or in that anxiety. That's how we also can learn to be with the young parts of ourselves when they get fearful and anxious, and we're reparenting them and we're showing them that compassionate attunement. 

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We're not saying don't do this, don't feel this. We're not saying don't feel this because it's bad. In Jesus' words, of course, there's anxiety and fear in the world because he's constantly telling us, don't be afraid. I'm with you. But it's from that place of a loving parent, a kind, gentle, patient, loving parent saying, I'm with you. 

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One of the things I love the most is about bringing God's presence deeper and deeper into the parts of our souls. It's not cognitive. It's not a “don't be anxious” up here, head to head. It's a deeper layer of us. These parts of us that have been buried so long that have these fears all the way back, usually to childhood where Jesus is getting in there. I think about the healing, getting so deep into the marrow of our bones. I've got you. I'm with you. You don't have to be afraid. I'm with you. It's never shaming or judging. So that's a little bit about how I think about that.

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Cindy: That's beautiful. I felt that like in my body as you were talking about the compassion that God has. When he's telling us to not be anxious, he's saying that as someone who cares so deeply about us and not from a place of condemnation. That's a great message.

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Alison: And I think for folks, when we haven't experienced that really deep sense of having been soothed in fear as children by a caregiver, by a parent, we have to relearn this process of repairing it. We don't have that feeling in our bodies.

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The thing is, when we've experienced that sense of God with us, it doesn't always means that the thing that we're afraid of isn't going to happen. Sometimes we get afraid, like we're afraid of a medical diagnosis or we're afraid of bombing a test or maybe something happening at work. And, sometimes the thing we fear happens. Sometimes it does.

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It's not God trying to gaslight us or, but there's that deep sense of no matter what, I am with you, you will be okay. And it is powerful, the more we do this work of opening up to those vulnerabilities deep inside that anxiety is working so hard to protect, but actually keeping us from that deep, grounded sense of our belovedness, of our okayness. 

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I would encourage folks even now, as we're talking about this, to read those passages, read. Matthew six, not from that heady place of, oh, I'm not supposed to worry, which actually triggers more anxiety. Oh, I'm not supposed to worry. Now I'm doing something bad. That activates more anxiety, but instead, imagine Jesus kneeling down right next to you, speaking to the most tender part of who you are saying, “do you not know that I am with you? Look at the birds of the air, and you know I feed them. Are you not so much more valuable than they are”? 

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He's speaking directly to those most tender, most vulnerable parts of who we are, speaking words of love and value over those parts of us. When it is the voice of God, it grounds us and it actually equips us to be brave. It equips us to be brave.

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Cindy: What you said at the end was really beautiful. For those who never got to experience that sort of soothing in their lives, maybe you've felt like you have to be super strong and push down your fears and your anxiety because you've learned that you might get shamed for admitting that you're fearful.

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It's so encouraging to hear that there is a God who loves you, who cares for you, who wants you to receive his gentle love for you, and for you to dare to believe that he will give you what you really need and want deep inside, but have been scared to ask for.

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Alison: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I want every person to really hear what you said. And every listener who's listening right now, I know these are anxious times. There's a lot in the world right now. That does feel scary and chaotic on a lot of levels from the big things, the macro things to the little things in each one of our lives.

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As you said, Cindy, there is a God who. man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, comes in and gives that assurance to every single part of us. I'm with you. Do not be afraid. It's not a shaming command. It's an empowering “I'm with you”. I'm with you. So I love that. Thank you so much for having this conversation.

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I know we have a few more questions and we'll have to do a round two. These are great questions and a great reminder for how, when we're feeling anxious, we can notice those behaviors, notice the inner thoughts and the inner feelings, but as well as the behaviors that kind of cue us that we might have a little bit of anxiety.

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And then to practice those grounding exercises, those calming exercises. I go through a lot of those in the chapter on numbing in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, ways to ground yourself instead of numbing to calm that nervous system. There's a lot in that chapter on that. And then number three, knowing that God meets you right there in the center of that storm. It's such beautiful deep tissue work with the Holy Spirit.

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Cindy: That's great. That was a great conversation.

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Do you ever get activated by your kids—even when they’re not really doing anything wrong?It happens to the best of parents! Today’s episode, featuring renowned Enneagram expert, Beth McCord, is such an incredibly helpful and practical conversation about how to transform triggers into opportunities for health and connection.

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Here’s what we cover:‍

1. How the Enneagram helped her stop comparing herself to other moms

2. A step by step process for what to do when you get activated by your kids

3. Why neither shaming yourself or blaming others works

4. How her family’s love for debate triggered childhood wounds & how she worked through it

5. How and when to talk about the Enneagram with your kids

‍

‍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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• Go to thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!

‍

Additional Resources:

• The Enneagram for Moms: See the True Colors of Yourself and Your Children as God Intends by Beth McCord and Lydia J. Craig
• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller
• More Than Your Number: A Christ-Centered Enneagram Approach to Becoming AWARE of Your Internal World by Beth McCord and Jeff McCord
• EnneagramForMoms.com
• ‍YourEnneagramCoach.com
• ‍Take the free enneagram assessment here!

‍

‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 108: Inside Out—Internal Family Systems, Therapy, and High-Performing Protectors with Jenna Riemersma
• Episode 109: Healing Burdens From the Past—How to Overcome Childhood Wounds and Heal Your Younger Self with Tammy Sollenberger
• Episode 110: How to Be Wise When People Are Difficult—Biblical Strategies For Keeping Your Emotional Health & Mental Sanity
• Episode 111: The Enneagram For Moms—How to Transforms Parenting Triggers & Blind Spots Into Growth & Connection With Beth McCord

‍

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:

Alison Cook: Hey everyone. And welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am so thrilled you are here today. We have a very special guest joining us who I know you're going to love. She's amazing. She's so wise, so practical, and provides such great illustrations about how to apply the work that she does.

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Together, we're going to dive into a topic that I find super helpful and incredibly practical. It's the Enneagram, especially as it applies to the work of being a mom. Now, before we get started with today's episode, if you're not familiar with the Enneagram, please go back and listen to Episode 52, where we provide a complete overview of each of the nine types. 

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You can also check out Episode 109, where my guest Tammy Sollenberger talks about her Enneagram number as one part of who she is and how she learned to integrate it with her overall story. These background episodes will give you a solid foundation for our conversation today. 

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Our guest today, Beth McCord, is a renowned Enneagram coach, speaker, and author. She has spent over 20 years studying and teaching the Enneagram and her passion for helping people understand themselves and others through this powerful tool is so incredible. Beth's approach is both compassionate and insightful, and she integrates all of her work with the Enneagram with a gospel centered perspective. Everything Beth does is infused with a Christ centered approach. 

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The other thing I love about Beth, in addition to being a great friend and an amazing person, is that she integrates the Enneagram with an awareness of the internal parts of our souls. In fact, she and I have conducted a workshop together that combined the Enneagram with parts work, which has been incredibly transformative for so many people. 

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Her previous book, More Than Your Number, lays out this integrated process of viewing your Enneagram number as one part of who you are, really powerfully.

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Today, Beth is here to talk to us about her brand new book dropping this week. It's called Enneagram for Moms. This book is an absolute treat. A game-changer for mothers everywhere. It offers such a unique perspective on how to understand your own Enneagram type and it can help you navigate the challenges and joys and struggles of motherhood wisely.

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Whether you're dealing with the daily stressors of parenting, whether you're trying to seek greater understanding of your children, or you're trying to understand your own reactions to your children, Beth's insights are so helpful.

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Beth McCord is an accomplished Enneagram speaker, author, coach, and teacher with over two decades of experience. And if you're interested in learning more about your own Enneagram number, please go to Beth's website. It's www.yourenneagramcoach.com. There's a free assessment. It's one of the best assessments I've found. It really helped me identify my own Enneagram number. 

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You can go to her website and take that Enneagram assessment for free. I am so thrilled to bring you my conversation with Beth McCord.

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***

Alison Cook: I'm so thrilled to have you here today, Beth. I'm such a big fan of you, your work, of you as a person. It's been so fun to get to know you these past few years, and this is your first time on the podcast. So thanks for being here.

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Beth: I know. Oh, my pleasure. Yes. like I told you earlier, I'm in the middle of your book. I'm really enjoying it and can't wait to keep plugging along and seeing how it's going to be so helpful and effective for myself. So thank you for writing the book.

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Alison Cook: Oh I love that. I learned so much from this one, this new book. We tend to trade books and read each other's books, and there's so much synergy and so much overlap in what we both do from different angles.

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I am so excited to dive into The Enneagram for Moms. This is so fresh. I learned so much from this. I've read a lot about the enneagram, a lot of your work, and this is a really beautiful, unique take on it that's so gentle and so wise. I want to start with your story, because I know so much of your work grows out of your own experience of learning and growing.

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As a young mom, you talk about some of the things that were hard for you, that were challenging for you. Put us back there as a young mom–what are some of the things you wrestled with and struggled with early on that you couldn't have even anticipated? 

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Beth: Yeah, because I was all about wanting to be a mom. Like that's what I want to be. I really thought I was going to be amazing. I don't know if I would have said easy, but amazing. But I didn't know myself really well when I started to have kids. The enneagram didn't come into my life until my daughter was about one years old and she's now 23.

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So when I started with the kids, I really didn't know, but I was really struggling with a lot of type nine tendencies, which makes sense, where I was consumed with people-pleasing to various levels. My heart felt like, oh, I'm being, so accommodating and helpful, and I'm wanting my kids to be happy.

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In one sense it is a great quality, but it also, when it's all consuming, you can't make children happy most of the time. I took that as I must be being a bad mom. Or why can't I figure this out? Or why is he crying all the time? Then I would go out to the playground because Jeff was in seminary at the time, and I'd go out to the playground and the kids at that point were still really little.

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I was observing moms that had a little bit older kids, running around the playground, but they seemed perfectly amazing–all of them. Now they all were totally different, some were super creative, some were really soft with their kids, some were gregarious, some were creative.

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There's a wide range, but I would look at all of them and admire them and in my mind, be like, why can't I be a great mom like that? I would come home and I would tell Jeff what I was feeling. Thankfully, he was really in tune with who I was, probably way more than I was with myself. 

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He said, Beth, you're bringing all of these incredible aspects of each of these moms, which by the way, Beth, they're probably putting on their best performance when they're at the playground. But you're bringing in all of these incredible qualities of each of them and creating one big super mom that you think you should be and live up to.

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That was a big turning point for me. It helped me to realize, oh, yeah. I didn't have the language back then, but had I had the enneagram language, I'd have been like, you're right. I am not a type 8. I am not a type 4. I am not a type 5. Those aren't the paths for me. That's okay. God created me to be this mom for these children.

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But I didn't have the understanding back then. So I was highly anxious and really in that comparison world, thinking I should be this or should be that. Even in the Christian world, there are a lot of shoulds. We didn't have social media back then, but I'm sure had I been on social media, I would have been swallowed up with, oh, wait, I should be like that and this and that.

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I would have been pulled in a thousand different directions. That's probably one of the biggest reasons why I struggled so much. I know a lot of moms do too, not being a type nine though, as type nines definitely want to be a little bit of all things. I think all of us moms struggle to some degree with either comparison or what is the best right way to be a parent.

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We have our own framework in our mind that we're trying to live up to. This book is really written out of an overflow of my own heart for myself and what I struggled with. The things I wish I would have been told or brought to my attention back in the day, because if we live in fear and shame, guilt, it is not going to be the best way to parent.

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I want moms to first recognize that God created you uniquely to be you, your personality type for your kiddos. You have your own story. You have your own way of seeing the world. We need to do our own work with the framework God gave us, the way we see the world in light of God, of his truth for our kiddos.

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I'm a type 9, but if I'm sitting next to three other type 9s, they might have kids that are completely different Enneagram types, and have completely different needs. Their story is unique to them. I wanted this book to be full of non-judgment, grace, receptivity, attunement, validation.

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Like I see you for the type you are. Here are your great strengths. This is where you excel. Yes, when you're struggling, yeah, here's what it looks like. But not to bring shame, not to bring condemnation, but as a rumble strip on the highway that alerts you, that you know what? Yeah. When you're doing this, you're probably unaware.

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You're starting to get into an autopilot mode and you're veering off course, and we want you to be alert, not to shame, because if we shame ourselves and guilt ourselves, it's like taking the wheel and plowing right into the ditch. I know I do it all the time. Versus, oh, okay. Yep. I'm struggling or, yep, that's a pattern I have.

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But God has also given me healthy qualities, and I'm gonna get back into the healthy direction for my personality type, not the type everyone else wants me to be, or the type I think I should be. So that's really the backbone of why I wrote the book–was to really write it to my younger self.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I think one of the things I love about the book and about the enneagram and about your work is, it's a naming tool. In I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, there's this sort of meta “name, frame, brave”. When I'm listening to you, I can imagine when you're this young mom and I want to hear when you got introduced to the Enneagram, but it's such a fantastic naming device.

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This is a description of a personality type. That's different from this other mom I see on the playground. Even right there, there's a name for something that helps you to frame that. Okay, I may never be the mom who is, whatever the thing is, and I love in the book, you really go through that.

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This is one of the things you're really gifted at, is using that naming device again without shame, but then to show that metaphor of the rumble strip. This is where I'm doing really well as a type nine. This is what it looks like when I'm starting to hit those rough patches. Here are the behaviors that start to bubble to the surface. Tell me a little bit about, first of all, when you discovered that, how did that come into your life? That language, that naming tool?

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Beth: Yeah. So I would say the naming tool really came in with the enneagram because I didn't even really know what it looks like to go inward. I got married at 20, I had Nate at 23, and Libby at 25. I was super young. I'm living life on autopilot and some days, if not a lot of days, I was careening off course and into the ditch and then throwing up my hands going, what is going on?

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Why? Why is it like this? Jeff was too, even though we were best friends and still are and love each other, we had a lot of turbulence and he needed to get to know his own self, but I needed understanding. So in 2001 is when I was introduced to the enneagram, way back before it was a popular thing, and I devoured it. I see patterns, especially with the Enneagram, really easily. it made sense. 

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I tell people, it's like when you see the movie, The Matrix, and there's that screen with the green digits going down, and people are seeing something, and you're like, what are you seeing? That's how I feel with the Enneagram. I see it. I get it. I found my type right away. It was so relieving. Now, a lot of people can think, “I don't want to be labeled”. 

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The Enneagram doesn't label you. It helps you to understand the framework through which, or the lens through which you see the world, you interpret the world and why you react to it through your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.

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So if I'm going to operate like an algorithm, I'm going to operate in a very specific way and that way can be either healthy all the way to unhealthy. But that is the lens and the path through which I see. And then I can go, oh, okay. These are like my bumper lanes. This is Beth McCord.

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So as a mom, I'm going to have these tendencies, healthy tendencies, less healthy and unhealthy tendencies. Using it with the gospel was so helpful. I remember one time, and I hope this is really encouraging to moms, because what usually happens is we start reading the enneagram and it's oooh, this is amazing. It's like a camera in my soul, like, how do they know it? 

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But then all of a sudden we start seeing the weaknesses or the liabilities of our personality. And it becomes a neon sign, like it's all we can see. All of a sudden shame and guilt come in. I don't like my personality. Why is this so hard? That's very natural. 

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But when you bring the gospel in, what you recognize is, Christ has not only forgiven my past, present and future sins, he has put on me his righteousness so that when God looks at me, he sees me whole and complete in Christ. When you have that framework in your mind, then when you look at the levels of health for your enneagram type, and it's hard to look at the average to the unhealthy, you recognize I am always his beloved child, no matter where I'm at in these levels of health. My status and my relationship with Christ never changes.

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So that helps me to look at that with a lot more grace and freedom–to know I am going to mess up on this side of heaven. He's not surprised by that. In fact, that's why he came. It's also not freedom to go and have a bad day, two bad kids, deal with it. No, he calls us to renew ourselves, to renew our mind, to become more like Christ, but he's the one that's going to work in and through us when we surrender and depend on him.

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By looking at the different levels and I see myself, let's say in the average, in the unhealthy place, that's the time to not shame, not guilt, but to come to Christ and say, I need you again. I need you to renew me. I need you to help me to come back to a healthier place for the personality type that you have created me to be for myself and my kiddos.

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That's the first step of him working in and through us. It's that dependency and surrender that he is really looking for. Our mustering up and pulling our bootstraps up. We've all tried that. It is literally surrendering, depending on him. That's the first step. Now, of course, we do our work for sure. But it's that position that we come in and really enjoying the personality that he gave us. Because our personality is a reflection of him when we're at our healthiest. We can champion ourselves because he's the one that designed us.

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Alison Cook: I love that you focus so much, you've even developed this framework, this awareness framework that really emphasizes everything you're saying. This self awareness component of the enneagram is almost like this mirror. I love what you're saying that when we pair it with that sense of our belovedness, it allows us to even look at those parts of the reflections in the mirror that aren't so wonderful. 

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It'd be really hard to do that apart from the love of God. So walk us through that. Walk us through that aware framework as moms, as parents, how does that help us? Even in your own life, as you began to implement your understanding of yourself as a type nine, how did that becoming more aware change your parenting?

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Beth: Yeah, so AWARE, the acronym AWARE that we use, if you've been in any of our books, it's there everywhere. So the first letter is A, which is Awaken. The second letter is W for Welcome. then A is for Ask. R is Receive and E is Engage, so I'll walk through those real quickly. 

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A is awaken to yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, and your body inclinations. They're all going to give us this alert system, what's going on. As moms, we get activated a lot. Now it can go into that trigger mode. Maybe you have trauma in your past and maybe something's even triggering you, but we get activated all the time. I want moms to hear first and foremost, getting activated and triggered is not wrong or a sin.

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It's life. It's what we do with it that makes the difference. So we want to become awakened to what activates and triggers us and why. That's what the Enneagram is all about. Why is that triggering you? It helps us to know why we think, feel, and behave. What are those core motivations behind the scene? You guys will learn all of that in the book. What are those core motivations for all nine types? 

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But we want to become awakened to it. So for me, as a type nine mom, I wanted peace and harmony. How is this so hard? Can't everyone be happy and get along? I have this vision and it would be super easy. I'll make everyone happy. And it's going to be great. That's not how life is. When the kids would whine or fight or struggle, I would get all anxious inside and almost want to force people to be happy or force people to be peaceful. 

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I had to awaken those tendencies, but then the second step is welcome. I needed to welcome the understanding of who I am and why I'm doing these things with grace and compassion to be receptive and nonjudgmental of myself. That those two are huge steps. then. Once you're in that place of not judging or criticizing yourself, which, hey, it is really hard, that is a very hard place to be.

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But when we're there, we can start to ask, that's the second A, ask for what is true, whether that's getting feedback from people, maybe it's reading a book. I'm telling you, your books, all three of them have been revolutionary to my life. Boundaries For Your Soul is when I contacted you. I'm like, I have got to know this person. 

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We'll ask for what's true. And then we go into the R, which is receive. Receive what's true, which can be really hard. That's where the Enneagram comes in because we're seeing our great strengths and our weaknesses, and we've got to receive that. If we're in that non judgmental state, and we know that Christ has us, it's a lot easier. It's not easy, but it'll be easier. 

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Then we can move into the last letter, which is E. That's where we can now engage in life and relationships in a new way, because we're seeing things differently. We understand life differently, are more self regulated because we understand first and foremost, we are beloved, we're safe, we're secure in the finished work of Christ.

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It's going to be a mess here and there, but he's got us and we can walk out this awareness with our kids. In fact, the more we walk that out with grace and compassion for ourselves, our kids are going to see that and then model that themselves. Really, that is the greatest gift you can give your kids, for them to know themselves and understand that they have strengths and weaknesses. 

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They're going to have good days and bad days, and it is going to be okay. But, we do move forward and progress, learning about ourselves.

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Alison Cook: That's good. That's so good. It's not a linear line up. There's a lot of up and down, but we are moving in the right direction. I love how honest you are as a type nine. I think it's really relatable to so many women, what you were saying about wanting everybody to get along, wanting peace and harmony. 

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As you awakened, as you began to implement this growing awareness, how did it change how you showed up with your kids when they were fighting or when there was chaos or when there was turbulence? How did that change how you show up in those situations? Because like you said, I'm sure you still felt it. I'm sure you still got activated.

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Beth: Yeah, I'll give you a couple stories. Real quick stories. When they were little, Jeff would be wrestling with them on the floor. They were having so much fun, and my eyes are seeing how wonderful this is. But my body was screaming at me, you've got to put a stop to this because it was feeling chaos.

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My body didn't understand what was going on. It goes back to my own story. I was teased a lot as a little girl. So any kind of teasing or joking or playing or tickling meant to me, everything's on the verge of someone getting upset. So I had to understand that and watch my kids and literally mentally go, this is okay. Now, there were times I could stay in the moment, feel a little uncomfortable inside, but know that this is okay. 

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There were other times I had to literally physically remove myself because I wasn't in a place that could handle that. But I also didn't want to disrupt the fun that they were having. And then there's times where I can't remove myself and I'm in a really vulnerable place and I needed to ask Jeff to maybe stop for a while until I was in a better place and then they could go back to it. 

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That sounds really simple. But it's not–my typical way was shaming myself. They're having fun, why can't you be a good mom? Again, you have to go through that AWARE process. I had to receive and welcome and do all the things to understand that being activated wasn't a bad thing,

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Alison Cook: It's a great example because what's so relatable about what you share in the book and what you're sharing right now, is you would tend towards self-shame.

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Beth: I do. Yes. I would also blame others. If you would be happy, if you would not whine, I wouldn't feel so activated. Why can't you be a happy go lucky child? So it was both-and for sure.

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Alison Cook: Fair enough. Yeah. What I love is your honesty. What I love about the framework, the robustness of it, is it makes sense because this is what's so hard about this work of becoming more self aware. The enneagram and what you're doing in this book is such a helpful tool because it's complicated.

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You become aware of, I'm activated. And then, you ask what's really true. Is something outside of me happening that I need to address? Or in the case you offered, is what's happening outside of me really healthy? It's great for them. My kids are happy. They love it. I'm the one that's uncomfortable.

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That takes a minute to discern when you're activated. It's hard to do. There really is this whole process, and you can't even do that discernment if you're shaming yourself or blaming someone else. It makes so much sense, that it's really developing that posture. It's going to take me a minute. It's not simple. As you said, it's not simple.

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Beth: It's ongoing. So now that my kids are older, if we go out to dinner, my husband's a counterphobic six, which means he can be strong and blunt at times. And my son is a social six, but he's a young guy, so he can actually be a little provocative too, and my daughter's a two, and so she can bring in a lot of that strength of an eight.

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They at times have a lot of fun bantering, joking, sarcasm, or even debating their viewpoints, and they're having fun. They're okay, but everything in me, even as they're adults now, says the same thing for when they were wrestling on the floor. Because I can remember we were at the Cheesecake Factory one day and this was happening and I am feeling like we're on the verge of conflict or something bad's going to happen.

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I knew that there's times that I'm like, guys, please stop, and I'm not aware and I'm reactive, but in this one instance, I was like, okay, wait, and I remembered when they were kids. I go, guys, I am really physically uncomfortable right now. I am fearful. They were like, mom, because they grew up with the enneagram, mom, we totally get that. That makes total sense, but we're having a great time. We're totally fine. 

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I'm looking at all of them checking really? You're okay with this? They're like, yeah, this is great. I'm literally blown away. Now, I will say, I was like okay, I'm going to trust, I'm going to receive this, and then I'm going to try to engage in a new way. I tried to sit there for a little bit longer as they kept going, but I couldn't. So I said, hey, I'm trying really hard to let you guys be you, but I'm really struggling. Can we just change the topic or do something different?

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They were so kind and accommodating because they knew I was trying and they knew I could see what was true, but my body just, in my mind and my spirit couldn't align with the fun they were having. I feel very fortunate that they were able to move in my direction as well.

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Alison Cook: Gosh, this is so helpful. I'm listening to you going, especially with adult kids, because as they become older, it is different. There is a familial negotiation that can occur and it's so delicate. I know you read Boundaries for Your Soul and you really appreciate the parts. When you think about that family system where you're negotiating between parts, it's such a great example in your own family where you've got these adult kids who are like, we're having a blast. 

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You're like, this isn't fun for me. How do we negotiate it? There might be cases where you say, hey guys, I'm going to excuse myself. You go on. There might be situations where you can actually sit there and go, okay, I'm going to try to enjoy this. And then there might be situations where you're like, could we do something else. All of those three could be great options if everybody's very aware.

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Beth: I was doing a podcast with type nine moms and we were all laughing because back in the day, we didn't have these air pods with noise cancellation. So I would literally use those swimmer wax earplugs when I couldn't get away physically. I needed to be present and I would put those in halfway so it knocked the noise down a little bit. 

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Nowadays when they're bantering, and I want to still be there, I'll sometimes put the AirPods in to bring that volume and the intensity down so that my body can engage more than usual. There's going to be types where people out there that are like, that makes no sense at all.

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I get it, especially from a type nine. I can almost picture the other types going, that sounds like so much fun. Like type eights, they call it confrontational intimacy. They love that back and forth, that sparring. They feel intimate or connected with others. That scares me to death, but I'm also growing. Okay. How can I do that in a way that's good for me, but also helpful for others? 

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Again the whole point of the book is knowing yourself as a mom. How did God create you uniquely with your enneagram type, your story? And understanding that so that you are gracious and kind to yourself when you're at that place. You're able to move in a healthier direction and it's not linear. It's up and down. 

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I have been doing the enneagram for 20 some years now. I'm still struggling. We were talking about it before the podcast. I'm still in it. But there has been lots of progress and there's lots of progress to keep happening.

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Alison Cook: The real fruit isn't, oh, we never struggle. The real fruit is, we love each other. We're together. We're still having a blast together 20 years later. That's amazing fruit.

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Beth: Yeah. To know each other. So one last story. My kids were in their late teens and it was summer break. It was like the very first week of summer break and I worked from home typing away and doing a bunch of stuff. I came downstairs and when you come down the stairs in our last house, you come down the stairs and you walk through the hallway and it’s the kitchen island and sink.

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Okay. So I looked at it and I'm like, oh my. This is a disaster. I'm like, I did not do this. I'm trying to self-regulate. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna ask them to clean up. It's theirs. I did. They're like, yeah, sure, mom. they're in there playing video games, having a blast. They're kind of loud. I'm like, this is good. This is good. They're having fun. This is exactly what I want. 

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I said, hey, I'm gonna go upstairs and work, and then I'm gonna come back down and I'd like this done. Sure, mom. So four hours later, I came down. Yes, we all know the dishes are still there. As a type 9, we think that our presence doesn't matter. Our voice doesn't matter. That's what got me activated. 

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And why I'm sharing the story is when you can name the tendencies your type has, you can then treat it like a rumble strip on the highway. So when I was walking down that hallway towards the kitchen, I knew I was activated and everything in me wanted to be upset, to be hurt.

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Nobody cares. Nobody respects me. they're over there in there still having a ball. That is a dream to have teenage kids enjoying one another. So I'm in this very perplexed situation. I want to yell and scream and say, you guys should respect me, and that's a big thing for type nines.

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But then I felt the rumble strip. I gathered myself and I knew what was going on internally. I went in there and I said, hey guys, I asked that this be cleaned up four hours ago. Here's what happens when you raise your kids to be self aware and use the enneagram. They instantly got up. This isn't all the time, so please do not think the McCords are like this all the time. 

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But this was really beautiful. They got up and they came into the kitchen where I was. They said, oh, mom, yes, we just, we're total teenagers. We're so sorry. We didn't mean to. Just kept playing and totally forgot about time.

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This is where it got really creepy and awesome. They're like mom, we know as a type 9 you probably feel like your voice doesn't matter and that we don't love you. But that is not true and we'll totally clean it up. You totally matter to us. We got caught up in the fun. And I sat there, like is this really happening?

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I really felt seen and validated and cared for by them validating and acknowledging my viewpoint of the world. Not theirs, mine. It really helped me to go, I am loved. They understand what hurts me, they're apologizing, and I forgave them and we moved forward and they cleaned up the kitchen.

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That is why we want families to use the AWARE acronym along with the gospel along with the Enneagram, because we can do these hard things together and have a really great relationship, even when it feels turbulent. Good things can come out of it.

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Alison Cook: I love that. What age do you recommend kids, because I do think it can be so helpful as a family to have the language, what age do you recommend parents start talking about the enneagram with their kids?

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Beth: I think helping your kids understand the concept of the Enneagram, that different people have different colored lenses–there are plastic sunglasses out there and they're all different colors–helps them to understand that we all see the world differently. You can even start there. 

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We all have different things that make us happy or sad. So you can even start at a young age, with a common framework and understanding. But then to really find their type, we cannot name anyone's type. I know we all try to, and it's not wrong for parents to study their kids, to be curious, to have a couple of types in their mind, but please do not type your kids.

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Me and my team who are experts in the enneagram, we've all been like, oh my goodness, I think my kid is this, and then like another season in their life, the developmental stage, they’re like, wait a second, maybe they're this type. And then they change again. You're like, oh, maybe it's that type. That happens all the time. 

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So hold several numbers loosely. You might clearly see they're not several types, and that's great. Hold a couple numbers loosely. Keep introducing the concept of the enneagram, but do it usually in ways that you're not saying the words of the enneagram because even with my kids I had to be very careful to not annoy them.

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With the enneagram, make it an everyday conversation. Then when they're in their teens, that's when they're starting to become aware of themselves. This is usually when parents are freaking out because they're like, you haven't ever been this way in your whole life. It's because they were figuring out who they should be.

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They're like, should I be like that teacher? Should I be like that parent? They're not morphing, they're ebb and flowing in life. Then those teenagers, they’re like, I don't think so, I'm gonna be me. And then the parents are, oh my gosh, what's happening?

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That's when their personalities are solidifying. It's been there since birth, but it's really coming to fruition. So if they're interested, have them take an Enneagram test, look at the core motivations of all nine types, and see if they can find the one that has their core motivations.

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It might take time. It takes 40, 50 year olds time. It's okay. They might mistype themselves. That's okay too. But I would say it's in those teenagers that you can really start to see if they're ready and if they're interested in that. But it really has to be their process, their discovery, because it's about why they think, feel, and behave, not the outward behaviors.

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All kids can rebel, but why are they rebelling? That's the difference. All kids can be perfectionistic, but why are they being a perfectionist? So you want to get to the core motivation. So I want to let parents know it's great that you are curious. It is great that you are studying your kids. Do that, but hold them loosely until they can name their type.

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Alison Cook: I love that. That's so good. You can create that environment of awareness all throughout and then bring that tool in later on.

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Beth: One of the reasons why we don't want to type our kids really comes back to IFS. We have a book called More Than Your Number, which is a combination of IFS and the Enneagram. We call it the enneagram maternal profile. We use all nine types at different levels, different degrees.

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We have parts within us that show up. In your kids' parts, the different Enneagram types will pop up from time to time and confuse you. That's okay. That's why you gotta wait until they're old enough to really name the core reasons for why they think, feel, and behave.

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Alison Cook: Yeah, I love that. That's one thing you and I share in common, is that overlay with the different parts of us.  That's so good, Beth. So much wisdom here. It's such a good book. There's so much in it, practical stuff for moms. It really does come out of your own lived experience and you share a lot of that in the book. I've learned a lot listening today. I'm like, oh, especially with adult kids, you have to revisit all of that. Things land in a different way on our systems as they get older. 

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Where can people find you, find the book, and get more resources about how to apply this?

Give us all the scoop on how people can find you.

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Beth: So the book can be found at EnneagramForMoms.com. We have an assessment there for parents to take. So that's a really fun way to find your type. You can pre-order the book there or order the book there if it's already out. If it's a pre-order, you can get pre-order bonuses. There are lots of goodies that we put together that I wish I had when I was younger, so I really hope people will pre-order, get those PDFs to download, to use. 

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They are really important resources to have. So Enneagramformoms.com. Everywhere else, it's our website, YourEnneagramCoach.com, You can meander your way over to that website, Enneagram for Moms, or Your Enneagram Coach handles on social media, that's where we're at.

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Alison Cook: I always refer people to your Enneagram assessment. It's really a good one. It's really robust. It's free. You put in your email address. I'll link to all of that in the show notes. Your resources and your materials are amazing. They're super practical. They're all Christ centered, they're all steeped in biblical wisdom and really practical and helpful.

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I love that you're bringing this into parenting. I think it's so helpful. It's super helpful. We need tools in the toolkit and this is one of the most helpful ones, all the way around from the naming to the framing to the bringing that awareness into ourselves and helping our kids grow in that. Thank you so much for all the work that you do, Beth. It's really helped so many people and I'm thrilled about this new resource.

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Beth: I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and I will say once again, your books have been instrumental in my own life, so as much as I want them to grab this new book, I really want you guys to grab Alison's books as well. I am not kidding. They are great.

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Alison Cook: Thank you, Beth. I so appreciate you. I love the fact that even between the two of us, we're reflecting that wholeness, that fullness as we each create different ways of getting at deeper health and deeper wholeness. So thanks for being here today.

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Beth: Thank you.

We all need to tune up our boundaries from time to time, especially when encountering difficult people. Today, I'm sharing an encore episode about the Biblical mandate to "Turn the Other Cheek." Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with being a doormat in the face of toxicity! Originally titled, Should I Turn the Other Cheek? Why It's the Opposite of Being a Doormat & How to Stand Firm in the Face of Gaslighting, Manipulation, & Toxicity, today's episode shows you how to detect toxic strategies and navigate tricky relational situations with wisdom and clarity.

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Here’s what we cover:‍

1. What the Bible has to say about toxic behavior
2. Does it work to “love people into change"?
3. Biblical examples of being a fool
4. Biblical strategies for being wise like Jesus

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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.
• Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code BESTOFYOU to receive UP TO 39%!
• 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 thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!

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Additional Resources:

• Matthew 5:38-39
• Sermon On the Mount: Matthew 5
• Matthew for Everyone (Part 1) by NT Wright
• National Domestic Abuse Hotline: Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for 24/7 free, confidential support.
• Psalm 23:5
• Romans 8:31
• Matthew 10:16
• Proverbs 18:2
• Proverbs 12:15
• Proverbs 10:18
• Proverbs 18:6
• Proverbs 14:16
• Isaiah 32:5-7
• Scriptures about how to be wise: Proverbs 14:7, Proverbs 23:9, Proverbs 26:4-5, Proverbs 18:7, Galatians 6:7, Proverbs 29:11
• Proverbs 13:20

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‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 2: What Should I Know About Gaslighting?
• Episode 24: Boundaries, the Spectrum of Toxicity, and a Note About Evil
• Episode 25: Types of No Part 1—How to Say “No” in Healthy Relationships
• Episode 26: Types of "No" Part 2—How to Say "No" to Toxicity, The Real Meaning of Turn the Other Cheek & How to Form a Boundaries Committee
• Boundaries and the Bible Youtube Series
• What Does the Bible Really Say Youtube Series

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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.

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Transcript:

Hey everyone. And welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast and happy 4th of July! I'm so glad you've joined me for this holiday weekend. I hope that you are seeking out and finding some much deserved times of rest for yourself over the holiday weekend, even as you celebrate.

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In honor of the holiday weekend and the summer, I wanted to share with you a message that I've given in the past. It's an important message that's really close to my heart. It's all about the importance of being wise as you interact with the people around you.

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I've had so many conversations already this summer with people who are finding themselves in the thick of family gatherings, weddings, reunions, holiday events, like 4th of July parties, neighborhood events. The summer brings all these opportunities to see people that maybe you haven't seen in a while, and boundaries tend to get a little blurry during the summer. 

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There's sometimes not as much structure, which can be great, but it can also create a lot of challenges. Relationally, we love structure. Structure is our friend as human beings. And so in the middle of summer and on holiday weekends, when structure gets thrown out the window, it can be hard for a lot of us, especially if you're someone who's high in empathy, who thinks about the needs of others, who defaults to taking care of everybody around you and not necessarily considering your own needs.

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So toward that end, I want to re-share with you one of my most popular episodes. It's one of the episodes I've gotten the most feedback from, people saying this episode was so helpful in thinking about how to relate to difficult or challenging family members, friends, loved ones, ex loved ones, anybody who's really hard to interact with, especially when you're someone who wants to be a good person, who wants to be kind, who wants to do right by others.

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And yet you consistently find yourself bumping up against somebody else's toxic strategies or toxic behaviors. I've got you covered. This episode breaks down so many skills on how to be wise, both in honoring others, and equally as important, in protecting your own emotional health, your own mental sanity. 

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As you face summer and you have less structure and you're going into situations where you find yourself trapped in a corner with someone who's putting you in an awkward situation or you find yourself stuck with someone who's trying to get information out of you that you don't want to give them, or you find yourself in a group of people who are gossiping about other people that you care about, or you find yourself being triangulated or manipulated in a way that leaves you feeling anxious inside and you can't figure out why, I want you to go into these gatherings armed with strategies, armed with scripts, armed with skills.

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This episode has you covered. I go through different toxic strategies that people will use. And listen, sometimes otherwise good people use toxic strategies. So it's really wise to be able to name things, to be able to honor what's happening and to be wise in the way that Jesus was as he navigated through really tricky situations, much like the situations we have to navigate through weddings and gatherings and funerals and celebrations and family dinners. 

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He was so wise and nimble and agile in how he engaged with other people. This episode will help you find your stride so that you can navigate tricky situations with confidence, with calm. Instead of letting other people get the best of you, you can show up with agency as the best version of who God has made you to become.

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We all need a reminder from time to time about the importance of establishing healthy boundaries, of thinking ahead, of being wise, and of taking action. As we interact with the people in our lives, especially the people who continuously show up using toxic strategies. Again, as I always say, we're not labeling people. We're labeling behaviors. 

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This episode will show you how, and it will equip you to be the best version of yourself this summer in partnership with God's spirit.

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***

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Alison: Thank you so much for just your notes, your comments, for what you share with me about what this podcast has meant to you. It means so much to me to hear from you, to know that what we're doing here matters to you. It matters a lot to me. This is my passion; my life is bringing together my faith with psychology. Bringing together what I know to be true of God. 

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What I know to be true about the Bible, into relationship with what I know to be true about the human self, about what it means to be human in this world. That we are not, as we talked about at the end of last week's episode, that we are not just quote-unquote, "Saved" to get to a better place after we die. 

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That we are, in fact, in the process of being made whole right now. Which means we are in the process of learning how to live out our God-given lives, our God-given talents. Our God given abilities, in our families, in our relationships, in our communities, in our own souls right now. The healing starts now. Where we learn how to become more whole, more true, more emotionally regulated, more clear, more creative, as we are parents, as we are friends, as we are community members, and as we allow others to come alongside us. 

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As we forge these healthy two-way relationships that can, sometimes, feel so hard, so challenging in this messy world that we live in. But there are tools, there are strategies that we have to equip ourselves to do this work of being a human well, and that's what this podcast is all about. I love creating it each week. I'm so grateful that you're here and I cannot wait to dive in to today's topic – Should I turn the other cheek? 

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Now, we're going to get into what that means, some strategies for how to actually do that effectively. Which means in a way that does not simply give other people permission to take advantage of you. And then we're going to talk about the specifics of some of the kinds of toxicity that we bump up against, especially this thing of gaslighting. 

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That's such a buzzword, but it's a very real thing and very common in our world today. Where there's just so much spin, so much manipulation, so much deception. So many half-truths everywhere, and how are we to stand firm in the face of all that. Which is a little bit more of what I think turn the other cheek really means. 

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So should I turn the other cheek? This is an expression we throw around. It comes directly from the words of Jesus, and here's a passage from Matthew 5:38-39, where Jesus talks about this concept. Here's what Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to them the other cheek also." And then He goes on with a few other similar statements. 

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So this whole passage is in the context of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, and there's a whole lot of this upside down gospel that Jesus is talking about in the Sermon of the Mount. We touched on this last week, of this way in which Jesus is ushering in this whole new way of thinking about what it means to follow Him. A whole new way of what it means to be an image bearer. 

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To be a person who reflects the image of God, in the world. And He's trying to upend a little bit the old way of thinking about that, which was this way of following a code of laws. 

And I turn here to N.T. Wright, who again, is a prominent New Testament scholar, who writes a lot about this idea of how Jesus isn't, necessarily, trying to replace one law with another law.

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He's not simply trying to say, "well, no, now you're not going to do this Ten Commandment thing. In fact, I'm elevating it to a whole new law." Which is, sometimes, how we interpret this passage. It's like, "The whole new way to be a Christian is we're just supposed to turn the other cheek, take mistreatment from others. Just give everything away. Just let everybody walk all over us." That's the new way to follow God. And it's a lot more nuanced than that, according to Wright. 

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What Wright says, and I think this is really true in the context of the larger mosaic, that is the New Testament, is that Jesus is not giving prescriptions here. He's not giving mandates. He's describing what it looks like when you become a part of God's kingdom. Where you're living as a beloved child of God. There's this radical shift in how you orient to life. 

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Where you're living less from yourself, from that ego, from that need to be vindicated. From that fight/flight state of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and instead from a whole place, a healed place. Which is not a place of being a doormat, it's a place of conviction. Of being so anchored in the truth of who you are as God's beloved child.

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That your whole orientation to other people, including to other people who would seek to do you harm, is changed from the inside out. So these are not shallow declaratives, where it's like, suddenly, Jesus is saying, "You just need to give everybody else everything you own and just be foolish." Because we know that Jesus is no fool, and I'll get into that here in a minute. 

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But I first just want to paint this broad picture here, of Jesus is suggesting that when you live as a child of God and you live in this new kingdom that Jesus is ushering in. You are so anchored, so confident, in who you are and in this life, this new life, that God has given you. That you have tasted the nectar of ultimate reality, and it is so good and so beautiful. And you are so filled with the hope of what it means to be redeemed, to be made whole. 

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To become that beautiful, light-bearing person, who has purpose, who has dignity, who is being healed of wounds. Who is being brought into the wholeness of responsibility, and of goodness, and of beauty, and of creativity, and becoming someone who walks with God, with purpose, in this life. That suddenly dealing with evil, dealing with people who want to hurt us, dealing with toxicity, has a whole new connotation. 

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It doesn't mean we don't need to deal with it. It doesn't mean we need to be foolish and pretend like it's not there. It means it takes on a whole new connotation. This is not something that can be achieved with superficial willpower, or with naive platitudes or with simplistic niceties, pleasantries, or half-hearted, sort of, being a nice person. 

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This is not the powerful picture that Jesus is painting in Matthew 5. It's this picture of I have so much hope in who God is and what God is really about in His work, to bring radical healing. To bring radical transformation to those who have been hurt the most. To those who've been the most traumatized, the most victimized, the most deeply broken, the most deeply wounded. 

That the God that we serve is so powerful. That He is reaching every corner of the deepest, darkest places of this busted up world, to bring people out of bondage. Literal bondage, physical bondage, emotional bondage, metaphorical bondage, spiritual bondage, and into the truth of dignity, of purpose, of wholeness. 

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I believe so much in that God and the radical work He is doing in every corner of this world, and in every corner of my soul. I believe so much in this vision that I begin to see that the last are actually going to be first. That I begin to understand what it means that those who hunger are going to be filled, and that those who are suffering are going to be comforted, and that those who are persecuted are going to find their freedom. And that I'm, in fact, a part of bringing those realities of wholeness, of healing, of redemption into being. 

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There's a power in that that allows us to orient ourselves to the insults, to the persecutions, to the violations, to the deceptions, to the false accusations in a different way. From a place of deep, grounded conviction.

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So against that backdrop, we arrive at this idea of what it means to turn the other cheek. So in many ways, and for many of us, this phrase has been used to suggest that as a Christ follower, as someone who loves God, that you are supposed to simply put up with abuse and mistreatment. You're supposed to be the bigger person. There's a way in which we're taught that what you're supposed to do is love the offending party into seeing the error of their ways. And that your loving response is what will prompt the other person to change, and sometimes that works. 

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Sometimes we are called, in certain situations, to simply show grace, show mercy. There is a time and a place for that, but that's not always the best strategy in real life. There are circumstances where that is just simply not wise. If you're in a situation where someone is abusing you, coming after you with toxic strategies, you are not going to be able to, quote-unquote, "Love them into change." You are, in fact, going to need to get yourself out of that situation. You are going to need to be strategic. 

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Now, we talked about this back in the series on boundaries. Where I delineate different kinds of boundaries. There are the everyday boundaries that you need to set even with people you love. Where sometimes you do absolutely just need to show love and show mercy, instead of executing your right to be upset with somebody. We see this all the time in long-standing friendships, or in family relationships, or in marriage.

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But in that series, I also delineate when you need to say no to toxicity. Which is a very different type of strategy that's in episodes 24, 25, and 26. Some of those different ways of setting boundaries that are appropriate for different types of different situations. 

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In these types of scenarios where you're in a toxic situation, where you're being abused by a spouse or a boss, maybe you're being harassed. Maybe you're being systematically undermined or manipulated, maybe you're being bullied. Maybe somebody is lying about you or spreading lies about you, behind your back. This is not a type of situation where you are just supposed to continue to take the pain, just be the bigger person, just to ignore it. 

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If you think about your child, if they were being bullied, systematically, on the playground, you would talk to them about how to get themselves out of that situation. You wouldn't want to put your child in a position of being harmed by another person. It's just not wise, and it's not wise for us to do as adults. When you're dealing with folks who are really using some of these very toxic strategies to harm you, it's foolish to pretend that you can just love that person into change. In many cases, we can just end up enabling toxic behavior and harming ourselves, in the process. 

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Instead, I would posit to you that turning the other cheek is actually a very brave counter move. It's not being a doormat. And I turn here, again, to N.T. Wright where he shows this nuanced understanding of this very passage from Matthew 5, and I'm going to read from this passage in his book Matthew for Everyone. This is what N.T. Wright says, "To be struck on the right cheek in that world, almost, certainly, meant being hit with the back of the right hand. That's not just violence, it's an insult. It implies that you're an inferior, perhaps a slave, a child, or in that world, and, sometimes, even today, a woman."

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So, again, in my words, this slap on the right cheek is not just abuse, although, it is that. It's also an insult, it's demeaning. It's saying, "You are not worth my time. You're an inferior person to me." That's what it's symbolizing here, both in reality and that time, but it's what it's symbolizing for us today. 

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And, so, here's what N.T. Wright says, "What's the answer? Hitting back only keeps the evil in circulation. Offering the other cheek implies, 'hit me again if you like, but now as an equal, not as an inferior.'" And you can imagine this scenario where you turn that other cheek in defiance, it's not to say, "Oh, sure, no problem. Yes, just keep hitting me, it's fine, you're fine, I'll just love you into change." 

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That is not the connotation there. There's a note of defiance in it. It's turning the other cheek to say, "Yes, I see, you can't hit me and, yes, that hurts. Yes, I don't like it, but you cannot take my dignity." There's a note of defiance in it, if you think about that. It's a way of standing your ground, of communicating, "You will not belittle me." It's countering bullying from a position of strength. 

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So, first of all, I want to pause here and say if you are someone who is actually being physically harmed, physically abused, in any relationship, there are several free crisis support numbers that I will link to in the show notes. They provide 24 hours a day, seven days a week free support. So please take advantage of these numbers. If you're experiencing any domestic abuse, for any reason, please reach out. So there is that literal piece of physical abuse. 

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But in many instances, we also find ourselves in these situations in maybe less literal ways where we're being emotionally or psychologically manipulated. Or just guilt tripped or harmed by someone who is really trying to demean, or belittle, or manipulate us in ways that are disempowering and in ways that call for very serious responses. 

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Imagine if someone came up to you at work or berated you publicly, and imagine you had the inner fortitude, the inner strength. The inner conviction to simply stand your ground, let them finish their diatribe, look them in the eye, not flinching and say, "Are you done now?" That's the connotation here. 

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Now, that's really hard to do, but there's power in that, that's not being a doormat. There's power in standing there and saying, "Mh-hmm, yes, you come at me with all you got and you cannot shake me because I am still standing here, and you might be able to scream at me. You might be able to use all these tactics and guess what? I am still showing up. I am still going to create. I am still going to use my voice. I am still going to live my life vibrantly because you cannot take that from me." 

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It's that kind of energy, and I see this all the time with people. Where these bullies come in, whether it's online, or whether it's in your community group, or whether it's in your church, 

and people are talking behind your back or they're trying to take you down a peg or two. And it's painful, don't get me wrong, it's painful, and you need to get support, and you need to get a herd around you. You don't want to do this alone. You need to get people around you.

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But this is the connotation of turn the other cheek. And, listen, it takes a minute to get there, there's no shame. Because we get hooked, we get hooked into the fight. We get hooked into the screaming match. We get hooked into the yelling match. We get hooked into trying to meet them on those petty terms. We get hooked into it, and there's no shame in that. Please hear me say that, there's no shame in that, this is a process.

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But I'm trying to paint a picture for you of the goal because, I think, that's what Jesus is getting at here. It's so much deeper than just playing the doormat, it's so much deeper. It's standing there in your full power, in the face of your enemies. I think of David in the Psalms when he says, "You set a table for me before my enemies." And it's that kind of thing. 

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It's like, "Man, they're there. They're out there. They're gossiping about me. They're saying mean things behind my back. They're trying to take me down. They're criticizing me. They're trying to hurt me, and I'm sitting here, and I am just feasting on what the Lord has put in front of me. This banquet that He's placed in front of me. And, yes, I can see them, they're off in the distance there, those ones, my enemies, the ones who want to hurt me. But I'm here feasting because God is for me, and when God is for me, who can be against me." It's that kind of energy. 

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It's knowing, so deeply, that who you are is so important, and so valued, and matters so much to God that you can feast on the goodness of God in the face of your enemies, and that is a powerful weapon. That's what I want for you to understand today, as we talk about what it means to turn the other cheek.

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I want you to begin to go, "You know what? I'm not fighting this battle on their terms anymore. That's their battle. That's their war. Those are their weapons, I got different weapons. And the weapons I have are the weapons of I am loved. The weapons of I have a God who anchors me, and that allows me to be shrewd. 

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That allows me to turn the other cheek and say, 'All right, you might win this stupid, petty battle over here, but I've got the victory, in my life, because I'm doing the work over here of healing my soul through therapy. I'm doing the work over here building up alliances with people who want to be good to each other. Who want to be kind to each other, Who love each other, and who are building beautiful spaces. 

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Where we speak truth, and we speak goodness, and we speak light, and we are creating more and more pockets of goodness, and that is our battleground. That is our battleground, and I'm finding other light-bearers who want to do that work with me. I'm telling my story in communities of people who have compassion, people who are of courage, that's brave work.'"

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Next week, we're going to be talking to Curt Thompson about these confessional communities, where people come together in these groups. Where we tell our stories honestly, bravely, in safe places, where we are heard, where we are seen, where we are loved. And as we do that work, there is no match for the power that we unleash in this world. 

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Turning the other cheek is not just taking the pain. It's saying, "You can harm me, but you cannot take my dignity. And I am going to start taking all of this energy that I've been letting you suck me dry with, and put it over here into the work of healing." It is not enabling someone. It's getting yourself out of a toxic situation with as least damage, to yourself, as possible. 

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For more practical, tactical ways to do that, go back and listen to those episodes in the Boundaries series. I'll link to them in the show notes. I go through practical scripts and tips in those episodes. But I want you to understand that is what turning the other cheek does not mean that you give somebody the best of who you are. It means that you turn your cheek in the other direction. 

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You know exactly what is happening and exactly how you feel about it, and that you will give exactly as little as possible, of your own best energy, to that situation anymore. You will be turning your energy into anchoring yourself in the support of health, of wholeness, of goodness. You will no longer let them take the best of who you are. 

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I want to turn here briefly to how you deal with some of these psychological forms, that we really need to address and not let people use against us. It could be anything from just someone who's constantly criticizing you to someone who's manipulating you. Where they're really trying to twist you or guilt trip you into doing something you don't want to do, and it's really subtle sometimes. "Well, okay, I guess if you don't really want to do that, I'll just suffer. It'll just be really hard for me, and I don't really feel like you're loving me." 

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You get that martyr complex from somebody when they're guilt tripping you or trying to manipulate you. That we might see in a parent or in a friend, where they're trying to get us to do something that we just don't really want to do in good conscience. All the way to this idea of gaslighting, where somebody is systematically trying to make you feel crazy. They're manipulating the truth and then going on the offense to put you on your heel, to put you on the defense. 

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For example, let's say if someone borrows your phone, and you catch them. Your phone isn't where you left it, and they've been using it, and they didn't return it to you, and you go to that person and you say, "Hey, you borrowed my phone can I get it back?"

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And they're like, "I didn't borrow your phone, what's wrong with you? Why are you so paranoid? Why are you so controlling?" And, so, they've lied, first of all, they did borrow your phone or they did do the thing, and then they've also turned it against you as if to make you feel like you're crazy. Like, "Wait, what's wrong with me? Why am I this kind of person? Why am I a bad person?" It's this really insidious, toxic form of psychological abuse. 

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These types of behaviors from guilt tripping all the way down to gaslighting, if you think about that spectrum of toxicity, and a spectrum of unhealthy toxic behaviors. 

Turning the other cheek can have a different nuance in each of these situations. It might mean simply refusing to respond, "You can try to guilt trip me, but the answer is still no. Good luck."

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"Thanks, but no thanks, no."

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All the way down to, literally, extracting yourself from the situation. Again, I go through more practical tactical scripts in episode 26, types of no. But today I want to paint this picture of the biblical foundation of what is going on there and I talk about this word a fool, that we see throughout the Bible. There are so many instances of this juxtaposing what a fool is and what a wise person is in the Bible, it's fascinating. 

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I did a very cursory word search of the NIV Bible because I was curious. Because, I think, there's so much in the Bible about being wise versus being a fool. So I did a cursory word search of the NIV Bible, and here are some numbers to put on that. So if you look for instances of the word wise or wisdom in the NIV Bible, it comes up 408 times. If you look for instances of the word foolish or fool, in the NIV Bible, it comes up 238 times. 

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By contrast, if you look for instances of the word hell, in the NIV Bible, it comes up 15 times. It's very interesting. There's a lot in the Bible about being wise versus being foolish. It's a really important topic, and what does that mean, to be wise? What does it mean to be wise? I think there's a lot in this whole thing of being a human. Being an image bearer on this earth, not just someone who is saved for heaven. But being an image bearer on this earth, that has to do with being wise. 

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Jesus says, "Be wise as the serpent and innocent as the dove." And if you think about what it is to be wise as a serpent, the serpent is close to the ground. He's in the weeds, he's on the dirt, he's in the muck, he's in it. And Jesus is saying, "Be wise in that way." You're in the dirt, you're in the muck, you're in the mess, you're in the world, be wise. And if you think about the dove, the dove is above it all. She's flying in the beautiful blue sky, she's pure, she's out of the muck, out of the noise, she's innocent, we need to be both. 

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We need to be wise in the muck and the mud, and innocent as the dove. Where we can soar above and be uncontaminated and set apart, it's both. This work of becoming a human, becoming an image bearer, becoming wise, in this life we have now, is a lot of both. 

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It's figuring out how to navigate the mud and the muck, and even as we figure out how to soar like that dove, we need both. Life involves both. We get those moments of soaring and we also have to figure out our way through the weeds and the muck. Wisdom comprises both. We have to learn how to do both. 

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And, so, when we think about this being wise as a serpent, it's going to involve some of this yuck, some of this toxicity, some of this gaslighting. Some of this psychological warfare, and in some cases, physical warfare against us, and we got to be shrewd through that. We see so much in the Bible about that. 

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So I want to give you a picture of what the Bible paints, about what it means to be a fool. Because there's a lot in the Bible about what it means to be a fool. Here's some of what the Bible says; "Fools care nothing for thoughtful discourse, all they do is run off at the mouth." That's from Proverbs 18:2.

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"Fools are headstrong and do what they like." That's from Proverbs 12:15. 

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"Liars secretly hoard hatred, fools openly spread slander." Proverbs 10:18.

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"The words of a fool starts fights." Proverbs 18:6

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"Fools are headstrong and reckless." Proverbs 14:16.

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"Fools leave a wake of wrecked lives and lies about God, turning their backs on the homeless, the hungry, and ignoring those dying of thirst in the streets." That's Isaiah 32:5-7. 

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Here's my summary of those verses, fools don't care about thoughtful discourse. Do we see this in our culture today? Do we see people really trying to engage thoughtful discourse? We used to use this phrase in graduate school, about complicated problems. And this wasn't from a secular graduate school, this is a concept from psychology. 

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Where we would talk about complicated problems are the kinds of problems about which reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Think about that for a minute. Complicated problems are those about which reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Most of life is complicated problems. It's complicated problems about which we have to learn to be reasonable people, who reasonably disagree. 

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This is what it means to be married. This is what it means to be a friend. This is what it means to be a church community. This is what it means to be a neighborhood. This is what it means to be a nation. We have to come together as reasonable people, who can reasonably disagree. There's a lot of room for disagreement about a lot of problems. 

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Now, there are some problems about which we can't reasonably disagree, they're just wrong. But there's a lot about which we can reasonably disagree. There is so little of that that we see in our culture, in our world, in our neighborhoods, today. Fools don't care about thoughtful discourse. 

Fools don't care about respecting others. Fools harbor bitterness, and lies, and gossip. Fools are more interested in starting fights than in really engaging dialogue. Fools are reckless, and fools do not care about the people who are hurting the most. 

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That's how we measure a fool, and that is not who we want to be. We need to not become fools, and we need to watch out for the fools. That's where you need to be shrewd, wise, when you're dealing with a fool. When you consider this idea of what it means to turn the other cheek, it doesn't mean letting a fool take advantage of you. It means being able to call out, "Oh, that's foolishness. That's just downright foolishness, I want no part of that."

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"That's not what it means to be a child of God."

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"That's not what it means to be a person who is wise, I want no part of that."

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That's how you turn the other cheek when you spot a fool. You call it out for what it is, and you take no part in it. You get yourself away from it as fast as you can. 

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So number one, do everything you can, first and foremost, to not be a fool. Lesson number one is to not be a fool. Instead, you want to become someone who is wise. So what does that look like? What does it look like to become someone who is wise? Well, there's a couple of things I'm going to read for you from Scripture, some of these passages about what it looks like to be wise.

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"Escape quickly from the company of fools, they're a waste of your time, a waste of your words." That's Proverbs 14:7.

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"Do not speak to fools, for they will scorn your prudent words." Proverbs 23:9.

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"Don't respond to the stupidity of a fool, you'll only look foolish yourself. Answer a fool in simple terms, so he doesn't get a swelled head." Proverbs 26:4-5. There's so much wisdom in these passages.

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Here is more, "Fools are undone by their big mouths. Their souls are crushed by their words." Proverbs 18:7.

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"The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others, ignoring God, harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds." Galatians 6:7.

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"A fool lets it all hang out. A sage quietly mulls it over." Proverbs 29:11. 

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So there's sort of a picture here we're arriving at. How do we respond to fools? Well, number one, we call out fools when we see them. We start to identify them. We want no part of them. 

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Number two, we limit our words and our interactions with them. Less is more, when it comes to communicating with someone who is a fool. We don't play the word game with them. We, number one, won't win because that's what they're good at. And, number two, we just don't have the time of day for that. It's not worth our time. We resist attempts to explain ourselves or get them to understand. Our actions speak louder than our words when it comes to the fool. 

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And then the other thing that we get at is we let the foolish person suffer his or her own consequences, and this can be challenging. But there is a way in which, the Scripture is teaching, fools are going to take themselves out, at a given point. They're going to bury themselves in their own rubble. 

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And, so, one of the most loving things you can do is just quarantine the fool. Keep yourselves away from them so that they're not harming you. Neutralize them and then let them burn themselves out, and this can be hard if you're somebody who's empathetic, you want to save the person. But if they've consistently shown a pattern of trying to harm you, there's a lesson here for us, of just walking away from foolishness and allowing them to suffer the consequences that they actually need to suffer. 

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There's a way in which you can stay anchored in your own integrity and then you reach for another strategy of the wise. And I'm going to read you a couple more Scriptures here. "Wise people take wise advice." Proverbs 12:15. 

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"You become wise by walking with the wise. You hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces." Proverbs 13:20 to become someone who knows how to turn the other cheek in wise, strong, powerful ways, you first have to be able to identify the fool, the gaslighter, the manipulator, the gossiper, the bullier. The one who's just trying to create ruckus, and create noise, and create harm, and to create chaos, and to undermine people, and to harm people. That's all they got, and it can hurt. 

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It can hurt, don't get me wrong, it really can hurt. But the first step is just to go, "Oh, that's what this is. I see you, I see the game you're playing, and I'm not playing that game with you." Number one. 

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Number two, it's to get yourself away from it, to quarantine it as best you can. To let them suffer their own consequences. You do not have to be the one to take them down. That's what it means to turn the other cheek. You don't engage in the battle on their terms because you won't win on their terms. But you turn that other cheek and go, "Oh, I see what you're doing. Uh-uh, no, I'm not playing that game with you. I'm not fighting fire with fire."

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And, number three, instead, "I am going to go surround myself with other people who are interested in becoming wise. Who are interested in building good things. Who are interested in using their power for good." Those people are out there, I promise you, they are. 

And stay tuned for our next series, starting next week, because we're going to talk all about how to find them. But those people are there. 

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And, so, if you want to turn the other cheek, you stop messing around with those fools, and you start anchoring yourself in your own dignity, and you start finding those other people to align yourself with. In standing on the truth of what it means to be wise in this world, God has called us to be innocent and to be wise. In this world God has called us and equipped us to live in with integrity, with conviction, with courage, with confidence, knowing that we have the God of all goodness, of all truth, of all strength on our side. 

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Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts and click the Plus or Follow button. That will ensure you don't miss an episode and it helps get the word out to others. While you're there, I'd love it if you'd leave your five-star review. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God, you heal others, and you stay true to your God-given self.

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Do you ever struggle with negative beliefs about yourself, even though you know they aren't true?

We all carry burdens that we pick up in childhood, and these burdens can be surprisingly persistent. Today's guest, therapist, author of The One Inside, & host of The One Inside IFS podcast, Tammy Sollenberger shares her journey of healing her younger self from these painful burdens.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The surprising way we can connect with God's healing
2. Why we pick up burdens in childhood
3. How Tammy healed her burden of "I'm not wanted"
4. The impact of childhood burdens on marriage and parenting
5. The spiritual practices that have helped Tammy heal

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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.
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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.
• Head over to WildHealth.com/BESTOFYOU and use code BESTOFYOU at checkout for 20% off!
• 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.
• Go to thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!

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Additional Resources:

• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍Matthew 11:28
• Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller
• The One Inside: 30 Days To Your Authentic Self by Tammy Sollenberger
• Psalm 46:10
• ‍TammySollenberger.com

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‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 108: Inside Out—Internal Family Systems, Therapy, and High-Performing Protectors with Jenna Riemersma
• Episode 40: 5 Steps to Healing Painful Emotions & Why Parts of Us Get Stuck in the Past
• Episode 9: Hidden Pain and the Power of Facing Your Fear with Bianca Cotton

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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.‍

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Transcript:

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. I know we're well into summer, and for those of you who subscribe to my weekly email, I mentioned in last week's email that this month has been packed for me and for my family with some major milestone events, including our daughter's graduation from college, our son getting married and the weddings of some of our closest family friends. 

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It has been a season. Talk about kicking up emotions inside my own system. I am so aware right now of the deep joy that I'm experiencing. Right there, side by side with moments of grief, even with moments of sadness. I'm so aware of all that it is taking for me to hang on to myself and not let any one emotion dominate my internal landscape, including the anxiety about all of these events, planning them, hosting people, hoping things go well. 

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All of those emotions are so present inside of my soul. And I have to say, in all honesty, with the last two months, really, including the book launch of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, going into all of these major family events, it has taken a lot for me to hang on to myself so that I'm leading these parts of me, letting the different emotions have their place in my soul, and having appropriate outlets so that any one of those emotions doesn't completely take over. 

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As a result of that, I've needed to scale back a little bit. I've needed to, as I sometimes say, let some of the plates that I'm spinning, or the balls that I'm juggling, fall to the ground. And that's uncomfortable to parts of me that like control. It was no surprise to me when I finally saw the new Pixar movie, Inside Out 2–we talked about it on last week's episode with Jenna Riemersma–that I started to cry as I watched Anxiety finally relinquish its grip on the control board of Riley's life.

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Tears started streaming down my face as I could sense in my own system, that invitation to surrender. And what moved me so much about that moment in the movie is the compassion with which the rest of the parts of Riley's soul met Anxiety. They didn't shame Anxiety for taking control in a way that was embarrassing and even led to Riley doing some things that she wished she hadn't done. Instead, they embraced anxiety with compassion.

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It was a beautiful picture of what can happen with anxiety in our souls, when we release the grip of any one of those emotions that wants to dominate our lives, whether it's anxiety, anger, self-doubt, or an overly exuberant joy that takes over and is aggressively happy in a way that can be off putting to other people.

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Whatever that part of you is that has been vying for control of your life, I wonder what part of you is longing to hear the quiet voice of God's whisper saying, come to me, you who are heavy burdened and working overtime to keep things together, come away from that control board, that grip of control you are holding. Come to me and I will give you rest.

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Before we get started today, I want to read to you a section from Boundaries For Your Soul, where we describe our understanding of the self or what we call the Spirit-led self–this mysterious place inside of you, from which you can lead the parts of yourself wisely in partnership with God's spirit. Here's from Boundaries for Your Soul:

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Your Spirit-led self is you when you are being led by God who abides within your soul. Many psychologists and spiritual leaders have explored this idea of what we are calling the Spirit-led self. For example, beloved author Henry Nouwen described that place in your soul where you have clear perspective, where you can gather together your thoughts and desires and emotions and hold them together in truth.

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Nouwen wrote the following: “You have to trust that there is another place where you can be safe. Maybe it's wrong to think about this new place as beyond emotions, passions, and feelings. Beyond could suggest that these human sentiments are absent there. Instead, try thinking about this place as the core of your being, your heart, where all human sentiments are held together in truth. From this place, you can feel, think, and be, and act truthfully”. 

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Likewise, psychologists Henry Cloud and John Townsend refer to a space inside where you can experience your feelings without fear of judgment, a place where these parts of your soul can receive the attention they need so you don't act out in hurtful ways. Cloud and Townsend say it this way: “We need to have spaces inside ourselves where we can have a feeling, an impulse or a desire, without acting it out. We need self-control without repression”.

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In this place, your Spirit-led self holds you together in truth. From here, you can draw a troubling emotion closer or ask it to step back so that you can develop perspective. You can invite Jesus to be with the parts of you most in need of his presence. Your Spirit-led self can minister to your troubling thoughts and feelings so that they are witnessed and heard and transformed. As a result of connecting to the parts of yourself from this place inside, you will begin to enjoy healthy boundary lines inside your soul.

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My guest today, Tammy Sollenberger, is no stranger to this work of befriending the parts of the soul. In addition to being a beloved friend, Tammy is a licensed clinical mental health counselor and an internal family systems (IFS) certified supervisor. She's the host of The One Inside, an Internal Family Systems IFS podcast, which is one of the very first podcasts to explore the world of IFS, and she's the author of The One Inside: 30 Days to Your Authentic Self. 

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She's here today to share with us very candidly some of her own early childhood experiences that led her to develop some heavy burdens that affected her all the way into adulthood. Please enjoy my conversation with Tammy Sollenberger. 

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***

Alison: I love talking to you. Always. We always have such great conversations. I'm such a big fan of your podcast, The One Inside–it's such a great resource for anyone who wants to go deeper. And then your book, The One Inside, which I love. It's 30 meditations. 

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Tammy: It's 30 Days to Your Authentic Self. Basically, day by day, it teaches you the IFS model, but it teaches you by going inside and helping you get to know your own system. So it does two things. It makes it super user-friendly and they're little chapters that help you understand, what does it mean for me to have parts and how do I pay attention to my parts and how do I know who is here and how do I know how to track them and how do I start listening to them?

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It is a very bite size way for you to begin to understand and learn and befriend your own personality.

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Alison Cook: This is a fantastic resource for beginners to learn about the model. But not just beginners, because I got a lot out of it too. Thank you.

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Tammy: Yeah. Thank you. And, I sent it to one of the IFS trainers, a friend, and I emailed him and I was like, what did you think of it? And he was like, it's basic and simple. And I was like, great, that's exactly what I want it to be because there isn't another book like that.

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Alison Cook: I love it. And you're a seasoned IFS therapist. You do this work all the time, for those of you listening who maybe are therapists or studying IFS. You actually consult with IFS therapists who are getting their certification. You lead some groups in IFS. You are seasoned in the model. 

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So the fact that you can take something really complicated and distill it to basic principles is actually really hard to do. And I commend you for it, which is why we love this movie Inside Out and the new Inside Out 2. Because that's exactly what it's doing. It's taking it out of therapy and into normal mainstream life. We all have these parts, from little kids to ourselves to our friends. 

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It's such a helpful way to think about the people that we love and ourselves. At basic level, at the foundational level of the soul, we have different parts

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Tammy: Yeah, I love it. So Inside Out has really done this marvelous job of making this idea mainstream. Anybody at any age can really begin to have this language of, “A part of me feels sad. A part of me feels mad. A part of me is jealous. A part of me is bored”.

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I'm allowed to speak for them, and I'm allowed to say them. It makes sense that I would have a variety of parts and a variety of different emotions running my system. And yeah, I think the movie does such a great job of explaining these concepts that are really higher level concepts, but they do such a good job of making it not that complicated. 

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Alison Cook: Toward that end, Tammy, I would love to ask you some of these questions because I don't know these aspects of your story. I know a lot about your current life as we've gotten to know each other, but I don't know as much about your personal history. We're in this series looking at these personal stories about when these parts form. 

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We see Riley in Inside Out–she's moved across the country. She's got to deal with new friends, new school, all these things. And we see how that external experience and the way she relates to her family, her parents, begins to shape the development of the different parts of her.

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I would love to learn a little bit more from you, if you would be so gracious as to allow us to go back in time for a moment. As you think about your preteen self, the younger you, the little young Tammy, what are some of the characters or the parts of yourself that you now understand were parts at the time?

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I'm sure you had no sense of that vocabulary, but how do you see that younger you and how she was existing in the world at maybe sixth grade, seventh grade, middle school? I see your face immediately grow compassionate and empathetic. 

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Tammy: Yeah. Yeah. So Riley is 13 and yeah, this is a huge time of our lives. This huge transition developmentally and physically. Because we have this relationship, it does feel really safe. And I always say on my podcast too, that I'm not thinking about the people listening. I'm thinking about you. So I'm thinking about my friend, Alison, and me and you having this conversation. So it feels really safe for me to share this. 

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Growing up,my mom and dad were 16 when they had me. And there's a huge sort of story there. They got married, my mom was Catholic, they got married and then they got divorced a year or two later. So my mom was a single mom. My dad was in and out, but I would see him every other weekend. And I still have a relationship with him and and then both of them got married. My dad, I think I was maybe 6 or 7 when my dad married my stepmom, who he's still married to, so they both have had these really long marriages since then.

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So my dad married my stepmom and they had three boys. And then it was my mom and I until I was 10. And then my mom married my stepdad. He had a daughter that was my age, and then they had a daughter. So I have a sister who's 10 years younger. So basically I have a dad and a stepmom and three brothers. And then I have my mom and my stepdad. And then I have a sister who's 10 years younger than me.

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Alison Cook: Slow down for a second, because talk about a complicated family system. The friend and the therapist in me is like, if you're okay with me slowing it down, because what I heard in that, Tammy, is you have a few half-brothers and a half-sister who's 10 years younger, and then also a stepsister who's roughly your age.

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Tammy: Yeah, that's right.

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Alison Cook: That's a lot of change for a 10 year old.

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Tammy: It's a lot of change. And, what I remember is that I was a really happy kid. Because in general, I'm a really happy sort of sunshiny person as an adult. And I was a really happy kid. I have lots of joy. Anger has been completely exiled. But joy is here in abundance and we like joy. 

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And sadness is pretty good too. We like sadness and joy. But when I brought the IFS piece in a little bit, my first big training with IFS was I did a week with Dick, who's the founder of IFS, Dick Schwartz at the Cape Cod Institute about 11 years ago. So I did this week-long workshop with Dick and there were times with pieces of teaching and then there's times where you could work with somebody one on one.

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The first big piece of work that I did was this part of me, this ten year old part of me who lost her mom and I was sobbing, like hysterically crying, and I did not know that was there. I had so much pain about losing my mom, and I did not know that was there. But looking back and thinking about it, I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because for me, it was me and my mom. 

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I remember we lived in this little tiny beach cottage, and we bought, if I remember this correctly, like we each had different types of toothpaste that we bought and to me, I had a happy life. My poor mom was a single mom and 26 years old with a 10 year old, working full-time, but I'm happy as can be. And then all of a sudden, we move.

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We move across the street, so I go to a different school. All of a sudden, there's a stepdad, who's the nicest guy, he's a nice guy, his daughter was very tough and ended up getting asked to leave our house when we were 16. So there's a lot of stuff there.

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And then my mom got pregnant basically immediately. By the time I'm 11, I have a baby sister, a stepsister, a stepdad, and a new house. There was all this loss, and I think that my system basically exiled all this pain. We're going to be cheery, we're going to be a nice girl, we're going to be a good girl, we're not going to cause any problems. 

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Those are the parts of me probably from 10 probably until about 14 that were like, I'm going to be a good girl and I'm not going to have any feelings and there's not going to be any pain or sadness and there's no me here. My feelings about losing my mom and what this was like for me, that didn't even dawn on me that I could even speak for what this was like for me until probably 14. 

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When puberty hit, I think I got very sad and was super emotional. And I really could not find my sense of identity. Like you see Riley, and she's got hockey. I didn't have a thing. I was never really good at anything. I didn't have a thing. I really struggled. I was okay at school, but I didn't really care about school. I cared about my friends, like Riley. 

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And Riley cares about her friends and that's most important to her. And I think I tried to find different friend groups. I think what happened, looking back, and the church comes in later, is I really wanted to be wanted. When I've done my IFS work, I have this exile around not being wanted. Of course you weren't wanted. You had teenage parents. You weren't wanted. 

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My parents were really good about saying you're wanted and you're loved and they would say that. They were very good about that. But part of me says, the truth is, you weren't wanted. Let's be honest, Tammy. You are not wanted. That's who you are. I have this part that is in my blood. Not being wanted is in my blood. I have these other parts that do anything that they can do to be wanted. 

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And we see this in the movie with Riley, where she leaves her really good friends to go with the popular girls and she makes some really bad decisions. And I would have done anything to be wanted, like want me, include me, let me be a part of it. Give me identity. I flounder with friends. I flounder with boys. Once high school comes, I'm wanting to be wanted by boys.

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And it's a three. Three is we want to be successful. If I want to be with this boy, that would be the way I could be successful. Or, that's “being fun” or whatever. That's how I could be successful. When we think about parts, there's a lot of protection around being wanted, and what happens when I feel unwanted is I have all these parts that kind of swirl around the idea of being wanted and unwanted.

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Alison Cook: Gosh, there's a lot in that. And I can tell there's also a lot of years of getting to know those different parts. This is the power of IFS. It makes sense that a part of you picked up burdens along the way. I would imagine, as you started doing the work with Dick 11 years ago, there were memories that surprised you of things that happened that reinforced that burden that wasn't necessarily true. 

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Moments where maybe even your parents were trying not to reinforce that burden, but maybe something happened that did reinforce that burden. Were there some key memories or moments as you've done some of this work as an adult that you would go back to?

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Tammy: Yeah, that's part of why this work is so powerful–you can go back. But when I go back, it's not traumatic to go back because then I am there with me now, the adult leader, the authentic self. I can be then with my sixth grade part that felt like she had no friends and was sitting in the middle school cafeteria and felt this incredible aloneness.

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I can go back and be with her in that moment in the way that she needed someone, whether she needed my mom or she needed a friend. I can go back and be what she needs and really get her out of that place that she's in, that she's still in, because that's what happens in our bodies. I still have these parts that feel that unwantedness or lack a sense of belonging, or have these two families but I don't really exist in either one of them.

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I'm not really wanted. Part of me believes the burden, that I'm not really wanted in either one of these families. And which again, other parts of me say that's not true at all. But there's this burden of I don't fit, I don't fit and I'm not wanted. Yeah.

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Alison Cook: My parents loved me, but to the listener who hasn't experienced this, I want you to understand that these messages are stored in our memories. I remember when I was writing Boundaries for Your Soul and we were supposed to come up with stories. And the story that I tell in Boundaries for Your Soul of not making the basketball team in, I think it was seventh grade, which is such a formative year. I worked and worked my tail off like a good little Enneagram three. I worked hard to make that team. And when the day came and I walked into the locker room and the list of names was up and my name wasn't on that list, the shame overwhelmed me. 

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I had bought brand new sneakers that were the sneakers that the real basketball player girls were wearing. And this was in a time when that was a big expenditure. People didn't throw away money on brand name sneakers. It was a big deal. I got them, I think for a Christmas present, and then I didn't make the team and I was mortified and swallowed up by shame.

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I had to then wear those sneakers and I didn't make the team. My parents actually loved me through that as best they could. It wasn't even like any horrible big T trauma thing that we might think of that happened, but the way that my parts were lined up and the way that story landed in that moment with other things that had happened to me as a child was this feeling of invisibility. My name is never on the list. I'm always invisible. 

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I could find moments and I still, to this day, I have to update that part of me because I can find all those moments when that happened, and I don't notice the moments where my friends will say, Alison, are you kidding me? You were always on the honor roll. You're always on all these lists. I'm like, it didn't matter. I only remember the ones I didn't make and the shame that I felt. 

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I bring that in because I hear you saying so well, Tammy, that those burdens get picked up. And sometimes the memories that we have where there's pain are surprising to the logical, rational parts of us. They're like, but you'd sometimes make the team. It doesn't matter. I had to go back to the place of that memory and be with the young girl who in that moment buried that feeling of shame deep inside.

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Tammy: In the movie, Riley, she has these sort of balls of memory. And in the second movie, Joy exiles any balls that are Shame. She puts up this little sucker thing and sucks it away and puts it in the basement. And that's what we do with memories or things that don't align. Joy does that with sad things. Or shaming things. “Nope. We're only going to keep the happy balls, the happy memories, the happy moments, the little balls that reinforce that we are loved and we are good and we are happy and we're a good friend and we're smart and all these beautiful things that we want to believe”.

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We're going to keep those balls. But what happens is, our system, because it's so protective in nature, we hold on to the balls that reinforce that burden. So if I have a burden of being unwanted, my system, my parts, are hypervigilant in looking for anything or anyone that says, I don't like you. 

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It doesn't matter that there's a million people out there that think I'm the best thing in the world. My system is going to focus on that one person and highlight that little ball. That memory then is going to become stored as evidence of my burden.

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Alison Cook: That is so well stated. I can then imagine as you're going through high school and the social jungle of high school and young adulthood, the exhaustion of trying to make sure every guy, every girl, everyone likes you and everyone is wanting you. I'm wondering here, what do you do with the ones who don't want you?

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That would be devastating as opposed to learning, oh, wait a minute. There's another way to go through life in terms of relating to other people. Tell me, Tammy, as you got older and you brought some of these burdens with you into adulthood, when did you begin to realize this might not be working?

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Tammy: Yeah. That's a good question. We talk about the C's of self-energy. So authentic self is that leader, that essence of who we are, the divine us inside is this authentic self. And we use these C qualities and a C that is not listed in the C qualities is choice. And we often think, if I had a choice, if I had more perspective, what choices would I make that would be different?

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If I'm only making choices that are protective in nature because my parts are like, I have to make choices to be wanted or not wanted, I'm going to pick jobs or hobbies or activities or friends or people that really try to reinforce and create a space of being wanted. And if I get any feeling that this person isn't really going to want me, then I don't even give them a chance and they're not in the club.

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So to answer your question, when I was 21, I got really involved in church. My boyfriend at the time, who became my husband, we got married when I was 22, we got really involved in his church. That really shifted my whole life for probably 20 years, that I got really involved in church and that was a community. I had a good church experience.

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I have not had a traumatic church experience at all, even though I don't really go to an evangelical church now, but I had a good experience for the most part. I think that's where the Enneagram 3 busyness and tasks and being good at something, that's when that started coming into play when I was in my 20s.

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All of a sudden, I wasn't chasing boys anymore. I was like, oh, I'm actually not dumb. I'm actually smart. If I take a class, I want an A. If I teach this Bible study, it needs to be really good. I need to spend hours on it. And I want everyone to come to my Bible study. It really shifted from this idea of being wanted to this idea of being really good at this thing.

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Alison Cook: So Tammy, is it fair to say on some level, you shifted your strategy to more church sanctioned or socially acceptable ways, but really you hadn't healed those deeper inner parts of you. You shifted from getting the affection of boys and popularity to, I'm going to be the best Bible study leader. I'm going to be the best therapist. I'm going to be the best wife, friend, church member.

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Tammy: Yes, except I don't know that I ever wanted to be the best wife, which I'm so sorry to my ex-husband, but to be completely honest that wasn't there. I can feel that now because now I have a partner and I feel differently. I feel that I want to be a good partner to him and I look back and I think, wow, I never felt that way with my husband. It was yep, got him, check off the list, turn around, what else are we doing? 

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And that's been something that has been interesting to notice. So I'm not judging it, but I'm really noticing that wow, that was not on my list. An Enneagram 1 is going to want to be perfect and be the best at something. And a 3's drivenness isn't about that. It really isn't about being the best. It's more about the accomplishment of it. For me it was that idea, maybe for you too, it's like the idea of being wanted.

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So my success is being wanted. It's not even really being the best at it. When I think about my book or the podcast, I have a lot of “It's good enough. Let's accomplish it and get stuff done”. It has a different kind of flavor.

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Alison Cook: It makes sense and I really appreciate your honesty, Tammy and I'm thinking of the listener, there's such an honesty. And I think this is something IFS affords us–we can really look at ourselves honestly, because we remove the shame and we really get curious.

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And I really hear you say that as you look back, there's an Enneagram 3 part of you that was like, I can check marriage off the list. I've accomplished marriage, which is a very different way of looking at it than, what does it mean to consistently show up for this other human being that I've chosen to bring into my life or God has put into my life?

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There's such honesty. I have no doubt there's a whole other side to that story. We won't go into that, but I do appreciate the honesty of your own ability to go, no, in reality, when I look back, there was a lot of me wanting accomplishments and that's a good pushback on that. It's not about being the best. There's a desire for success and it makes sense to me that at that young age, you’re like, I did that, done, next. 

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That probably did impact, from your side of things, how you could show up as a friend and a partner and an intimate person in a long term relationship. That's really honest. I want to pause there. I think that's unusual and worthy of pausing on. Saying, oh, yeah, this is what was going on with me, without shame, with real honesty. There's freedom in that.

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Tammy: I like what you're saying, because I think IFS really does that. If we look at Riley in this movie, we can really look at these parts of her with yeah, of course there's an anxious part of her, a sad part, like these parts are here. We don't have to judge them or apologize for them; we can be curious about them.

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We can see how much they love Riley and how hard they work for her. And that's the same thing with our parts. My parts, the parts of me that were like, let's pick a boy and let's be boy crazy and let's do what we need to do to be wanted. And the parts of me that feel really unwanted, I really understand them.

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It makes sense to me that they're there. It makes sense to me why they're there. Not in a logical way. But in a heart way, like my heart can really understand in a loving way how these parts are trying to help me and if we make it a bit simplistic, my system gets built around this idea of being wanted and successful. 

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These two things are highlighted for me being an Enneagram 3 and coming from the family that I did. I then think about the parts of me that work really hard to make sure those things happen, and then think about the parts of me that come in when that doesn't happen.

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When my name isn't on the basketball list, and then all these parts have to come in to help me with these feelings of failure, with these feelings of being unwanted. That happens with my son. If my son, my 13 year old, he's an only child, I would have a hard time when there's any little hint that he doesn't want me. My system goes haywire. There's rage and there's shutdown. 

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Because my system is built around this idea of being wanted and unwanted. When there are feelings around that, everyone goes crazy. So then I have to be there to say, hey guys, I'm here. I am with you. Turn and look at me. I am with you. We have a Self that can step into the room, which we don't really see in Inside Out 2, but we have it. I come into the room and I say, I am here. I want you. I love you.

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What do you need from me? Let's have a connection with me and see what happens to these sweet parts when I enter the room. 

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Alison Cook: Can we move into that a little bit, Tammy? Because I love what you're saying. What does that actually look like? Because it's so real when you talk about your son triggering you, that those old childhood 10 year old parts of you that felt unwanted.

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Let's for a moment imagine, even put yourself in the setting of something he might do that would trigger that inside of you. Can you give us a little glimpse of how you've gotten to know those parts that show up? How do you even notice it in your body?

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Tammy: I've noticed it happens usually when I pick him up from school in the car. So I'll pick him up and he'll say something. He's tired, he's anxious, and sometimes there's a hard transition. He'll say something, and what I notice in my body is it feels like I disappear.

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I could be singing and having a little dance party by myself waiting to pick him up. He gets in the car and I'm like, hey baby, how are you? How was your day? Because Joy is usually here and I'm all joy. And he says something else. All of a sudden I feel like an invisible cloak has come over me and I don't even feel like I'm there. I'm putting my hands on ten and two. My hands are on ten and two. I'm driving the car and all of a sudden it's like, there's no more personality here.

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I go from singing to I'm not here at all. And I'm aware. I'm here. I'm aware. But I really feel this cloak of nothingness–I've completely shut down. I'm shut down. I'm numb. And it feels like it takes over my whole body.

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Alison Cook: Sounds like a nervous system response. It's not freeze, necessarily, but you really do go into a form of a fight/flight response. Inside of you, a part takes you out, essentially. Yeah. So now that you know what you know now, as you work with the part, how do you in that moment hang on to yourself?

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Tammy: One of the things I think is really true is, it's happened so much and this has become a part of me. I consider some of those moments that were really hard, I'm like, oh yeah, this part's been around for a long time. It predates my son. It goes back to when I was little. This really protective cloaking, numbing, shutting down part of me. One of the things I really recommend for listeners is to become really familiar with what we call your “major players”. Who are the major players that are driving your bus?

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Because then you can get really familiar with when they come. So this shutdown part, I'm like, oh, here you are, buddy. If sadness takes over that console for Riley, we all know what sadness feels like. She's got her little cute face and her little voice and we're all familiar with that part. It's really getting familiar with oh, that's what's here right now. What I'll do now is I will begin to breathe. And I will say, I am here, let me be here.

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And what I'm saying to the part is I'm here. I, adult self, I'm here. I know that you're here. I know that you're trying to protect me, but I'm letting you know that I'm here. Let me be here. And it might take the 20 minute drive home for me, and I don't go jump back into sort of singing. It might take me an hour or two to breathe and let my senses ground me. 

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I'm saying to this part, hey bud. I know that you're here. I know you're here for a good reason. Thank you for being here. I get it and I'm here. Let me be here. Let me be here with him. I've got this. You don't need to be here and let's breathe and let's look around and I'll stop talking to him. I'm not going to engage with him right now because engaging with him doesn't work at that moment. 

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I might turn the radio on a little bit. We're going to look around, we're going to look at the trees. We get home, we're going to take our dogs for a walk, and slowly it feels like I come back online. 

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Alison Cook: And at that point, you're much more equipped to re-engage with your son than trying to fake it in the moment. I think sometimes in those moments, we try to fake it or we get mad, or other parts of us take over, but what I hear you saying is breathing through it, taking your time, being present to yourself, which as a parent, we're jumping into parenting, but the reality is our kids see through our phoniness anyway.

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Sometimes they're in their own world anyway. They're fine. Sometimes it’s just taking a minute to breathe through it. The more we can do that work to hang on to ourselves, the more we come back online. As you've done this work, as you've reconnected, and I so appreciate you sharing openly your story from the past and then bringing it into the present day, because it's so vivid.

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Like those moments with our own kids replay the tape of our own pain points. That's what happens. And I am curious, how do you connect spiritually? How is your spirituality of resource to you in those moments?

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Tammy: Yeah. No, it's a great question. I'll answer it broader and then more specifically. I was going to an evangelical church here in New England, which was fine and all my friends went there and it was okay. And then COVID happened and during COVID, I discovered a community called Closer Than Breath. Closer Than Breath is a quote from Thomas Keating, who is a Catholic priest and mystical contemplative man who did lots of writing. 

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He writes that God is closer than our breath. I started doing some groups with this community and they had an Enneagram and Centering Prayer group. I was always curious about Christian meditation and what that looked like and what did that mean? And I started doing these Centering Prayer groups. Centering Prayer is the idea that we take 20 minutes, we take a word and the word isn't necessarily a prayer word, the word is more like a windshield wiper because you know our thoughts are going all the time.

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Our thoughts are chatty and we use the word to clean the windshield and settle back into our heart to settle into a prayer to have more connection to the divine. That's what I started doing–a contemplative type of Christianity and the practice is called Centering Prayer. I started doing those groups and then I ended up going to a Quaker meeting and having this sort of hour of silence. 

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I'm a busy person, and something happened for me during the silence. The 20 minutes of silence or in the Quaker meeting, it's an hour of silence, these people have this contemplative experience of God that feels so beautiful and very aligned with what I know. My little Baptist girl inside feels attuned and aligned. And I did go to a seminary when they do say stuff that's not aligned, I'm like, that's not right, but that's okay. 

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Because my parts say it's okay because I have this foundation. I have this foundation. I can go and I can take what works for me and leave the rest. So anyways, that's where I am spiritually now, enjoying this community of people that are really connecting to God in this different way that feels a little bit more experiential.

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It feels more IFS-y really. It's really about going inside and connecting, I think the Quakers say, to that inner light. We're connecting to I would say the Holy Spirit, or to that divine inside. If you're IFS-y, you would say to that authentic self. It's this way to reconnect and to be more grounded and open up in a way that's like opening up to our true nature. We've forgotten our true nature and we've forgotten this light that we are. 

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It's a time and a space for my parts to quiet down and for me to reconnect to the divine and reconnect to God. And that feels really beautiful to me. My partner is from North Carolina and when I go visit him, he goes to an evangelical church and I enjoy that. It feels like home in so many ways, but often I sit with my eyes closed and take in what God wants to show me or tell me through the music and through the sermon.

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I think that all that is a practice, whether it's a Sunday morning practice, or a couple of times a week or a daily practice of really going inside. But as I go inside, it's to connect to my parts, but it's also to ask my parts to give me space, to be here in the stillness. And in this stillness, nothing needs to be done. I'm plugging into my power source, that source that wants me and loves me and is light and is love. 

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I can feel that ultimate wanting, the ultimate healing, that is beyond me and beyond what I can get on this earth, beyond what my son can give me or my puppy or my partner. It's beyond anything like that. And then I have this experience that feels really healing.

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Alison Cook: What's running through my mind as I'm listening is, be still and know that I am God. And I love the way you brought that around to ultimately being wanted, and the more you sit in that and train yourself through the slowing down, through the intentional quiet, through the intentional practice of contemplative prayer, and you plug in literally to that place where I’m truly wanted deep inside my core.

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Where who I am meets who God is. This is where who I am meets who God is. Your parts start to trust you. In those moments, then when you're in the car with your son, when those parts still rear up, you've begun to retrain yourself. There's more here. It's beautiful.

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I love that you took us there and I also love your joy, your busyness, you're such a life force. You light up a room. Those parts of you are beautiful. And also even with your son, you lighting up the room and then he's eeyore-ing, raining on your parade. And those parts of you hijack you. All of that is welcome around that centering place of, here is God. I love that you're tapping into that. That's beautiful.

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Tammy: Yeah, thank you. I love the way you say that. This connection, it's like bringing all of me and all of my parts that are welcome and have good intentions and are wounded in some way and have all these burdens. We all come to the divine for healing and for connection and for light and for silence. We all come and enjoy and take in this connection.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. That's beautiful. Tammy. Thank you so much for sharing with us. I would love for you to let the listeners know how they can connect with you and your work. Where can they find your podcast and your book?

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Tammy: Yeah, so if you go to my website, everything's there. TammySollenberger.com and that's where my book and podcast is. I'm on Instagram @IFSTammy and we have a YouTube channel where we're starting to put some of our favorite episodes. So if you're new to IFS or you're curious about IFS, you can go to the “start here” page. It's on YouTube and it's on my website and it has five of our favorite episodes. 

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We're going to keep adding and make these playlists so it's super fun. But yeah, that's where you go.

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Alison Cook: Before we close, I'd love to ask you two questions. What would you say to that younger 10 year old with the wisdom that you have now?

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Tammy: I'm currently working with a 17 year old part that I'm really hanging out with lately. It’s this desire to play more. And I wish I would have played more and not in a shaming way or even a regretting way, but I think about being really narrowly focused. I wish I would have opened up and tried more things, so I would say play and experiment and try and draw and paint and music and try things and really experiment more.

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It's not having to succeed at anything. It's playing. Go be successful at playing. That's what I would say. Go be successful at playing.

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Alison Cook: I love that. What would you say is bringing out the best of you right now? 

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Tammy: What’s bringing out the best of me is this relationship that I'm in, this long distance relationship I'm in. It's bringing out the best of me because it's making me think about who I want to be. I want to be more loving. What's keeping me from being loving? It's challenging me.

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It's challenging me to be like, okay, you're 50. Do you want to be in a loving relationship? Do you want that? So then what do you need to do? What parts do you need to work on? What needs to happen inside of you internally for you to have the external relationship you always wished you had?

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Because here's the really cool thing, and I don't recommend people get divorced or have two relationships, but when you do and you end up doing the same thing, you're like, oh shoot, that must be me. So you can have the same relationship you had the first time. Or you can try something different. What seems to be bringing out the best of me is being a little bit brave and a little bit vulnerable to love and to be loved in a really different way.

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Alison Cook: Wow. That's a whole word. I love that honesty. Again, Tammy, that's the freedom that comes with this work of really being able to look at your own self, your own parts, and get really honest with yourself. What's mine to do differently? I love that you're getting this opportunity. You're the best. You're such a light and I'm so grateful for the time you gave to us.

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Tammy: Thanks, Alison. And I could say the same thing about you. I appreciate your friendship and all that you do for the world. And for me, as a friend.

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Do you ever feel like you're wearing a mask, hiding how you really feel from others?

Do you find yourself in conflict with different aspects of your personality, struggling to find harmony?

In honor of the new Pixar movie, Inside Out 2, we're diving into Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy in a brand new series this week! Today's guest, Jenna Riemersma is an amazing human, an expert IFS clinician, and the bestselling author of 2 books on IFS.

‍

Here's what we cover:

1. What is Internal Family Systems (IFS)?
2. The hidden cost of high-performance armor
3. Are kids truly resilient or just coping?
4. 3 signs of a good therapist
5. Jenna's journey of writing her book on IFS
6. Innovative Practices for ongoing healing

Jenna Riemersma is a popular author, speaker, and certified Internal Family Systems therapist whose groundbreaking IFS books have repeatedly topped Amazon’s best-selling new release charts.

• Connect with Jenna at: https://jennariemersma.com/
• Get Jenna's free Insight Timer IFS meditations
• Read Altogether You and Altogether Us
• Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

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‍

If you like this episode you'll love:

• Episode 39: Boundaries For Your Soul: How to Navigate Your Overwhelming Thoughts & Feelings
• Episode 40: 5 Steps to Healing Painful Emotions
• Episode 43: How to Tame Your Inner Critic & Why All Parts Are Welcome

‍

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:

Alison Cook: I am so thrilled to bring you my conversation with Jenna Riemersma. Jenna is the author of the bestselling IFS books, Altogether You: Experiencing Personal and Spiritual Transformation Through Internal Family System Therapy, and All Together Us: Integrating the IFS Model with Key Modalities, Communities, and Trends. 

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Like Boundaries For Your Soul, Jenna's book, Altogether You, is a faith-based integration of the IFS model with a Christian faith perspective. She shared with me for the first time her experience of writing Altogether You as Boundaries for Soul was coming out and what that was like for her.

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She is so real and so candid and so beautiful. I love this woman. I love the work that she is putting into the world. Everything Jenna does is so helpful and so grounded in the fact that she has done the work herself. Please enjoy my conversation with Jenna Riemersma. 

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***

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Alison: Everything about you, I have so much respect for, and I'm so excited to have you here today. This is the week that the new Inside Out movie came out and in honor of that, I was so excited to have a few conversations with some of the IFS therapists and clinicians who I respect the most in the world about this inner landscape that we all have. 

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Your first book, Altogether You, is about IFS. It's a faith based approach to it. It's different from Boundaries for Your Soul, but there's a similar theme of taking IFS and integrating it with a faith perspective. I highly recommend it to all my listeners. But Jenny, you describe your experience growing up as an only child in a military family, moving around a lot. I have listeners who write to me about that experience.

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It's more common than one would think which understandably creates challenges in a child's inner world. You describe masking through perfectionism in performing. I would love to go back in time to that younger you, thinking of Riley in the Inside Out movie in those preteen years. What were some of the characters or parts that developed inside your inner landscape to cope with some of those challenges? 

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Jenna: I feel like I am Riley because watching the Inside Out movie, I resonate with absolutely everything and I cannot recommend it highly enough to your listeners. It's an amazing representation of a beautiful world. An IFS approach to understanding our inner worlds. Riley is a young pre-adolescent who's going through a really challenging move from this idyllic place where she's lived into a completely different environment and being able to come to terms with acknowledging all the different parts of herself and not joy.

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It's been a really interesting thing to watch in her journey. Joy went from being what we call in internal family systems, an unburdened part of the pure essence of joyfulness, to a burdened part where joy had to start being in control of everything. There's this amazing scene where Joy draws a circle around sadness and says, “Sadness, I've got the perfect plan for you. On the first day of school, you stay in this circle and don't move”. 

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It's a perfect example of exiling and spiritual bypassing and I had that going on in my inner world as an only child who moved every year or two my entire life. What I knew would be well received in my world was doing things perfectly, pleasing people, and trying to exile all the parts of me that were feeling and doing things that weren't very shiny, like Joy tried to exile sadness. I looked really good on the surface, but I was coming apart at the seams inside, which was very similar to what Riley experienced in the movie.

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Alison Cook: How did you, as a younger woman, whether as a teenager or even in young adulthood, how did you experience that dissonance? You had it all together. You were thriving.

Whereas internally you were feeling like you were coming apart at the seams. How did you experience that back then?

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Jenna: I did not have an understanding of what was happening, nor words for it. What landed in my inner system was this deep-seated belief, which I now know to be a burden of a part of mine in exile, that believed I'm broken. I'm not good enough. Something's wrong with me. If anybody ever saw through this outside facade and saw who I really was and how I really felt, how much anxiety and shame I really was carrying, they wouldn't love me. 

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They would reject me. My internal system became heavily burdened with those beliefs. And then my protective inner system became very involved and invested in making sure nobody ever saw that, all outside of my conscious knowledge. I knew that I wasn't comfortable in my own skin, but I didn't understand why or what was happening or how to fix it.

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Alison Cook: You're saying something so I want the listener to hear this, I often say the stronger the armor, the more tender the heart. The armor in your case, Jenna, this perfectionism, pleasing, performing, I'm assuming and imagining similar to my own experience, was socially acceptable.

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Jenna: Yes.

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Alison Cook: It wasn't the kind of armor that was going out and doing drugs or acting out or being delinquent in some way. It was the kind of armor that folks probably respected in many ways. Is that accurate?

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Jenna: Absolutely. It made a lot of sense for the parts of me that took on this high performing, achieving, people-pleasing kind of armor because it was very well received in my environment, in my home. It was one of the only ways that I could feel positive feedback. And I kept trying to jump higher and try harder and do all the things and finally graduated from Harvard with a master's degree and it still felt empty.

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I realized, “something is really wrong here”. I can't jump any higher. I can't do any more and this is not working. It is not working. I am still miserable inside.

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Alison Cook: You answered my next question–when did you begin to realize that this wasn't working? So it sounds like it was all the way after your master's degree, that the misery inside of you would not go away, no matter how much you achieved.

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Jenna: Yes, and from an IFS perspective, we know that is true because when we have exiles, the vulnerable parts of us that carry these core beliefs come up from our trauma and mine were, I'm all alone. Something's wrong with me. If you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. Those don't go away with time.

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One of my pet peeve phrases is “children are so resilient”. No, they're not. Children have strong protectors that learn how to cover up their exiles and function in a way that looks very, very functional in a variety of ways. I certainly did, but my exiles were not healed. In fact, with every experience I had, they became more and more burdened because somehow it still wasn't good enough.

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I stopped striving outward and began to turn my focus inward to connect with my own parts and my own system and welcome all the different parts of me, no matter what they were feeling or doing. Which is the opposite of what I'd spent my whole life doing, which was moving against them. I started moving toward them with curiosity and compassion. That's when everything shifted. 

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Alison Cook: You've achieved everything externally that people would assume would make you feel healthy or successful or happy inside. You realize it's the opposite. You're not. How did you reach out for help? And what did you find, whether from a therapist, from a faith community, from friends?

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Sometimes you reach out for help and it's not helpful. Sometimes we have to wrestle for good help, the kind of help we actually need. I'm curious, in that moment where you realized things aren't working, I need to change, what was it like for you? I know in my own experience, when I've had those key inflection points where for me, anxiety started to rush up to the surface. 

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It was very similar. It was almost to the end of a doctoral program. I'd literally never taken an incomplete in a class, and suddenly I'm having panic attacks, and not able to attend class and you start scrambling for support and you find out really quickly where help actually comes from and where it does not. What was that like for you in those moments when you started to reach out for support? Because I'm assuming at this point you didn't yet know about IFS. 

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Jenna: In fact, I was not a therapist at this point in my journey. My first degree, what I went to Harvard for, was public policy. I was working on Capitol Hill and creating legislation and I was in a completely different world and I knew nothing about therapy or clinical work. I had never even been in counseling and no, I didn't know anything about the clinical world, but what really brought it to the surface for me was having this big career on Capitol Hill that was moving very quickly in an advancing direction, having a master's degree from Harvard, being married to my dream husband and having two kids in the white picket fence and the golden retriever.

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It was very shiny on the outside. Then some deep dark challenges started to emerge in our marriage that blindsided me. I had no way of making sense of what was happening and I was absolutely devastated. All of my coping strategies at this point were worthless because I couldn't pretend everything was okay. There was no way to pretend everything was okay, and it was a mixed bag of responses.

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I had the good fortune of being a part of a wonderful faith community with some really incredible friends who I didn't realize, but I had never really let get close to me. They were friends. I was there for them and their struggles, but I don't know that I really knew that I could share my struggles. I didn't know that was allowed.

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It was not part of my protective armor that I could be vulnerable. I had some dear friends who I was able to open up to and who were able to see all parts of me, all the pain, all the mess, and really embrace me and allow me to be in the mess without any agenda. It was incredibly healing and transformational.

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I had experiences of reaching out to perhaps the more formal faith community and receiving, unfortunately, some well-intentioned, but very damaging, very hurtful platitudes. I needed to pray more or if I would be a more godly woman or recite the scripture, then I wouldn't feel this anxiety. Or I need to give it to God or a whole variety of what I now know to be spiritual bypass, which was more about creating comfort for the person who was sitting across from me than really tending to my wounds.

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That experience really reinforced my protective system that said, aha, it's not actually safe to let people see when you're hurting and wounded and vulnerable. That whole experience led me to therapy. Which was thankfully good therapy and deeply transformational and healing. In the middle of the darkest moments of that whole experience, I had a very clear encounter with God who said, I am calling you to do this work.

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I said, oh no, you're not. This is awful. The last thing in the world I want to do is spend any more time in this world of trauma and grief and loss. God said, oh, yes, I am. I fought that for a year or two as I was going through my own healing, beginning a healing journey, which I've now been on for the better part of 30 years.

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Gratefully, God was right and I was wrong and my resistance was overcome. I went and got a whole different master's degree and started working in the field. Then I encountered IFS and that encounter was the change point for me. That was really where the healing began because I had never before heard the message that all parts of me could be welcome.

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I had always verbally and nonverbally gotten the very clear message that only the shiny parts of me were welcome and all the rest of the parts of me needed to stay locked in the basement and IFS said, no. The same way that Jesus brings his loving kindness and healing outside of us, he wants to bring it to all parts of you.

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I said, I don't even know how we do this. I began to open into that process and it was absolutely life changing to me, spiritually, emotionally, in every possible way. That led me to where I am now as a clinical consultant and writing books and teaching and speaking and helping other people experience that and the way that it really transformed my life. I'm very grateful that was my path.

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Alison Cook: I love that Jenna. I love the layers of healing that you describe, and I think it's so important for the listener here. There are layers. Initially, you had friends who loved you and who honored your experience; it wasn't deep, trauma-informed work at the beginning, but when you cracked open a little bit, there were some friends who honored you and loved you that brought a little healing in to those exiled parts before you even knew what they were.

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Then you said something I'd love to double-click on–you said, “I thankfully got in with a good therapist”. You've now been a therapist for decades now, you have a huge center in Atlanta, you are training so many therapists, you're deep in it. Back then you knew nothing about it. I'm curious on behalf of the listener, how do we know when we're with a good therapist, with someone who's really going to help us? How did you know?

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Jenna: Yeah, that's such a rich question. I was really blessed. The first person I landed with that someone recommended to me was the right person for me at that stage and I knew, because all parts of me were welcome in the room. When you're with someone like that, I now know that person had a lot of Self energy on board, or what I would call the image of God inside of them, what IFS calls self.

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When that is present in the room, no parts of you have to mask and pretend and defend. You can simply be present with all the different parts of you with no judgment and no shame. That was critical for me. That was so powerful in my healing. Obviously training and experience matter.

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Presence, I would almost say matters equally as much. The issue of faith or not faith is a really significant one that comes up a lot when people are coming to me looking for referrals or different things. There seems to be this sort of polarization in the Christian community that we don't hesitate if we're diagnosed with cancer to immediately go to the best cancer specialist wherever they are, whoever they are, and not really discern if we're going to work with them in our chemotherapy and surgery because of their faith orientation. 

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There seems to be a divergence between our physical healing and our emotional healing. Many people feel that the Christian component is the most significant and the clinical is second best, but we don't feel that way about our dentist or our doctor or any other healing entity.

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A piece of wisdom that I encourage people with is that a really skillful clinician will honor and integrate your faith perspective. I would argue that their clinical skill is more important than a specific faith orientation or if they're Methodist or Presbyterian or Catholic or whatever they might happen to be. Be willing in the same way that you would if you had a cancer diagnosis to look for and screen for the person who is the most clinically qualified.

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If they happen to be a person of faith, that's a bonus. I find that has been a useful tool for me in discerning kind of helpful and less helpful counseling. 

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Alison Cook: You said that so well. I love what you're saying about being qualified for this specific thing. If you're dealing with deep trauma that you've never worked with, you want to be with someone who has worked with a lot of trauma, has expertise and experience.

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If you're dealing with extreme anxiety, if you're dealing with a marriage fracture, you want to work with someone trained specifically in deep trauma and who has experience and expertise. I really love that. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit of that background.

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I want to ask you a little bit about Altogether You. You ended up becoming a therapist. You became trained in IFS. We have similar trajectories in some ways. I happened upon IFS very late in my own training in some ways, or not late, but certainly not at the beginning of it. It changed everything for me. I think both of us in parallel, we're absorbing IFS and then trying to figure out how this assimilates with our faith background, because it has a very spiritual component. 

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What led you to write Altogether You? I love how you refer to that Self, that place inside as the Imago Dei. I see both. We come down in it as the Spirit-led self, the place where the Holy Spirit lives, where the Spirit of God comes to live. I think they're theologically very similar. The idea is there's a place inside of us that is that sanctuary for the living God.

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Jenna: Yes.

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Alison Cook: Tell me a little bit more about that process of writing Altogether You.

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Jenna: There's a part of me that wants to give a surface level pat answer. There's another part of me that's hilarious, that tells the real story. So I'm inclined to tell the real story because I don't think I've ever shared this with you in our years of friendship, but you're actually integrally involved in this story. I don't think you know this. 

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I encountered IFS. It changed my life. And, again, it was the second time I've had that kind of an encounter with God where God said, write this book. I said, are you crazy? I am not an English major. I have never written a book. I have no idea how to write a book. I don't know anything about publishing. What do you mean write a book? So I argued with God and as always, God won and so I sat down and said, okay I will write this book.

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I felt like when I was able to get into a flow state, that deep sense of connection with the Holy Spirit came through me. I'm guessing you resonate with that in the writing process. It came through me and onto the page. I said, okay, God, I wrote the book. Now what? He said, go publish the book. I said, I don't know how to publish a book. Are you kidding me? What in the world? 

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So anyway, I put it out in the world and immediately, multiple publishers were interested, which I was shocked about. I went under contract pretty quickly with a very large publisher and had been under contract for a year, not having any awareness of you. Not knowing that you were working on a similar book. A year into the process, the publisher, out of nowhere, pulled the contract.

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About a day later, your book came out. I said to God, are you kidding me? Why? Why did you tell me to write this book? Somebody else was already doing it. Now I don't even have a contract. It was one of those crises of faith. I went back to the drawing board and sat in silence and said, I'm going to sit here, God, until I hear your direction for the next step. I sat and I sat in silence. Long story short, God led me to a whole different direction of publishing. 

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Now I've published multiple books and I'm working on my next book. It was an incredible process, but it was really a gift to me to see your book come out. I thought, I'm worthless. I have nothing to contribute. This has already been done. But your book has met this beautiful need in the world and has been incredibly well received. It is an incredible book that I highly recommend. 

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My book has done incredibly well and reached a lot of places and been translated into many different languages and all the things. It was very healing to my system that really believed in black and white thinking that there's only one best and everything else is worthless. To realize, no, we each bring our giftings and our talents and our perspective to the world and it all matters and it all can be used in the service of God in different ways. 

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It's mutually compatible. Here we are, friends, publishing books on the same path and it's really been quite a lovely journey. That piece of it was really healing for my inner system of, hey, my voice could still bring something that matters even if someone else has a voice. That's not a message that I got in my inner system and that my exiles received when I was growing up. So it's really been a sweet and a healing journey for me. That's the first time I've shared that story with you. 

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Alison Cook: Literally, we were probably working with the same light bulb, because that was very similar with Kim and I. We were thinking, we've got to write about this from a faith perspective, and the way that God works in our hearts can seem so mysterious to us. I would say to the listener, read both. I always tell people that they are very similar books, but very different. It's that beauty of the diversity of the human experience. 

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You and I've talked about this in other ways, where your voice brings insight and wisdom and healing to the page. Just as a clinician, there are different ways each of us is going to approach something that are each really valuable and fill out the whole picture. There are so many other people out there doing it too. We're all bringing a little bit of the light to this huge, complicated thing of trying to understand the human psyche in relationship to God. 

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I love that you shared that Jenna, because it also ministers to me because I have those feelings all the time. Why do I need to keep using my voice? So to hear you say that, I'm shocked by that because I see you as such a formidable, courageous leader in the IFS community. So I would have had no idea that was your experience.

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Jenna: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I mentioned that not so much about my experience, but for listeners who may be listening and wondering, does what I have to bring to the world matter? Does my voice matter? Do my unique giftings matter? Yes they do. In fact, oddly enough, Dick Schwartz developed IFS out of his greatest professional failure. It emerged from an utter failure of the way that he was approaching therapy and out of his ability to be present to that with curiosity and compassion to really lean into his uniquenesses, IFS emerged, which is incredible. 

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To any listeners who may be navigating those types of life experiences and questionings and self doubt, what you have to say and who you are and your giftings in the world absolutely matter.

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Alison Cook: I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. I feel really honored that you would share on behalf of the real story there. That means a lot. I would love Jenna, before we wind down here, I would love to ask you. Because you are a mom, I know your kids are now out of the house. You're essentially an empty nester, but you do a lot of writing, you run a clinical practice. 

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What practices help you stay in tune with these young parts of us that are still with us. We're still trying to lead these parts of us. What practices help you do that?

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Jenna: Yeah, it's really a daily practice for me and I find for me and the way my system is wired, it works best if I start my day with prayer and meditation and a turning inward to acknowledge all the different parts of me that are present. I will do guided meditations. I have many of them free on insight timers.

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Several other IFS practitioners have guided IFS meditations on insight timer, which is a free app. So I often will use that. I also use parts mapping which is really helpful for me. If I've got some parts at war over a particular decision or some parts that are struggling, I use parts mapping as a wonderful tool to connect with my system.

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I'm always in my own IFS therapy. That feels really important to me. I cannot lead people where I am not going myself. I do session swaps with my dear friend, Tammy Sollenberger. 

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Alison Cook: She's going to be on the podcast!

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Jenna: Wonderful. Yeah. We swap sessions every couple of weeks and have for a long time and different ways of continuing to do my own work and bring divine love to all the different parts of my own inner system. Because if I am not doing that, then I can't be trying to lead other people and help other people do that. So it feels really like a double gift to me. It's an ethical imperative and it's such a gift to my system to continue to be on that journey. 

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Alison Cook: I love that. We’re always still in process, even as we're leading others. What would you want the younger version of you to know? That young, achieving, high performing girl who's headed out to conquer the world? What would you want her to know that you know now?

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Jenna: I Would want her to know that all parts of you are welcome and all parts of you are good. Even parts of you that have gotten stuck, carrying burdens of painful feelings and behaviors and beliefs because of life experiences, I would love for her to know, I would love for every listener to know, all parts of you are welcome and all parts of you truly are good.

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Alison Cook: Thank you for that. I love that. Tell us how we can connect with you, your books, your work. How can people find you?

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Jenna: Sure. My books are available wherever books are sold. Amazon is a great spot to find Altogether You. My second book is called Altogether Us. It's a pretty comprehensive IFS integration book. So if you're curious about this IFS model and how it integrates with parenting and sexuality and communication and all the many different things, that book is available at Amazon as well.

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My website is Movetoward.com because I think that's the spirit of the IFS model–to move toward all parts of ourselves with curiosity and compassion. So people are welcome to connect with me there at Movetoward.com.

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Alison Cook: I love that. You've got so many great resources on your website, links to IFS therapists, Christian IFS therapists, resources, all sorts of things. So please go check out. Jenna's work. Jenna, one last question that I try to ask all my guests: what's bringing out the best of you right now?

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Jenna: Wonderful friends who understand that all parts are welcome and who are present with non-judgment and with love and curiosity and compassion, like you are with me right now. So I would say in this moment, you bring out the best in me and I'm so grateful for you and your beautiful heart and your beautiful work.

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Alison Cook: I am so grateful for you, Jenna. In so many ways I could share some return stories with you and toward that, we'll have you back on the podcast. Because there's a wealth of wisdom here. Thank you so much for being with us today.

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Jenna: Thank you for having me.

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Have you or someone you love struggled with depression?

If so, you're not alone. Rates of depression have increased in the past few years, and my guest today is here to give us hopeful, helpful, science-backed wisdom on how to name, frame, and brave a path out of depression. From identifying the subtle signs of mild depression to addressing more severe and persistent symptoms, our conversation will equip you with practical tools and strategies to tackle depression. Whether you're personally struggling or supporting a loved one, this episode will help you find clarity and direction.

My guest today, Dr. Len Lantz, is one of America's top psychiatrists and a clinical assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is the editor of the www.psychiatryresource.com, and he maintains a clinical practice at Big Sky Psychiatry in Helena, Montana.

Content Warning: This episode briefly touches on the topic of suicide. We want you to feel safe and cared for while listening, so please take care, or if you need to skip this one, consider asking a friend to listen on your behalf.

Here’s what we cover:

1. Why mental health diagnoses are hard to get right
2. Current statistics on increasing rates of depression
3. Signs and symptoms of depression
4. Debunking stigmas about depression in faith-based communities
5. Research-backed interventions for mild depression
6. Proven medical options for treating severe or stubborn depression
7. How to support a loved one struggling with depression

‍

‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Go to https://hensonshaving.com and enter BESTOFYOU at checkout to get 100 free blades with your purchase. (Note: you must add both the 100-blade pack and the razor for the discount to apply.)
• 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.
• Give all the fathers in your life 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!
• ‍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.

Additional Resources:

• The Psychiatry Resource
• ‍https://www.lenlantz.com/
• ‍Big Sky Psychiatry
• unJoy: Hope and Help for 7 Million Christians with Depression by Dr. Len Lantz
• Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller

‍

‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 103: Name, Frame, and Brave Gossip
• Episode 104: Overcoming the Fear of Vulnerability—Strategies to Stop Feeling Alone and Build Meaningful Connections
• Episode 105: 4 Lies We Tell, the Mental Health Benefits of Honesty, & How to Stop Lying In Your Relationships
• Episode 106: Transform Limiting Beliefs, Embrace Critical Thinking, & Navigate Holistic Health with Dr. Josh Axe
• Episode 33: People Pleasing & Developing Your Own Inner Compass: Thoughts on Depression, Mental Health & the Church, and Finding Hope in Dark Places

‍

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:

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 today and I'm thrilled to bring you this conversation all about naming, framing, and braving depression. This is such an important topic.

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As you'll hear from my guest in today's episode, depression has increased in numbers over the past decade, and it's really prevalent, especially among women. My guest today is so helpful and so practical and so hopeful in helping us to name depression in our lives, frame it and then take brave steps toward finding more joy and more health and more wholeness in our lives.

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My guest today, Dr. Len Lantz, is one of America's top psychiatrists and a clinical assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is the editor of The Psychiatry Resource, and he maintains a clinical practice at Big Sky Psychiatry in Helena, Montana.

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I actually met Len way back in the day when we were both undergraduates at Dartmouth college. Len and I lost touch after college, but reconnected when he got his hands on a copy of my first book with Kimberly Miller, Boundaries For Your Soul. And he realized as he was reading it, that he knew me that we had gone to college together. 

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We reconnected and I learned about his work treating depression and his book called unJoy: Hope and Help for 7 Million Christians with Depression. It's a fantastic resource for anyone who struggles with depression or if you know someone, a loved one, a family member, a neighbor who struggles with depression.

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Len brings together the best in science and psychiatry and current research on depression with a faith-based perspective. This book is such a helpful resource and I'm so thrilled to bring you this conversation today with Dr. Len Lantz.

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***

Alison Cook: So the last time we saw each other, I think, Len, we lived in the same dorms, like the same cluster of dorms at Dartmouth. Weren't you in the Choates?

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Len: I want to say I was in the Choates for maybe a year. And then I was in the international house for my junior and senior year.

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Alison Cook: How did you end up in the international house?

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Len: My freshman roommate is from India and he loved the international house, and you're allowed to be in the international house if you're from the U S. I felt a lot like an international student being on the East coast, because I'm from South Dakota, and I think that it felt like a big cultural shift for me to be on the East coast and to be at a place like Dartmouth. I really connected well with the international students. We all felt like we were in the same boat. I was actually their RA for a year.

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Alison Cook: That's amazing. I was from Wyoming, born and raised in Wyoming, and it absolutely felt like going to a different country and even, maybe even more so back then, I don't know, because there, it's not like there was the internet, we really were in a different world. I remember very quickly feeling like I was a fish out of water.

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Len: Absolutely.

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Alison Cook: Did you end up feeling like, in hindsight, you had a good experience at Dartmouth overall?

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Len: So the things that were very meaningful for me at Dartmouth was connecting with other Christians

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Alison Cook: Yeah.

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Len: It was transformative in my spiritual life. I went from, this is what I want to do, God, please bless it, please make it happen, to moving into my own faith. Not the faith of my parents, but my own faith where then I'm asking God, what do you want from me? What do you want me to do? As opposed to, this is what I want to do. Please bless it.

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And then I was still dating my high school sweetheart, whom I married–Krista. She was going to college about four hours away at Bard in New York. I was gone for a lot of the weekends where she was there. And that kind of changed my experience a little bit because we had that relationship that we were trying to nurture. 

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And then I changed my major, because I felt that God was calling me into medicine, which is a story in and of itself, but it was a huge leap of faith for me to change majors and then to plan to go into medicine. That changed everything for me academically, because I had to shift majors and classes. And Dartmouth was hard. It was harder for me than medical school. I am very grateful for it. And it was a challenging part of my life.

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Alison Cook: That makes sense. It's so interesting listening to you because, I'm going to guess, Wyoming and South Dakota were neighbors, more culturally Christian in a sense, and definitely more people identify as Christian. And I had the same experience where my faith came alive at Dartmouth and it's fascinating because, people think, oh, if you go off to these secular Ivy league schools, you're going to lose your faith. You and I had the opposite experience. There was a really vital Christian presence at Dartmouth. It was very formative for me spiritually as well.

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Len: Absolutely. It’s a place where you are exploring it for you. You're not doing it with your family.

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Alison Cook: Yes. And not because there's some cultural norm behind it either. You really have to think about it. That's one of the things, we landed in Boston, my husband and I, these last 20 years, and I'll say gosh, the Christians you meet here are amazing because you're not going to be a Christian really in the Northeast because it's culturally what the norm is. You're going to have put some thought into it on some level.

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Len: Absolutely. And you're going to have to seek out Christian communities. 

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Alison Cook: Yeah. Okay. So I want to get into it a little bit. So you didn't get into college thinking, I'm going to be a doctor; that changed in college. You decided you felt called to go into medical school. Did you know at that point you were going to go into psychiatry?

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Len: Oh no, not at all. In fact, I thought I was going to go into family practice and that's because one of the former U. S. Surgeon Generals, C. Everett Koop, was at Dartmouth and he did a lot of talking about family practice and the importance of medicine and primary care. And I thought, when I was thinking about medicine, I was like, okay I'm going to be a family practice doctor.

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And then when I got into medical school, we had this opportunity to experience a lot of different medical specialties. I was thinking about family practice, but I loved surgery and I loved pediatrics or thought I was going to love pediatrics, but then I got into it, and I realized that a lot of, at least on the outpatient side of pediatrics, a lot of it is treating kids who are aged two and younger, so they can't communicate really well. 

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And it's usually well-child visits. So you're like pinning these little kids down and they're really upset. And you're looking in their ears and looking in their mouth and their eyes. And I I felt like a bully; I'm like pinning down these kids who can't talk to me.

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But what I loved was when the teenagers would come in and they were usually only coming in for sports physicals or whatever. And they were anxious and aloof and maybe a little irritable. And what I really loved was breaking the ice, getting past their armor a bit. And then they would open up and talk and talk. They wouldn't want to stop talking. 

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And I thought, this is awesome. What if I could do this all the time? And then I thought more about psychiatry and child psychiatry. And the more I looked into it, the more I realized how much of a need there is, how much there is a national shortage for psychiatry, and in particular, child psychiatry or pediatric psychiatry. When I realized the need, that spoke to my heart, punched me in the gut where, wow, I'm not gonna be yet another doctor in a city or community or state or whatever–I can make a big impact

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Alison Cook: Oh, yeah.

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Len: So that's what really drew me to psychiatry. And I see a ton of kids still, and I see a lot of adults. But it's been a great experience. And then the other thing that I really like about psychiatry is that it is challenging to do well.

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Alison Cook: Yeah.

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Len: Every day is different and every person is different and everybody's story is different and I find that so valuable that it's easy for me to go to work and actually hear about people's story, and it's not hard on me per se. I think God designed me to be able to hear the hard stories. 

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Alison Cook: Yeah, that's amazing, Len. With psychiatry, it's not like there's a lab or a blood test you can take to get a diagnosis for depression or anxiety, necessarily. You correct me. There's probably some, maybe brain scanning. And so you're having to listen really hard and really well to people's self-report, which is notoriously kind of murky.

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It's hard for us to know how to communicate what we're feeling. And you have to sift through all that. So you have to have some serious skills at listening and discerning; I'm trying to think through what you're hearing and how it matches up against a potential need for a diagnosis or a medication.

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Len: Yeah. I think of myself a bit as a detective. I want to get to know this person really well. And I want them to trust me. I believe I'm trustworthy, but I want them to trust me so they can share the hard stuff and then I listen really carefully and then be thorough and come back to things again and again to make sure that I'm not missing something.

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Because in medicine and in psychiatry, in terms of diagnoses or whatever, it's important to be able to diagnose, what do you have? But it's also important to be thorough to say, what do you not have? I enjoy that. I find it very energizing.

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Alison Cook: That's incredible. Some psychiatrists do some therapy, talk therapy in addition to prescribing. Do you have a component of that in your practice?

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Len: I would say I incorporate it. I'm actually trained in a lot of different psychotherapy modalities, and I've done a lot of psychotherapy and family therapy, and I really love it. I love it a lot. I incorporate a lot of different therapeutic modalities, whether it's interpersonal psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy and some acceptance and commitment therapy.

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However, unfortunately the need right now is so great that I'm trying to balance spending enough time with people so they can get real quality care. And I do infuse psychotherapy in that. But for the most part, where I'm helping people right now is in helping them to get an accurate diagnosis.

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And then if they need meds, I'll handle the meds. Then I coordinate with a lot of exceptional therapists, in terms of pediatric psychiatrists who are available in my city of about 35,000 people. There are maybe one or two pediatric psychiatrists and about 200 therapists. That's why I'm trying to balance that out, but I love therapy. It is so powerful. It is so effective and it's not something you have to do forever.

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Alison Cook:  Two questions: One, we keep hearing some of these headlines about the mental health crisis, anxiety and depression going up. I'm curious what you think about that, if you're willing to answer that. And then number two, I'm curious, before we dive into the topic of depression, what nuggets of wisdom or advice would you give to the listener who is really desperate for a clear diagnosis or trying to figure out how to find someone to help them on that, not therapeutically, but get to the root of what's going on so that they can get the right care that they need.

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Len: These are good questions. Let's start with the first part, which is, how common is depression right now? If we look at adults, it's concerning because the most recent data from a Gallup poll showed that around 29 percent of US adults have experienced depression in their lifetime. This is self-report that they were told by someone that they had major depression. That's a lot.

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Alison Cook: Yeah.

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Len: And it's an average. So it's an average of adults across ages and between men and women. If you break down the data further, over a third of women have received a diagnosis of depression in their lifetime.

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And for men, it's like a fifth, it's 20%. Guys, they avoid doctors like the plague. So how are they going to get diagnosed if they don't ever see anybody? So the concern is that the rates are high now. It's not everybody, obviously, but the rates to me, that seems high. They would argue that that's about a 10 point increase over maybe the last decade. So rates have gone up, and life is harder over the last decade. 

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So maybe that's part of it. The pandemic was not easy on anybody. But what I would say is that depression is real. And it can cause tremendous impact in your life. If you think you have it, how do you get it diagnosed and then where do you go from there? So one would be distinguishing, what is depression?  

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I think it's worthwhile to take a second and talk about, what are some of the symptoms or signs of depression? So some of the symptoms or signs of depression would be: significant sadness, sadness that is lasting half a day or a whole day and happening maybe half the days of the week or more. And not in a reaction to something. It's like you wake up that way or it hits you randomly, and you don't have to have all these symptoms, but maybe a cluster of these symptoms: your motivation and energy are low. You are dragging. Your mind might not be working as well; concentration problems. 

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You might be feeling a bit hopeless. or helpless, or worthless. Your appetite, your sleep may be off, you might be crying all the time, maybe even have some thoughts of wanting to die or a death wish. That's like, oh God, take me now, or if I went to sleep and didn't wake up, it wouldn't bother me, or even if I had a terminal illness, at least I wouldn't be on this earth much longer.

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Sometimes these are passive thoughts, or maybe it's even more intense than that. And then this other thing, anhedonia. It's not always there, but it's there the most commonly among all the others besides sadness, which is anhedonia. And anhedonia is this fancy old word for saying loss of joy in life.

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And it's why I titled my book that way. I was trying to find a better word for it, so I made up a word called unjoy. I think unjoy captures this loss of joy that happens where fun things aren't fun anymore. If all of these symptoms or a cluster of these symptoms are happening for a couple of weeks or more, it's usually considered depression.

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Why it's so important to know if you have it, is that you should do something effective about it. There are other things in life that might mimic depression. We could talk about that but I think there's this other element that I try to do as a doc, which is to make sure that I'm looking for other conditions like, is a person depressed or do they have such intense anxiety, it's as though they have depression? 

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Is their life so hard or miserable right now that maybe they have burnout, or maybe the depression hits occasionally but it hits like a ton of bricks? And other times your mood is normal or actually elevated. Some people have bipolar disorder, but they only really come in when they're depressed. And when they're depressed, they don't even necessarily remember the highs, the depression hits so hard.

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And it's so severe. They don't even really remember the highs. It is important to get to the bottom of things, like what kind of diagnosis do I have? Because the treatments vary. Sometimes you have a stellar primary care provider, whether that's a medical doctor or like a nurse practitioner or PA, but some people have a very stellar primary care provider. 

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And sometimes their primary care provider is not stellar in terms of mental health. There are some free rating scales that are out there in terms of depression screeners. There's even some bipolar depression or bipolar screeners that are out there, but that's a place to start and it is a challenge.

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I have a private practice so I can decide how much time I want to spend with patients and I spend a lot more than the average person. I've made this decision in my private practice to focus on quality over quantity. I have a bit of a wait list, but once you're in, then we'll take the time that we need. So I can only help who I can help, but once you're in, we will take the time that's necessary to get to the bottom of things.

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Alison Cook: That's so good, Len. That's so good. I love how you're differentiating; you really have to think about what's really at the root because that I'm sure affects what medication you use, or even holistically, what other interventions you might use. It might affect how long somebody is on medication.

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It might be a stop gap or it might be something that is needed for much longer. Tell me, in your experience, because your book Unjoy, the subtitle is, Hope and Help for 7 Million Christians with Depression. What are some of the stigmas that your patients who come from a Christian background or come from a faith background face when it comes to a diagnosis of depression or dealing with depression?

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Len: There's a variety of things. And I think a lot of it stems from the Christian community that they're in, the church that they're in, their friend and family support network in terms of how accepting people are of mental health. So one comes from your community and whether or not you would feel comfortable sharing something like that.

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It's interesting, because no matter how much stigma there might be in your Christian community about mental health, for other medical conditions, it’s no big deal. If you had diabetes, they're not like, where's the sin in your life? You have diabetes. People don't talk that way usually. Or like you have asthma. Where is your undisclosed sin? You have asthma. Nobody talks that way, and so people are fine sharing about a lot of medical conditions

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Alison Cook: Yes.

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Len: When it comes to stigma with mental health, I think it starts with our community. With stigma, people are afraid to talk about it. And then another, I would say, in some communities, they treat mental health conditions as almost made up, or like a weakness. And that can be another kind of source of people not reaching out for help if that's the message that they're getting.

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Alison Cook: Yep.

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Len: Sometimes there can be a fear of secular resources or helpers. Sometimes doctors or therapists or other professionals are looked at or treated with suspicion. And then there's this other thing that I would say a lot of people feel, not Christians, but sometimes there's this fear that if you acknowledge that you have depression, it's almost like there's this fear that you're acknowledging that somehow you have some deep flaw.

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I don't see depression as different from asthma or diabetes or other really big medical conditions. I really see depression as an illness of the brain that can get better. I think some of the major messages that need to get out there is that depression is real. It's treatable.

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Alison Cook: I love that. And you say that pretty strongly in the book, from mild all the way to severe depression, you really believe people can get better. And I really want the listener to hear that because I agree with you. I think one of the reasons, apart from faith, apart from all the stigmas, one of the reasons we are afraid to name it, to really get honest about, oh, this is something I'm struggling with, is because then we're afraid that then we're stuck with it, when in fact naming it might be the next step toward really finding freedom. 

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I want to talk about that a little bit, Len. We're going to link to the book–such a helpful practical resource. I want to give the listener a glimpse into the kinds of things that might be helpful. You talk about mild depression. Let's start there. How prevalent is it? And how do you, as you look at someone who you think is experiencing mild depression, how do you look at the different ways of treating it?

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Len: So oftentimes people, when they have mild depression, they haven't even reached out to a professional resource at that point. They're trying to sort things out on their own. They might be going through this process of discernment, what is going on, what can I do on my own to start getting things back on track? 

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One of the things I mentioned in the book that I think we should talk about today is one of the most powerful natural treatments for depression, and it's called behavioral activation. The research would show it's far more powerful even than antidepressants. Now, obviously, if behavioral activation alone isn't working maybe you should get on an antidepressant. But behavioral activation is this concept that you put yourself on your schedule for the day. It's about filling your day with activities that are in alignment with your values. 

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And when we talk about behavioral activation, it's about every 30 minutes to every 60 minutes, do something different. Wake up and do your hygiene and put on clean clothes and leave the house or the apartment and get outside, go for a walk, meet someone for coffee, come back. Not everything's fun. Open your mail. And then, maybe listen to some music and play some music. 

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And then maybe do your laundry and then maybe you're going to read next, but even if you're not at work, what activities are you filling your day with that are in alignment with your values? So if that includes reading your Bible, read your Bible! If that includes praying, pray! You can do pleasurable things, just don't have that be your whole day. 

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Ice cream and pajamas and binge watching Netflix all day on your couch? Not recommended. I know a lot of people like to treat themselves that way, or oh, I have the day off, so I'm going to spend the whole day in bed–that's actually not good for you, okay? If you get a mental health day from work, if you take a day off from work, you're like, I can't do it. I'm calling off from work. How are you going to spend that day in a meaningful way? 

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And that is incredibly powerful. And it's hard! If you're depressed, you don't want to do anything. You don't have energy. You don't have motivation. You're going to have to gut it out, but let me tell you something. If you do that, if you fill your day with activities that are in alignment with your values, one, it might actually help your mood throughout the day.

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Two, even if it doesn't help your mood, you will have the sense of satisfaction at the end of the day of, look what I did.

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Alison Cook: Okay, so again, this is mild depression because I wanna tease something out here;  this is someone who, for whatever reason, they're still functional, but has this anhedonia, this, I can’t enjoy this. I'm going through the motions of my life and the temptation when you feel that way is to shut down and sink into it. I'm imagining the temptation to stay in bed all day. I don't feel like doing anything. Nothing's bringing me joy. So I'll stop doing everything.

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And what I think I'm hearing you say, according to the research, this behavioral activation, it's almost a counter-move; work against that feeling by almost hyper-structuring your day, really making sure every hour you are doing something. You're working against the feeling and you're saying that those actions might begin to change your brain, release the good chemicals, improve the mood. 

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At the very least, they can create that sense of satisfaction. It's almost like a sick day where you don't feel well, but instead of a cold, maybe you should go to bed for the day, with depression, it's almost the opposite. It's to keep going mindfully.

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And I want to pause here because I could imagine a listener saying, but I did that and I don't feel better. And then they shame themselves or then they're mad. But you're saying very clearly, you're doing this mindfully and intentionally. It may not immediately boost your mood. You're not trying to trick yourself. There's something about keeping those behaviors that is going to activate something helpful and healthy, both in your brain and in your psyche, in your overall sense of satisfaction in yourself.

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Len: You're absolutely correct. In fact, doing these activities, even if they don't work for that day, over time do work. Because they light up the non-depressed portions of your brain. And, when you are doing behavioral activation, hopefully you're doing other things that have been proven to help depression like exercise.

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Exercise is huge in terms of helping depression and anxiety. And a lot of people say, it doesn't help me. And I'll say, hang on a second. It's very clear that for some people with exercise, there's a portion where they feel better in the middle of exercise. Some don't really see any difference in the middle of exercise, and some feel worse in the middle of exercise.

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But at the end of exercise, when it's over, the vast majority of people have a greater sense of wellness. They feel better and they feel less depressed. There is this aspect to not judge yourself and to not give up because the challenge with depression is, it's a big old liar. It tells you that you're worthless when you have worth, it tells you that you should avoid people because maybe you're more irritable and you don't want to be snapping at people, or you feel like people don't like you. 

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The other aspects of behavioral activation are connection with others, because isolation and loneliness feed depression. The idea is that your depression, if it's pulling us into all these unhealthy habits, we need to push against those unhealthy habits to get back on track.

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Alison Cook: Yeah, and again, this is the science. This is the research. We know that this changes the brain. And again, even when you said, read the Bible, pray, you may not feel magically cured. It's not that suddenly you'll feel like God has cured you. It's that you're doing those things because you value those things. The prescription when you have a mild case of depression is to really keep doing those activities that mean the most to you and that are proven to be good for your mental health.

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That's the two aspirin that you need to take in that sense. That's great. Okay. Let's move into, Len, when you start to see more, you call it stubborn or severe depression. What's the difference? How do we differentiate that? How do you know you've got a more stubborn type of depression and how do you like to approach that?

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Len: I would start by saying there are different intensities of depression. You could see this on depression rating scales where someone's numbers look like they're in the mild range or the medium range or the severe range. And then when you talk with people, you're saying, ballpark it for me. How bad do you feel like this depression is? Does it feel like a small amount, medium amount or large amount? Those usually line up really well with the numbers. And when they don't, it gives me an opportunity to say, oh, let's explore this and find out what I'm missing here.

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If you're dealing with moderate to severe depression, or if you're dealing with suicidal thoughts, you want to be working with a professional. You want to be working with someone who really knows what they're doing, who knows how to help you learn the skills for staying safe. The interesting thing, to digress for a second, the interesting thing about suicidal thoughts that a lot of people don't know, is that you can actually do something helpful about them. 

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A lot of people feel like if I'm feeling suicidal, I need to hang on by my fingernails, hang on until that wave passes. And there are actually many strategies that you can use to enhance your safety while you're feeling this, that are unique to you, that you choose to help improve your life.

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If you're having thoughts of suicide, working with someone who knows that and knows how to coach you around that and who knows how to help you practice those skills so that you're not feeling at the mercy of suicidal thoughts can really improve your health and safety. So that's another thing I would say. 

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For people with severe depression or suicidality, or for people who've had depression that's lasted years, sometimes decades, or they keep having these episodes of depression, I had it for whatever, a few months or a year, got rid of it, and it came back. That can be really challenging to treat. And yet it's still treatable. That is definitely the time when you want to be searching for help, and it might take time to get through someone's waiting list. It might take phone calls. 

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You might have to run through a few therapists or psychiatrists before you actually find somebody who clicks and who really gets you, and it's going to be able to get you out of the depression. But medicines can make a big difference. Antidepressants and other medicines that are used to enhance the effect of antidepressants. Psychotherapy is incredibly important for learning skills for not managing mood but helping you to manage your behavior around your depression and staying safe. 

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And then there are some interventional treatments that are out there. And sometimes if you think about a medical intervention, it might sound a little scary because it sounds intense. The one that has probably the most stigma is one called electroconvulsive therapy or ECT. That's one that has gotten highly stigmatized, but it's one where the treatment creates a seizure that over time alleviates depression. 

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It can have some side effects, but it saves lives. There are other treatments where they don't involve seizures and don't involve a whole day, but might involve an hour or a few hours during the day. One's called transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS. And I had been providing TMS in my practice for about four and a half years, and it's tremendously helpful. I had trouble keeping it going because of the pandemic, but we're going to be getting it back in Helena this year. 

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There's ketamine which is a newer treatment for depression and it helps suicidality. And then there's yet more research coming forward. They're looking at this compound found in nature called psilocybin, which also may help with depression. There's something new out and I want people to not give up. If the standard treatments haven't worked, or if you tried one or two things, it might feel like you tried everything, but if you're working with a professional, who's really skilled in what they do, they'll be able to help you see, I think you haven't tried everything, or I think there's something different that we can try to help you.

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Alison Cook: And Len, do you go through the nuances of some of these different interventions in the book in Unjoy? Good. So folks are interested in learning more. You've got years of experience with this. You've treated, I would imagine, thousands of people, and I love what you're saying. There's new advances every single day. 

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I do think one of the things I think that's hard is if you are experiencing depression and you don't have a professional, it can be hard to have the gumption to really, like you said, go through and meet with different therapists and find someone and even work with your health insurance to figure it out. Maybe that's where you could ask a friend to help or ask a family member to help you. 

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If you're struggling to find the person to walk with, that's something you could ask for help from a church community or from a neighbor, or from a friend. And again, without that stigma, if we went to our neighbor and said, I'm dealing with diabetes, could you help me find a doctor? Most people would say, sure. So to remind yourself to normalize, I'm dealing with depression. Would you be willing to help me for the next few weeks to do the work? Because I'm struggling to find the gumption to get to that person who can be with me regularly through this.

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Len: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think for the listeners that you have on today, if they don't have depression, they probably know somebody who does. They could consider whether they could be that encourager and that helper.

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Alison Cook: Yeah.

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Len: One of the chapters is on, how do you help a friend or a family member who has depression? I love this quote–one of my colleagues, a fellow doctor, had this quote that when she was trying to distill what it is that we really do, she said, we are the keepers of hope for those who have lost theirs. 

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If you have depression, you need somebody who has your back and who will support you. And if you don't have depression, you might know somebody who does, and you can be the keeper of hope for them until they get theirs back.

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Alison Cook: I love that. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through some of this today. And again having the conversation, normalizing it, naming it we'll link to a lot of the resources that we discussed in the show notes for folks. I want to ask you, Len, as we close, two questions I like to ask my guests. Number one, what would you, the Len who you are now, say to that young college student getting ready to make this shift in your major to become a doctor? What words of wisdom or words of encouragement would you say to that younger you from what you know now?

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Len: That's a good question. I think I would encourage myself to take the risk. I'm glad I took a leap of faith. I think the other thing is to, I think everybody deals with feelings of insecurity. I say, you're good enough.

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. And what's bringing out the best of you right now, Len? 

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Len: I was thinking about this last night because I got that question from you and I want to be careful because I feel like these are things I aspire to and I'm trying to get good at, but it's not necessarily like I'm awesome. Okay. One of the things is I'm trying to make an active effort not to throw my life out of balance.

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What I'll do is, I'll get to projects and then everything else goes out of balance in my life. So I've been trying to live my life more in balance. And I would say that was one of the biggest things and one of the little habits that I've developed is, after I do morning devotions, I've been walking every morning before work. And I do other things like, my wife Krista and I, we do some yoga exercises together every morning, and that helps us to connect as a couple, doing an activity together every morning. 

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But after I do my morning devotions, I go for a walk. And as I walk, I listen to audiobooks. Because it's an easy way to read if you can hear it. And it's been lighting up my mind every morning with new ideas. And I would say it's been so awesome because there's books that I can listen to as an audiobook that I'd have a very hard time even opening the cover–some non-fiction thing on some topic that looks dry and I can hear it and I can still hear the ideas and it really is a wonderful way to light up my brain every morning after devotions.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I love how you say that it lights up your brain. Because even for those of us facing the normal challenges of life, those practices do literally, I know for me, if I've had a really hard day or I'm irritable or frustrated, I can feel music changing my brain. It puts me in a different part of my brain.

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And I hear that in what you're saying with that morning walk. That's beautiful. Thank you so much. What's the best way for people to connect with you and to find your work, especially your book, Unjoy?

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Len: The book is available on Amazon and you can order it through like your local Christian bookstore as well. Most places where they sell books, you can access it. I have written on a lot of other topics related to depression, anxiety. I've written a lot on parenting actually, and that's at my website, psychiatryresource.com. 

And people can find my work there. People can actually message me there, but it's partly why I'm not on social media. I can't really offer medical advice to people if they're not actually patients, but I do respond to emails from people who contact me. 

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Alison Cook: I'll be sure to link to all that in the show notes and I really appreciate your time.

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Len: This has been such a pleasure. I'm so thankful that you invited me here and it's so nice to reconnect again. This has been such a treat for me today.

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Alison Cook: There's a lot of synergy between what we're doing, through this work of faith based mental health. Thank you, Len. I really appreciate your time.