Science-backed tools.
Spiritually-based wisdom.

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:

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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:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
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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!
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• 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.

Have you wondered how a single negative comment can shape your beliefs about yourself?

In this episode, we dive into the crucial distinction between critical thinking and limiting beliefs, exploring how they shape our decisions. My guest, Dr. Josh Axe, author of the New York Times bestselling book, Think This, Not That, shares his personal story of overcoming a powerful limiting belief and helping his mom navigate through cancer. He offers some powerful critiques of our current medical model, and some practical tips to navigate a more holistic way towards health. Do not miss this thought-provoking episode!

‍

Here’s what we cover:

1. The difference between critical thinking and limiting beliefs
2. How one person’s negative comment created a limiting belief
3. The negative effect of limiting beliefs
4. Josh’s journey with his mom through cancer
5. An incisive critique of pharmaceutical ads in the U.S.
6. How to balance natural & medical interventions
7. The power of reverse-engineering your life based on your vision for the future

‍‍‍

‍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.
• Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com/BESTOFYOU or use code BESTOFYOU at checkout.
• 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.)
• 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!

‍

Additional Resources:

• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• Think This, Not That: 12 Mindshifts to Break Through Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be by Dr. Josh Axe
• DrAxe.com
• ‍Proverbs 23:7
• ‍Proverbs 9:10
• ‍Matthew 22:37
• ‍Genesis 15:5
• ‍joshaxe.com
• The Dr. Josh Axe Show

‍

‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 105: 4 Lies We Tell, the Mental Health Benefits of Honesty, & How to Stop Lying In Your Relationships
• 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 10: What are Limiting Beliefs and How Do I Overcome Them with Mary Marantz

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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 this week for another episode where we're talking about how to Name, Frame, and Brave our way through areas in our lives that bring up dissonance inside of us, a feeling of inner tension, these areas that have potential for good on some level and also some potential for harm.

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In today's episode, we're talking about the dissonance of our limiting beliefs, and as I write about in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, our minds can be used brilliantly to help us solve the problems that we face. Our minds can also be used to dupe us into self sabotage, into thinking traps, and into staying stuck in negative thought patterns. So our minds are a crucial component to our overall health.

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They're not the only component–I want to be clear; we are minds and emotions and a nervous system and a body. All of these parts of us have to work together to create the kind of melody of our lives. In today's episode, we're going to focus on our mindset and to cue up this conversation that I had with our guest today, I want to differentiate between what it means to be a critical thinker versus what it means to hold limiting beliefs. 

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So what's the difference? Thinking critically involves trying to assess and analyze information, consider multiple perspectives, and evaluate evidence to make informed decisions or judgments. You're questioning assumptions, you're examining biases, you're assessing the validity of what you're hearing. It could not be more important in this world today to become a critical thinker. 

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A limiting belief is a belief that constrains you or holds you back; these are beliefs that are typically negative and self defeating, and they can stem from our past experiences, from the ways we were conditioned. Maybe our teachers told us we weren't good enough, or maybe in our peer groups we felt like we were less than, or we have a fear of failure. 

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These limiting beliefs come out as, I'm not good enough, or I'll never be successful and they prevent us from pursuing opportunities or taking risks that could lead to growth and fulfillment. So you want to be someone who thinks critically, who evaluates what's coming your way, whether it's what other people are telling you, whether it's what you're hearing in the news or on social media, you want to evaluate the truth of what you're hearing in any given situation.

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Someone who's a critical thinker approaches information with an open mind, with curiosity, who asks questions, who seeks to understand and who gets underneath the assumptions and maybe even the motivations of the person who's presenting information. Someone who holds limiting beliefs, on the other hand, would accept information or viewpoints without questioning them. I'm not smart enough, so I have to accept whatever these other people are telling me.

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A critical thinker makes decisions based on careful analysis, weighs the pros and cons, considers potential consequences, seeks outside opinions and relevant information. You strive to make an informed decision based on multiple perspectives. Somebody who resorts to limiting beliefs makes decisions based out of fear, self doubt, or negative assumptions about themselves or their abilities. They create self imposed barriers. I can't do this for myself, so I have to blindly trust other people. It hinders your ability to pursue opportunities or find real meaningful solutions. 

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Finally, critical thinkers actively engage in self reflection and continue to learn, to expand knowledge, to expand skills, to expand perspectives. They are open to feedback and constructive criticism, and they use that as an opportunity to grow and improve. 

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Whereas if you are trapped by limiting beliefs, instead of looking for opportunities to grow and develop, limiting beliefs can create a self perpetuating cycle of missed opportunities and even self sabotage. I'll never get it right. We give up or let go, or resort to letting other people dictate our opinions of our own selves. 

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I want you to become critical thinkers. People who think critically about the information you take in, who get second opinions, who get third opinions, who analyze the data, who consider underlying assumptions and motivations.

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I want you to move away from becoming people who are limited by negative self talk. I'm not smart enough. I have to assume that those people know better, that other people are wiser. Those limiting beliefs don't lead you to the best that God has for you.

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Our guest today talks about these limiting beliefs in his brand new book called Think This, Not That: 12 Mindshifts to Break Through Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be. Dr. Josh Axe is a doctor of natural medicine and a clinical nutritionist. He founded one of the largest functional medicine clinics in the U. S. and runs the popular health website, DrAxe.com, where you can find recipes, natural remedies, videos, nutrition advice, and fitness tips. 

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Dr. Axe is a board certified doctor of natural medicine he earned his doctorate from Palmer College and his master of science in organizational leadership from Johns Hopkins University.

His brand new book, Think This, Not That, was a New York Times bestselling book. He is here today to talk to us about limiting beliefs and about how we can embark on a more holistic journey to health. Please enjoy today's conversation with Dr. Josh Axe.

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***

I'm so thrilled to have you here today to get to know you. I know we have mutual folks in common through your work in Nashville. I love the emphasis that you put on holistic healing. I really want to get into that today, but I also love that you have this new book out all about limiting beliefs. Could we start there, Dr. Axe? I'm curious. 

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It's about this journey as you've been a healer, as you've taken a deep dive into all these holistic ways of healing. When did you realize the power of mindset, the power of our minds as a part of that?

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Josh: I think there've been a couple instances that really opened my eyes to it. I would say that one was when I was back in high school. Another was my mom battling cancer. Another was when I was diagnosed with a spinal infection not that long ago and was told I may never walk again. It was so bad. 

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But going back to the actual, I would say, the inception of it, was when I was in high school. I remember going into freshman year of high school, I was in English class and I had a teacher who asked me to stay after class. She said, Josh, what do you want to do after high school? I said I want to be a doctor. 

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I said that because the year before my mom had gone through chemotherapy and I remember she had lost her hair and thinking I want to help people like my mom not have to fight cancer in this way and heal. 

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She laughed out loud when I told her I wanted to be a doctor. She said, with your grades, you'll never get into med school. She said, my daughter barely got into Ohio State med school with a 3.8. She said, you've got a D minus in this class and you got an F on this paper. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. You need to try harder.

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For me, looking back as a 13, 14 year old, I didn't really know a whole lot better. So I thought what? Basically, the thing I walked away with was, I'm not smart. Then a couple weeks later, my mom brought me to see another doctor and I got diagnosed with ADHD. They're talking about me like I'm not in the room.

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I remember thinking to myself, gosh, not only am I not smart, I'm like, I'm medically not smart. There's something wrong with me. In high school, I really stopped. I didn't really try much. I always had trouble paying attention, but I really didn't try. The only reason I graduated was I knew if I didn't graduate, my dad would be irate.

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So that was my motivation: not getting my dad too upset. I graduated with a C minus and barely graduated. Then I applied to a bunch of colleges, got denied by most, but one college, actually it was the University of Kentucky. They said you're not accepted, but If you come and do summer classes and you perform well and you get an average above a 3.0, we'll let you in. 

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I had a lot of other things so I think that's probably why they even gave me any shot at all. I said, you know what? I really don't want to be the kid that stays home and goes to community college or doesn't graduate. So I said, I'm going to try. I had English 101 again for college. That was the first class I took. 

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I said, I'm really going to try on this paper. I tried. And, yeah. It was like deja vu. Her name was Miss Williams. She said, Josh, can you stay after class? I thought, oh no, not this again. She said, what's your major? I said I haven't picked a major yet. She said, I want to let you know that I think you're a really talented writer. I think you should consider being an English major, a journalism major. She said, you actually got the highest grade in the class on this paper. Great job. 

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It was like having a memory transplant or a mindset transplant. I went from believing for four years, “I'm not smart and I can't do it” to thinking, “Wow, somebody told me that I'm talented and I could be great at something”. It literally, radically changed my life in a major way. I think about this, if I wouldn't have heard her say that, or somebody along the way say that. 

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Then eventually I went to become a doctor. I went to Johns Hopkins, I graduated there with a 3.9 GPA and wrote some books. I did some things. And I wouldn't have done any of those things if I would have held on to this limiting belief. For me, I started realizing my beliefs and my mindset are so incredibly important. 

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We know that this is true. Everything from the scientific literature, we see, like the Rosenthal effect and psychology literature makes me think about that. Or the Bible, of course, talks about how as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

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But I really took these things that I learned and actually, from there, it really helped me in helping patients because I realized that if I had a teacher tell me something that I can, a lot of these patients that I took care of, their doctors would tell them things like, for instance, they would give them limiting beliefs. 

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“Hey, it's genetics. There's nothing you can do about this, or you have to be on this pill the rest of your life”. It really limits the patient. So when I started working with patients, I realized I'm going to do the exact opposite. I'm going to let them know, listen, your body has an amazing capacity to heal. 

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Alison Cook: Yeah. I love that you're bringing that in. For too long in our culture, there's been this kind of dichotomy between the hard science of medicine and then the “softer” science of what I do in the field of psychology. You and I both know that there is no divide like that.

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They all come together. The mind, the heart, the soul, the body, they're all integrated. God made us with a nervous system. It links it all together and we need all the different tools, but it's really hard to find someone when you're hurting, whether you're sick physically, whether you're struggling with limiting beliefs to find someone to bring it all together.

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So tell me a little bit about how that evolved for you. You started out in functional medicine, and I've heard you talk about the story with your mom's cancer. You had some sort of red flags but I'm not sure the pharmaceutical industry is really giving us everything that we really need. Tell me about that evolution for you. How did you land where you are today, where you're really integrating all of these different things, including what we believe?

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Josh: Yeah, for me it happened pretty early on and I'll give you an example why. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer as a kid, I thought, and I'm going with her to these treatments, she's going and getting chemotherapy, she's throwing up in a bucket, all of her hair is falling out and then for the next 10 years after those treatments, like my entire high school and college, I remember my mom would be exhausted all the time. 

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My mom was one of those moms. She worked and she was a mom and she was a wife. She did all these things and she was worn out. I remember seeing the devastating effects of conventional medical treatments early on and thinking, there has to be a better way. I think I was aware of that very early on. Then eventually, when I went on and started studying more of these practices of natural medicine in school for that, by the way, when I was about to open my clinic that same year, my mom was diagnosed with cancer again.

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This time we decided to go through a whole natural protocol. I'd been really blessed to be able to study under a doctor who was practicing functional medicine at the time. I had learned a lot about nutrition. In fact, I started working as a nutritionist before I graduated to become a doctor.

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I ran all this blood work. We would do new micronutrient tests and fatty acid profiles and microbiome tests and heavy metal proof, all the stuff. We would look at all those things when my mom got that diagnosis, and we decided to take care of her all naturally. We started juicing vegetables and doing bone broth and a lot of herbs like turmeric and astragalus and a lot of these mushrooms.

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Her body healed. It was amazing. We went back after four to six months and redid a CT scan. I remember the doctor's exact words, because he called my mom and he said, what have you been doing? She shared it. He goes, this is highly unusual. We don't typically see this, but your tumors have shrunk by more than half.

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We want to see you again here next year. She went back then, and was in complete remission. So my mom now is in her seventies, the best shape of her life. I think when you are able to experience it, that's big. I’ll also say, I grew up in a household of faith like we prayed. So I would say it integrated very early for me because of my family and having my faith growing up and being able to see my mom's miraculous recovery. Now that I've had time and you're going to be much in line with this, now that I've looked at the research on neuroplasticity and what happens when we think about healing versus not, and the mind-body connection, there are so many of these examples of this, but if you even study the placebo effect, it's the amount of times the placebo outperforms or equally performs the medication or the supplement or whatever you're taking, it's tremendous. 

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We know that the mind is powerful. And then you read the Bible, and it's a similar thing. If you read the Bible, life and death is in the power of your tongue. So I think the combination of my faith and this experience with my mom were two big things.

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Alison Cook: A couple of things that are coming to mind, because I want to share with you a personal case study to talk through from my own life, but a couple of things come into mind. One is the literature, the research on prayer, the efficacy of prayer. Secular research that shows its benefits.

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And it doesn't mean you don't still need scientific interventions and medical interventions. But when you were talking about limiting beliefs, there's such solid research in social psychology about self fulfilling prophecies. If we have a negative mindset toward relationships, when you feel like people aren't going to like you, or you feel like you're going to be rejected, you tend to create environments in which those things happen. 

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To use the biblical metaphor, we tend to reap the kinds of seeds that we sow, and so the way that we think really does influence what happens, our outcomes. Dr. Axe, this is the quintessential, especially here in New England, I had a long journey with Lyme disease.

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Josh: Yeah.

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Alison Cook: It was so interesting, and I still deal with the after effects, but what happened is the treatment, the onslaught of antibiotics, created a whole separate set of issues right now that are harder in many ways for me to overcome. I've had to shift my mind and I want to ask you about this. Is it advertising? I think of myself as a critical thinker, but why do so many of us buy into this idea that the pharmaceutical industry is really the only way to go, because even me, it's like, antibiotics will knock it all out.

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Now, I did need antibiotics. I did. We do need these medical interventions. I want to be clear about that. Also, there was a point at which they started to do more harm than good. The only way now for me to heal those residual effects is good old techniques; it's like exercise interventions, all the things you're describing.

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I also think there's something where, at least to myself, I can only speak for myself, that I want the magic pill. I want the thing that makes it all go away and it's harder in many ways to do the integrative approach of, yes, you need to eradicate the thing that's hurting you, but you also need to be about those natural supports, those natural things that God has given you through exercise, through food, so I wanted to share that with you two questions.

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One is, why do we buy in so much to this idea that the pharmaceutical industry is the only way, whether it's depression, whether it's a complicated diagnosis, and then what's the balance? What's the balance where we do need the prescription, and also, we need so many of these other tools at our disposal?

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Josh: Yeah. So what I would say is, I think it comes down to two big things. One is exposure. We are exposed to pharmaceuticals on a constant basis. The U. S. and New Zealand are the only two countries, literally the only two countries, that are allowed to run pharmaceutical advertisements.

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Now, because most other countries believe it's really a conflict of interest to try and sell a drug and run advertisements for those because you don't want health care to be primarily a money-making industry. You want it to be more of an altruistic industry based on physicians helping and having a heart for a patient.

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The pharmaceutical industry and the advertising and the billions of dollars poured into that creates a real issue, with a real conflict of interest. One of the big issues is that it's on TV. It's on advertisements. Most people are on them. In fact, 89 percent of people over the age of 65 are on at least one medication. 

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The average woman starts their first medication, which of course is birth control, at 15 years old. So all that being said, it's in our social groups, it's on social media, it's all over the place. Number one, is there a greater exposure to that or other things? The exposure is incredibly high. The second thing, and I don't think I've ever heard anybody bring this up, but I think some of it has to do with certainty. I think a lot of medical professionals are absolutely certain and they're trained for four years, 12 years, in a lot of cases.

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They may think, this is the thing. This is the only cure. This is the only way. This is the only thing you can do. So I think when you're talking to somebody and they have this level of certainty and they've been elevated as this is the highest way, I would say, if somebody were to ask what is the highest position you can hold of any in terms of an authority of any profession? Name something higher than a medical doctor. 

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Maybe a rocket scientist, but still not even then. So I think there's a level of certainty that's there as well. So I think those are the big reasons. I think we've actually created this sort of appearance that medicine is superior to nutrition and things that are holistic. Like somehow they've cracked a scientific code that we could never reach with. 

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What's crazy is when you look back at medicine, now, this is still true today, 1/3rd of all medications today, those compounds originally came from plants and now they're synthetic. So for instance, metformin comes from lilacs and aspirin comes from birchwood. And, so medicine itself actually came from nature, but now they've been able to synthesize it so now it's stronger and cheaper essentially.

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I think those are some of the biggest issues now in terms of what the balance should be. My opinion is going to be stronger than some and it's going to be maybe lesser than some, but my opinion is that probably 90 percent of medications are unnecessary today.

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The reason I throw that number out there is that if we were actually going, and that number could be higher, it could be a little lower, but I do think that certain conditions, let's say ADHD, let me give an example. When I was a kid and I had bad ADHD, they would have diagnosed with a severe ADHD and I got prescribed Ritalin and Adderall and so I know this, but if my mom would have put me in a soccer game or a video game or gave me a book I liked, I was sucked in.

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Nobody could focus better than me when my diet changed; my hyperactivity went 100 percent away. 100%. So all that being said, I really believe the way the medical profession should work is if you have somebody come in with high cholesterol or diabetes, I've helped hundreds of people reverse type two diabetes. 

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Patients would come in and I would say, okay, we're going to put you on a diet, and it's not really a diet. We're going to have you eat a lot of meat and vegetables, okay? That's the diet, meat and vegetables. We're going to get some good fiber. That's the diet. I'm going to have you start walking. If you can lift weights, great. But if not, let's walk three times a day for 20 minutes. 

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I'm going to give you some supplements. I'm going to give you chromium picolinate. I'm going to give you bayberry, which now the extract is called Berberine. I'm going to give you cinnamon and maybe some fenugreek. Okay. Let's do that and let's see what happens. 90 percent of the time, and this isn't an exaggeration, if you bring me a diabetic and I do that with them, versus you bring somebody that's practicing conventional medicine, 90 percent is going to have a better outcome 10 years from now.

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Almost every time those patients reverse their type two diabetes. This isn't an exaggeration. It's the reality of what happened. I really think that's the sort of thing that should happen when patients come in. I think the other big side of things, I believe that probably close to 80 percent of diseases should also be treated with emotional, spiritual, and mental support, because this is well known in Chinese medicine.

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Every condition has an emotional, mental component. For instance, if somebody has high blood pressure, that's so much stress related. It's almost always anxiety or anger. Those emotions cause blood sugar to spike, or blood pressure to spike. If somebody has worry, they'll get an upset stomach that affects the upper GI.

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Grief–if you are holding onto something from the past and haven't let it go, that affects the immune system. A lot of anger and bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness–that affects the liver. Now I'm quoting Chinese medicine here. We know, and here's another prime example, fear affects the adrenal glands.

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Everybody knows that. Your body puts out more cortisol and adrenaline and these stress hormones. We know that based on different types of emotions you experience, they affect different organ systems. To me, if somebody comes in and they've got a condition, you name it. If we treat it the right way with diet and lifestyle and then bring in that emotional mental component of addressing that issue, people heal.

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My point here is that I don't think we should do away with medications. I think that should be the first line of defense for as long as possible. If somebody is not experiencing a breakthrough, then, hey, let's get them on medication for the shortest time as possible but let's use it then.

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Of course there's emergency medicine, which I think we're actually doing a pretty good job of. You fracture your femur in half and you're in the E. R., do what you're typically doing there for the most part. But that's, I guess that's my opinion on that.

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Alison Cook: Yes. Why do we so quickly jump to synthetic medicine versus looking at the lifestyle, the whole picture? When we bring this back to this idea of mindset, of limiting beliefs, I have a lot of medical folks in my family. One of the things they all talk about is that so much of it is trying to get the patient, and I'll put myself in this category, to understand this is more holistic.  

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To understand and to believe, because you can tell me all day long that I need to change my diet or I need to do this exercise. But I have to do it. I have to go do it. It's this relationship between you and your patient. That is discerning. There are all these biblical qualities: discernment, wisdom, being a healer. You're walking with your clients, and your patients, and so like me as a therapist, I have to try to work with the mind.

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I can tell you this all day long, but you have to leave my office and go and implement some of these micro changes. How do you, as you've worked with patients over the years, how do you work with them on these mindset issues? Do you have tools? I know that's where this book came from in many ways, is to walk us through them.

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But how have you learned, how we can be our own worst enemies and how we can actually harness the power of our minds? What are some of the tricks and tools to help us buy into this more holistic, empowered way of managing our health?

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Josh: Yeah, I'd say it's two things. I think this is very biblical in its foundations, and it's really leveraging pain and pleasure. This is something many of the top psychologists do today. It's something that I've done when I worked with patients or helped people with other areas of their life.

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I'll give you an example of this. If we go back in the Bible and look at what God says, how we should look at him, one of the quotes that comes to mind is, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. There, the word fear is actually used constantly in the Old Testament, especially in terms of how we should view God.

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Now, the word fear there is not necessarily the sort of fear that where we’re huddling in the corner, where we're fearful of being burned up. It is partly that, but in addition, it's this reverent awe and wonder of wow, God, you are so big and so great. I think one is though, it's fear and it's pain. 

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You want to use that for your good. The other is pleasure. This is really tied to, love the Lord your God with all your heart. Like it's this idea of love. It's more of the positive, but you want to leverage both the negative and the positive to help yourself change.

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The way that I like to do this with patients or even myself, is show them two paths. Here's what's at stake. If you want to continue, if you decide to stay on your same diet with type two diabetes, and you're not going to make any changes whatsoever, I want you to know the likely consequences.

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We could use data to show this. It's likely going to cause nerve degeneration where you could lose your foot or you're gonna have trouble walking. You're going to feel very poor in this way. It also leads to heart disease. It also leads to a decreased lifespan. You could go and show it and I want you to go a step further and think about how that's going to affect your family. Think about how that's going to affect your kids. 

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So you actually want to create pain for them because this is true with everything in life. Our awareness is tied very closely to our ability to grow in an area. You look at the people that are very spiritually strong, when you get around a lot of pastors or priests or rabbis, and they have this serenity to them. It's hard to upset them or get them off because they have spiritual awareness.

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It's a very high emotional IQ. There’s emotional intelligence, but it's the very same thing with the body and your life. The people that I see have the best health have a very high physiological IQ. They know what's going on in their body. They can start to tell and they become more aware.

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If somebody isn't aware, like most people have not thought about what the outcome is if I don't reverse my diabetes or if I don't do the right treatment. People don't become aware of that. Like people do with cancer, they're told that you could die. But with diabetes, they don't say, you're going to die tomorrow.

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So my point is I say, hey, here's the likely outcome. Now here's the other outcome. If you make these changes, write down what are the things that you most want in this world. Is it to be at your daughter's wedding or your granddaughter's wedding? Bring your kid somewhere?

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We did this with my mom, by the way, I did this exact same thing. I'm sharing with you. She said, I want to bring my grandkids to Disney World in my seventies. You know what my mom's doing today? She's actually, I talked to her. She's picking up my niece and nephews, three of them, and they're going to Disney world this week.

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So I think that really being able to help people gain a greater level of awareness of the outcomes and tie pain and pleasure to those things based on what they really want, their desires in life gives us at least a better shot.

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Alison Cook: Yeah. It's seeing the big picture. This is more than taking a pill and it'll go away. It's really understanding there are choices. There's some things we don't have control over, but there's a lot that we do. What do we have control over?

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I love what you're saying. There are two paths, Here's one and here's the other, and why wouldn't we do what we can within our control to choose the path that we want? I imagine you walk people through this in the book because there's a sort of future self exercise I hear in that.  Imagine, visualize, see what you want to be doing. We don't do that enough. What do you actually want 20 years from now? Then let's work. Yeah. That's powerful.

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Josh: Yeah. One of the exercises I have people do in the book Dr. Alison, is a process I call visualization to realization. I've had so many people who have started reading the book and they say there are a few exercises in the book they quit and things that radically changed their life. One of those is this process, what I have people do, actually, there's one step before visualization and that is prioritization.

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Thinking about what is exactly what my life should look like? Some people might say, I want this second home or I want this financial goal. But we haven't really thought about, okay, I want to make sure I'm in my 70s, bringing my kids to Disney World. I want to set it up to where my kids want to come back for the holidays and whatever it is. 

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So people haven't really often thought about what are my biggest priorities in life? What matters most? Because all the time we sacrifice our time with our family for other things, or time or our faith. I'd start with that. The next is visualizing it very clearly. My wife and I actually were able to do this. It was amazing. So we got married down in a little place in Florida. It was called 30A.

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It's where the Truman Show is filmed. It's around Panama City Beach and Destin, Florida. The day after we got married, we did a mini honeymoon there and we rode around in bikes. It's this big neighborhood. I said, it'd be so cool to have a home here one day, and so we went back and I said, you want to do a vision board?

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So we made this vision board and I went online and did a search for the neighborhood. It was called watercolor. I looked up watercolor homes and I found one. I liked it. Never seen it before. Put it up there. Five years. So step one is, we want to prioritize. So we talked about having family time here and all kinds of stuff.

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So then we visualized and then we wanted to strategize. How would we make this a reality? So we said, okay, let's start setting aside for us. We were able to do 1000 a month and then more over time. We started saving towards getting a house there. Then we created it as a system.

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It automatically came out of the bank account. What is in this fund? Five years later, we weren't in the position yet. We're still a few years off. But we were in the same neighborhood with my in-laws on these little bikes going around, and I had this idea and I looked over to my father in law, Joel, and I said, hey, what if we go in together and we get a house or we get this lot because we found this perfect lot, our dream lot down there. 

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They said, hey, we're in. We decided and we bought this lot and I was at my house. This was the next week and I was recording a podcast and I remember right before I was looking up and I was looking at my vision board and I thought. There's something so familiar about that house on my vision board. By the way, there are thousands of houses in this neighborhood, thousands.

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I realized that the lot we bought was next door to the house on my vision board. In fact, part of the picture was that lot and it's crazy. We've been praying about this for years. And listen, visualization isn't about getting a lot in your favorite vacation neighborhood, but really, iit was such a powerful reminder that when you go through the right process and the Bible talks so much about visualization, God says, listen, look at the stars of your sky, Abraham, so numerous shall your descendants be.

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For me, I think that this is a really powerful exercise people can go through. I go through in detail in the book of how to do that. Some other people have been able to do that and birth their dream business or write their dream book or create their dream family environment or heal from a condition.

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Alison Cook: It's really powerful and we're not taught that. I'm glad you tied that to scripture because there is the again, that sort of woowoo version of that, that we can see out in the culture.

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Josh: The manifesting word.

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Alison Cook: But there's also science behind it. To me, the biblical component of it that we're not often taught, because here's the thing when you do that, my husband and I have been doing a lot about this, we're hitting an empty nest. What do we want our lives to look like when we're 80? You align your dreams and your hopes with reality. 

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Here's the other thing, even in your story, there is some cost on the front end. You have to put some savings away or for health, I started to realize I want to be healthier. I want to do this work for a really long time. And there's a cognitive distortion, a thinking trap in my mind, that I don't have time to exercise because I've got so much work to do. 

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But the truth is, if I don't make time to care for my body and exercise and do these things that I need to do to heal, I'm not going to have those 20 years, like your mom, like you're saying, you're not going to be taking the kids.

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When you start to really think practically and wisely and align what you long for with the truth, we have to delay gratification. We have to do these things. We start to work with the grain though, of how God designed us. That's what I hear in that. You still have to take some steps there to achieve that goal. 

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You went to your father and also, if you hadn't taken some time to really prayerfully consider the life that you want. you can't create it. It's so powerful.

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Josh: One of the things I always do, Dr. Alison, is I will picture and visualize those things based on the priorities that I have, but then I always recheck with God and say, God, make sure I have my priorities straight. If you have a better vision, I'm going to sit here, but what's maybe something more clearly you can show me. I always invite God in that process.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I love that. It's a partnership with God. Yeah. I love that. Tell us, Dr. X, you do so much. You've got this book, you've got a practice. Tell us how my listeners can find you and all the different things you have to offer.

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Josh: Yeah. I'll say one of the things that I know we started the show with is overcoming these limiting beliefs. This is something that radically changed my life, when I say that I believe that changing one single limiting belief can absolutely change someone's life. A lot of people listening to this might be one limiting belief away from that dream relationship.

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One limiting belief that's keeping them from great health. One limiting belief that's keeping them from that thing that they've been dreaming about. That's why I wrote this book. By the way, we didn't get into this, but a year and a half ago, I had a spinal injury. Because of a medical mistake, I went in to get something really natural done and then my disc and my bone got infected while doing it.

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I didn't walk for a year. In fact, this time last year, I wasn't walking, and I was told by a doctor that I might never walk again. I wrote this book while I was in bed. When I was having all of these limiting thoughts. I was in this place where I was told, I went from having great health, to I'm gonna never walk again. I said, I want to write something that will help people experience a breakthrough. 

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Using mindset medicine is what I called it. I really did that in this book. I think if anybody's looking for a breakthrough this is such an amazing book to check out. If people go to joshaxe.com and get the book there, or you can go to Amazon, buy it, and then go to joshaxe.com, I have hundreds of dollars worth of free bonuses. People will get the workbook. 

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They'll also get a mindset masterclass, a whole masterclass. It's worth hundreds of dollars there and loads of other bonuses attached to audio interviews from some amazing people like Irwin McManus and lots of people that people would recognize.

‍

If people want to take advantage of that for the next couple of weeks, they can go to joshaxe.com, get the book and you'll get it on Amazon, plug in the code and you'll get hundreds of dollars worth of free bonuses. The book is called Think This, Not That, because there are all these things that we think all the time that are leading us down a destructive path versus I teach people hey, think this, and if you do, you're going to have that outcome that you've dreamed of. 

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People can check out the book. Ialso have a podcast, which I know you're likely going to be on here in the future. That's the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I cover a combination of health content, but also a lot of mindset content as well there. So they can check out the podcast, the Dr. Josh Axe show, and then I'm on the social channels @Dr. Josh Axe, but I want to say, Dr. Alison, thanks so much for having me. I'm a huge fan of what you do, because again, as we've talked about, I'm such a big believer in mindset and biblical psychology and for healing. Again, it's been a real honor to be on today. 

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Alison Cook: There's so much overlap I'm so grateful for what you're doing. All the people that you're helping. I'm so grateful that you're so healthy. I can see you right now in front of me, you're up and moving around. You did it. You overcame. Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Check out Think This, Not That.

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Josh: That's right. Think This, Not That. Yeah. Amazon.com, bookstores nationwide, but you can also get at joshaxe.com.

Are you ever tempted to lie to spare someone’s feelings or avoid conflict?

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You're not alone. Research shows that most people tell at least one lie every day, even though honesty significantly benefits our relationships and mental health. In today’s episode, we explore the science and Biblical wisdom behind lying, and I'll share practical strategies to foster more honesty (spoiler alert: it involves setting boundaries!) in your relationships.

‍

Here’s what we cover:‍

• How often do we lie?
• 4 mental health benefits of honesty
• 4 types of lies we tell
• The link between lying and boundaries
• 3 reasons why we lie
• The most important question to ask yourself about the lies you tell

‍‍‍

‍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!

‍

Resources:

• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍Exodus 20:16
• ‍Proverbs 12:22
• ‍Ephesians 4:25
• ‍Colossians 3:9-10
• ‍John 8:44
• People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck
• The Best of You by Dr. Alison Cook
• 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 20: Making Peace with Yourself (& Facing Your Fear of Disappointing Other People)
• Episode 72: Overcoming Failure, Handling Adversity, and Telling Yourself the Truth

‍

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:

Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am so glad you're here. I'm so excited for this episode today. There is so much to unpack as it relates to lying, but before we dive in, I want to remind you to please pick up your copy of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way if you haven't already,

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I lay out the three step framework, name, frame, and brave, in detail in the first few chapters of the book and this framework is designed to help you find your way through some of these more complicated sort of thorny challenges that we all face that don't have a quick fix solution. 

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In today's episode, we're going to apply this three step framework to this very prevalent phenomena of lying.

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I did a lot of research on the topic. It was fascinating. It was convicting to me personally, and it was really illuminating. And my goal for this episode today is really to not only inspire and encourage you to name, frame, and brave more honesty in your relationships, but also to give you really practical tools and scripts and strategies for how to do that in especially tricky or tough situations.

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In the research, I discovered two competing facts that I think are really profound. Number one, there are tremendous psychological benefits to honesty. Studies have found that people who are more honest tend to experience less stress and anxiety. They have improved mental health overall. They enjoy healthier, more intimate relationships. They experience higher degrees of personal integrity. 

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This idea of who you are on the inside matches how you show up with other people. And lastly, people who practice honesty tend to make better decisions. Their decisions tend to reflect their true needs, their true desires. And as a result, they tend to enjoy greater satisfaction in their lives.

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I'm calling honesty a practice for a reason. It doesn't always come naturally. But here's the thing: as we practice honesty, starting by getting really honest with ourselves and with God, and then moving into our relationships with other people, we come into that alignment with the truth, which is so critical for a healthy, whole, meaningful, purpose-filled life on this earth.

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No matter what our circumstances are, it's one thing we have some control over. We can live with a lot of integrity, no matter what is going on around us.And I really believe this is what we need most right now is to dig in and lean into being people of honestyI truly believe that creating a culture of honesty is so vital to the health of our world today. And it starts with you and me making a commitment to it in our own immediate spheres of influence.

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Here's the thing. Honesty is so good for our mental health, and yet the statistics on the prevalence of lying reveal that most of us are lying at least daily. Here's some basic statistics about the prevalence of lying, and this doesn't even get at the culture of lying and gaslighting in the larger systems around us. This is getting at our own individual selves.

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An average person lies one to two times a day. 60 percent of people lie at least once in a 10 minute conversation. This is from research done by social psychologist, Bella DiPaolo and her colleagues. Men tend to tell more self-serving lies, lies that aggrandize or sort of puff up their accomplishments, whereas women are more likely to tell those lies that try to save other people's feelings or smooth over social interactions. 

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90 percent of people lie on their online dating profiles, 40 percent of people lie on their resumes. And I thought this one was really interesting. People are more likely to lie over the phone than they are face to face. And if you think about this, I don't have a stat on it, but if it's that much easier to lie over the phone, imagine how much easier it is to lie on the internet. 

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As we move away from these human to human interactions in our real lives, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our church groups, and move into more digital or more virtual relationships where it's easier, frankly, to be deceptive.

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Even the research reveals this dissonance where on one hand, it is so healthy and freeing to be people who practice honesty, and yet we're in a culture where lying is incredibly prevalent and there's no way that prevalence of lying doesn't affect us as individuals. 

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So in today's episode, that's what we're going to focus on. We're going to unpack what exactly is lying? What are different types of lying? Why do we lie? Is there ever a benefit to lying? And then we're going to get into some really practical strategies and tips, and even some scripts for how to bring more honesty into your interactions with other people.

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Because naming, framing, and braving a path out of lying is a truly counter cultural move. If we can become people who practice honesty, that is an incredible way of following Jesus in the work of becoming namers of what's true.

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So number one, what is lying? The basic definition of a lie, according to the dictionary, is to simply make an untrue statement with intent to deceive. The American Psychological Association defines a lie as “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth or falsehood”.

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If we break that down, there are three key elements of a lie. Number one, there's a falsehood. There's information conveyed that is not true. Number two, there's intention. The person making the statement knows it's false and intends to deceive the listener. And number three, there's that element of deception, which means it includes another person. 

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The goal is to make the listener believe the fault statement is true. We actually want the other person to believe what we're telling them. So there's a falsehood, there's intention, and there's deception of another person.

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Before we dive deeper into lying, I want to pause and give the definition for honesty, because I think it's really important to hold in the background as we go through this conversation about lying. Being honest in relationships means consistently expressing your true thoughts, feelings, and intentions with kindness and respect.

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And every part of that definition is important. We are not talking about being harsh or being cruel. We're talking about a practice. This is a skill we develop it takes some commitment to be someone who consistently practices honesty,

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If we think about the three key elements of honesty against those three key elements of lying, they're the exact opposite. Instead of falsehood, honesty involves truthfulness. The information that is conveyed is accurate and factual. It doesn't mean we tell all the details, but what we do share is accurate. 

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Number two, the intention of someone who's making an honest statement. It's simply to communicate without hidden motives. We're trying to convey the facts about what we think or feel. And then lastly, instead of deception, honesty is characterized by transparency. The goal of honesty is to be open and clear, allowing the listener to understand the true intent and content of the communication. 

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Now, I want you to imagine for a minute, if all of our relationships were really built on honesty. Can you imagine if we lived in a world where we can actually trust what the person in front of us is saying, where our leaders were honest and we trusted that what they were speaking about from behind a podium was actually, in fact, the truth of what they believed without intent to manipulate us or to deceive us? 

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Where marketing gurus in advertisements that we see on TV are actually presenting us with facts that we could trust in order to help us make informed decisions? Where our friends, where our spouses, where our parents, where our pastors, where our leaders were, to the best of their ability, conveying information in a way that actually matched what they think and feel and believe in any given moment? What a world would that be where we could trust the words that are being communicated all around us.

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I honestly think that kind of honesty in the workplace, in the town square, in our government, in our media, in our social media feeds, in the news that we watch, is somewhat inappropriate. It is really hard to find factual, authentic communication in the broader world around us, and while we cannot solve all the problems in the world around us, we can start in our own lives, in our own friend groups, in our own families, inside ourselves, to be as honest as is humanly possible for us to be.

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Here's the thing. Honesty doesn't mean we are experts. It doesn't mean that we have all the answers. It also doesn't mean we stop thinking or caring about other people's feelings. There's a lot of nuance to this. And so I want to distinguish what I mean by honesty and some counterfeit versions of it that are out there.

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Honesty is not oversharing. In fact, honesty might be showing some restraint in our responses. You can be honest without revealing a lot about yourself. Honesty shows discretion. It's not oversharing. 

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Honesty is not bluntness. Bluntness means speaking harshly or in an insensitive manner, without regard for the feelings of others. Honesty involves sharing the truth as best we can understand it in a way that is respectful of the listener.

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Honesty is not being an expert. In fact, often the most honest response we can give, especially about more complicated topics, is “I don't know”. I think about this a lot when I try to vet a new healthcare provider or a new mental health provider or a new expert that I'm seeking wisdom from–can they say, I don't know, I'll look into that further? To me, that's an indicator of somebody who's being honest with me. And I far prefer that than someone who pretends to know everything or to be an expert about something they actually don't know.

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Lastly, honesty is not the same thing as vulnerability, which we discussed in last week's episode. Honesty doesn't have to involve emotional risks. It can be surface level. And this is really important. I want you to hear me say this. When I'm talking about being honest, it doesn't mean divulging personal or sensitive information. That's vulnerability and vulnerability is something you really want to safeguard with entrusted, safe relationships. 

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We're going to have different degrees of vulnerability with different people, but that doesn't mean we can't be honest. Honesty is a practice we really can strive to adopt universally in most of our lives.

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So what does the Bible say about lying? Most of us have this idea that lying is wrong. It's built into our moral code, which is why a lot of us experience dissonance when we're tempted to tell a lie, but also in our culture, when we're aware that there's lying going on around us, we have this sense that it's not good, that there's something wrong with it, even though we don't always know how to name it or identify it.

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Here's some context from the Bible to undergird our conversation. It's one of the 10 commandments. Exodus 20:16, you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. And if we look at the context of that time period, false testimony was really important because justice was really dependent on people's words, people's narratives, about what happened. There was no such thing as video evidence or a paper trail or an email trail like we have today. 

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If you needed to go to someone and say, hey, this person has done this thing to harm me, it was your word against theirs very literally. And so in ancient Israel, legal systems relied heavily on the verbal testimony, on the honesty of witnesses to make fair judgment. 

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We also see admonitions for honesty in Proverbs. Proverbs 12:22 says, the Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy. And then we get to the New Testament, Ephesians 4:25, therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor. For we are all members of one body, and then Colossians 3:9-10, do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed and knowledge in the image of its creator.

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We see Paul encouraging believers to become people of integrity with one another, to let their honesty characterize this new Christian community that was forming, that was to be different from the culture at large, that was wracked with lying and deception and manipulating other people. We are to put that off. We are to become people who are honest with each other. 

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And then we see in John 8:44, Jesus referring to the enemy of our souls as the father of lies. He says there is no truth in lies, and he's referring to the devil. When he lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies. There's such a stark contrast between the father of lies and the truth that sets us free that we find in the person of Jesus. 

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And so this idea of becoming people who are truthful, people who are honest, people with deep integrity, people whose yes means yes, and whose no means no. People who present themselves on the outside as who they really are on the inside is incredibly important to those of us who are seeking to follow in the ways of Jesus and differentiate ourselves from the ways of the culture all around us.

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It reminds me of a book that's a little bit older. It came out a few decades ago by M. Scott Peck. It's called People of the Lie. And the book is a really profound, incisive exposition of the way deception is at the root of so much evil, so much toxicity, so much abuse, so much of the interpersonal trauma that infects relationships and neighborhoods and communities and cultures.

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Lying is so insidious and it can start really small. And that's where we're going to focus most of our intention today. But if we're not careful, small, tiny, even little white lies grow and erode our integrity, our honesty, and keep us from bringing the goodness, the beauty, the freedom that we are meant to have in our own lives and we are meant to bring into the world around us.

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I want to touch on what the research in psychology says about lying. It underscores what we know to be true from the Bible. There's some very recent research published in the British journal of social psychology that reveals that lying is not only unhealthy for our relationships, but it's not healthy for us.

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Number one, it tends to lower our self esteem. It's a little bit of a self-perpetuating cycle. At its most basic, we often lie because we're not confident in ourselves. We might feel shame about ourselves. We don't trust that people will still love us if we were to show up honestly as who we really are. So lying often stems from feeling bad about ourselves, but it actually then decreases our self-esteem.

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Instead of healing that root, when we lie, we stay stuck in that loop. I don't feel good about myself, so I lie. But then when I lie, I feel even worse about myself. And so then we stay trapped and stuck in this cycle of self defeat.

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Number two, lying actually increases negative emotion. There can be a hit of relief immediately after a lie, especially if it gets you out of a tricky situation. But what the study found was that no matter whether you're telling lies to get out of something or to puff up your own ego, or if you're telling lies to please someone else or to protect someone else's feelings, regardless of the type of lie, it tends to increase negative emotions over time.

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It increases dissonance inside, it increases anxiety; we don't actually solve things with the people to whom we're lying. Over time, those negative feelings continue to fester inside of us because we're not actually bringing what we really feel out into the open where we can work through it with someone else. 

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In fact, there was one study I thought was so fascinating, where the people in the study were given an honesty challenge to not tell one lie for 10 weeks. And I remember the Jim Carrey movie, Liar, that is similar to this study. But what they found is that the folks in the study who were challenged to not tell a lie for 10 weeks experienced significant improvements in their physical and mental health. 

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Lying isn't good for us. It's not good for our relationships. And in contrast, honesty is so good for us. And it's so good for our relationships. 

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I do want to touch on the question, are there ever any benefits to lying? This is an important caveat because if you're in a dangerous situation with someone who is threatening you psychologically or physically, or they're going to emotionally blackmail you, or for any reason you need to get out of that situation, or you have to keep up a lie until you can get out of that situation, that's a very different thing. 

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In that situation, you are using a lie and deception strategically and systematically to keep yourself safe or someone you love safe. And that's a very different thing. I hope that goes without saying, but I do want to say that if you're someone who's in an abusive situation or a toxic situation, and the only way to keep yourself safe is to lie in that setting until you can get yourself to safety, that's a very different thing.

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Please know that there's been a lot of studies done on the ethics of that, that it can be a very strategic way to create enough safety until you can find your way to safety. Also when it comes to lying, there are situations where telling the truth might cause unnecessary pain. A lie can be used again, strategically, to protect someone's feelings. And I'm using that word strategically because there's a conscious awareness of it. I'm going to lie in this situation. And so in those situations where you're protecting yourself or protecting someone else, you're not deceiving yourself. You're not deceiving God. And hopefully there's at least one or two other people in your life that knows what you're doing and why you're doing it in this case.

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Okay, what are some different types of lies? So I thought this was interesting to touch on. These are the four most common types of lies that people tell. Number one, the little white lie. This is the one that is the most common. 72 percent of all people admit to telling little white lies. I'm pretty sure it's possible that the other 28 percent who say they don't tell little white lies are potentially telling a little white lie. 

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Here's the thing about white lies. They're the least harmful of the different types of lies. They're usually told in order to avoid hurting someone else's feelings, to be polite, to smooth over social situations, common little white lies. Someone asks you how you're doing. Maybe you're having a terrible day and you say, I'm fine with a smile. 

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Or maybe your friend or your spouse or your child is wearing a new outfit and you don't think it looks that great, but in the moment you don't want to hurt their feelings. And so you tell them, oh my gosh, I love it. You actually are trying to get them to believe you like the thing you don't really like.

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Another common example of when we tell little white lies, someone asks you to do something that you don't want to do, or for whatever reason, you don't want to tell them the real reason you can't do it. And so you make up a lie. You feign an illness.

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You suddenly magically have guests coming in out of town, out of nowhere. Whatever the thing is that you make up, it's because you don't want to hurt their feelings. Little white lies are more common in some cultures, more than others. They're more common in some parts of the US than other parts of the US. Regardless, a little white lie does still meet the criteria for what a lie is. 

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You're saying something that's not true. There's an intention to deceive the listener. You're not saying something neutral. You're not saying, wow, what an interesting outfit. The lie is, I love it. And you're actually trying to make the listener believe that faulty statement is true, that you actually love it. Even in these cases with little white lies, we still want to practice honesty with ourselves. Somewhere you've got to tell the truth. I call it a practice because we have to practice this skill, this muscle inside of ourselves. It's a very counter cultural practice for most of us.

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Okay, number two, another big category of lies are lies we tell about our personal accomplishments. 64 percent of people admit to lying in this way. These are the lies where we exaggerate our achievements, our skills, maybe lie about our weight or our height. Maybe we take credit for something we didn't really do. Maybe we exaggerate something in a job interview.  Again, you might have a good reason to do this in a given situation, but in general, why not try to be as honest as possible? 

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Number three. The third most common type of lie that we tell are lies about our emotions. And I think this one is so interesting because the practice of honesty requires us to be honest about how we're actually feeling inside of ourselves first, and a lot of the work that I do in The Best of You and I Shouldn’t Feel This Way and Boundaries For Your Soul is trying to teach you how to get to the root of what you are actually thinking and feeling in any given moment.

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Not necessarily so that you go tell everybody that, but so that actually, here's how I feel about this thing. I'm going to figure out how to share that in a way that is constructive, not destructive. But if we're in a habit of lying or covering over, or even deceiving ourselves about our emotions, that bleeds out where we don't have emotional truth in our relationships. 

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We tend to do this, especially in social situations or intimate relationships to avoid conflict. We don't want to deal with the actual hard conversation that we need to have. And if we make a habit of this, we lose sight of what we actually feel or think inside of ourselves. So for example, we pretend that we're happy when we're really upset or frustrated or angry. We bury those negative emotions instead of naming them honestly. 

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Maybe somebody hurts you, and instead of saying, yeah, that really hurt, we shove it under the carpet. It's really a lie. It's not emotionally honest when we say, no, it was fine. It was okay. It didn't bother me at all. When in fact, the thing that happened did hurt me or did bother me. Another example: let's say there's some friction with a family member or a friend. And we deny it. We say, I'm not mad. I'm not frustrated. I'm not bothered. But in reality, we are. When we do that, we dig a hole for ourselves, because what if down the road, we actually want to have a conversation about this thing that's been bothering us, but we've spent weeks, months, maybe years denying that the thing bothers us.

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It makes it really hard to earn the trust of that person that you want to have an honest conversation with, if for years, you've been denying the very thing you actually finally realize you need to name and discuss.And so again, we can find our way out of these things. It's never too late to start being honest. It's never too late to say, you know what, I haven't been honest with you. I actually have been bothered by this for a lot of years, and I'm sorry that I wasn't honest with you sooner, but I do need to have this conversation.There are ways that you can approach that, but I will say that's why a practice of emotional honesty is so important early on in your relationships. That baseline practice of, at the very least saying, I'm not sure how this makes me feel. I need to think about it for a little while and then get back to you.

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Finally, another big thing we lie about, and this is a tricky one because we might even have a really good motivation–maybe you don't want a friend to know what you did over the weekend because you don't want to hurt her feelings that you did some things with people without including her. 

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So you might be tempted to lie, or you might want to have some privacy at a social gathering. Someone asked you a question and you don't really want to answer it. And so you might be tempted to lie. Again, there's an understandable motivation for all of these different types of lies. Lying doesn't actually get us the real thing we want, which is honesty and transparency, even when honesty and transparency means saying, I'd rather not answer that question. I'd rather not share that information with you. I'm not comfortable divulging that. It gets into boundaries. The more honest we become, the healthier our boundaries are going to become with other people. 

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Because typically in all of these cases, if we're lying to protect someone else or to protect ourselves, we're not doing the harder, deeper, holier work of getting to the root of how can I show up authentically? How can I show up honestly, authentically, because that's ultimately what's going to be good, not only for me, but for the health of this relationship, even if this is a relationship that needs to have more healthy distance, because I don't want to answer these questions this person keeps asking me.

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That brings us to, what are the different motivations for lying? 

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Number one is self protection, self preservation. We might want to avoid a consequence that we actually need to face. Sometimes we are trying to protect ourselves from hurt. We don't want to feel rejected by the other person. We don't want to feel judged by the other person. We don't want to feel criticized. 

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These are all really valid reasons to want to do something to put a barrier in that conversation with that other person. The intention there makes sense, but the strategy of lying is not the healthiest strategy, typically at that moment.

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Number two, we want social acceptance or approval. We want people to like us. We want to fit in. We want to make a smooth social environment. We're at a party, we're at church, we're in the neighborhood, and we don't want to be weird. We don't want to be odd. We want to play along, play the social game, answer the questions, but we don't actually really want to share what's really going on. So we make up lies to keep the social norms of civility going. Again. Understandable, right? You don't want to  feel socially awkward.  I get that. And also we have to really think about a healthier way of being honest.

Lastly, the last motivation, this is the least common, but very real, is we're trying to be controlling and manipulative where there's actually a malicious component for the lie. This might be where there's a gaslighting component or a narcissistic component where someone is lying to get power over you, to try to manipulate you, to try to control you, to try to create a narrative that's untrue, to keep you feeling small or to sustain their own narcissism. 

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This is the most toxic kind of lying. This is where we get into abusive lying, and it's important to name and this is very real. We do see this from time to time where there is a really malicious motivation behind the lying.

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So I want to close today by giving you some practical tips and strategies to name, frame, and brave lying in your own life. As you listened, you probably were resonating with some of those examples, some of those motivations more than others. So how do we become people who are honest?

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First of all, name it. And this is a quote from chapter two of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, name what's hard, start with yourself. Notice, when am I lying? You might even think about as you're listening today–was there a moment that you told a lie?

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Maybe it was at a store, at the grocery store checkout line. Maybe it was with a boss. Maybe it was with your own child. These are all common places that we lie. There's no shame in this, but to notice and become aware. Yeah, that's a place I am tempted to lie. When I talked about that neighborhood barbecue, if that's a place for you where you're like, man, that is a place where I, those social gatherings where I'm really tempted to lie because I can't stand social awkwardness, but I also don't want to answer the questions. Notice that. Naming without shame is the first step to braving a better way forward. 

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And then number two, do some framing work. Ask yourself, why did I lie? In that situation, what is the motivation behind it for me? Whatever the situation is, you might ask yourself a really powerful question. I think this is one of the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves when we're framing something like this: what am I afraid would happen if I were to tell the truth?

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You might even ask yourself, what's the worst thing that could happen in this situation, if I told the truth? In contrast, what's the best thing that could happen if you were honest in that situation? That question can reveal a lot. You might notice that there's actually nothing you really fear. It's a habit. You've gotten into the habit of lying as a coping mechanism for social anxiety or you've gotten into the habit of lying when you feel embarrassed, or when you feel fearful of conflict, even as you recognize that's not necessary, that the person is someone you could actually have a really healthy conversation with. 

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Sometimes we fall into the habit of lying as a conditioned survival response that lingers all the way from childhood where maybe we learned to lie as a way to survive as children because we were fearful of judgment or shame or repercussions. And this can happen if you're someone who's high on empathy or highly sensitive, and maybe you had parents or caregivers who were shaming or who were critical. And so you learned to lie really quickly to keep yourself protected from that.

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And that conditioned response has followed you into some of your adult relationships. You might notice that. And then you've got to ask yourself, wait a minute, how do I heal that in the context of my current relationships? Because the people around me now aren't actually unsafe. They're not actually shaming or judging or criticizing me.

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So I actually want to work on being honest with them. As you frame it, that might be something that surfaces for you. Or maybe as you ask yourself what you're afraid of, you realize, oh my gosh, I'm actually afraid that this person's going to get really angry with me. And they actually are unsafe. The reason I lie in this setting is because they're not safe. That's actually a very real threat. 

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And that's a very different way. of framing it, because if that's the case, then you might need to think about talking with a therapist or a trusted advisor or a friend about this relationship that's unsafe and how you either get help creating more safety in the relationship or put more boundaries around your relationship with this person so that you're not being exposed to their toxicity.

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In that case, the framing is very different. It may be that lying is helping you to survive. And so we've got to get you to safety. Framing is so important to understand what's going on behind lying behaviors.

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Another framing question is asking yourself, who do I find myself really being honest with where it's so easy to be honest? See if you can identify, what are the ingredients in that relationship that bring out that honesty inside of you. What's that about? And notice that and move toward that.

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And then finally, once you've named the lie, framed it and understood a little bit more the function that lying behavior is serving in your life, you can then take brave steps toward more honesty. You might brave healthier boundaries. As we've said, if there are certain situations or certain people who evoke that lying part of you as a survival strategy, you might need to implement some healthier boundaries. 

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In those situations or with those people, if you've identified there's a habit component, you might need to brave more mindfulness. And this will feel awkward at first, but maybe you brave a pause when someone asks you a question and you get really aware of that feeling inside of, oh, a lie is about to come out of my mouth. I'm going to take a deep breath. Pause.

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And see if I can say something honest, it might be as simple as saying, I don't know how to answer that question, or I'm not sure what happened. Or I'm not sure how to respond in this situation. 

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That pause and that breath can really help you connect to that Holy Spirit led self inside of you that is yearning to bring forth more truthfulness, even if what's truest in that moment is, I don't know, I need more time. Can I get back to you? I'm not sure how to answer this right now. I'll need more time. 

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You're showing up more authentically when you give yourself the gift of that pause. Practice finding one thing you can say that is true.

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And then lastly, along the lines of that pause. Practice being really honest, especially in those situations where there's an opportunity to give a written reply. Take your time. Don't text right back. If you need to turn down an invitation, think about it. What's really true here? What am I trying to convey? 

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Because I can't go to this event. And the truth is I don't really want to do more things like this with this other person. So I don't also want to make up an excuse or pretend I'm sick or pretend I have company. What I actually want to say in this moment is something like, I so appreciate your thinking of me. I'm not a big fan of X, but I love to find other things that we could do together. 

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That's an honest reply that honors the invitation, but also honors the truth about how you really feel. Or if someone asks you for help and you really care about that person, but you don't have the bandwidth to provide the help they need, instead of telling one of those little white lies, honoring them with the truth where you say, man, I am so sorry for what you're going through. 

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I need to be honest. I am also going through a lot right now, so I don't have a lot of margin. I want you to know I'm with you in spirit. I am rooting for you, but I don't have a lot to give during this time or season. These are hard things to say, but in those relationships where you really want to develop more authenticity, more truthfulness, I promise you if you give yourself the spaciousness, the pause, the time to really look inside yourself and notice what is actually true and formulate a response that is both honest and kind, you will start to experience the joy, the freedom, the confidence of knowing that you are aligning with what's true. 

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You will start to bring more goodness, more beauty, more authenticity into your relationships and into the world around you.

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Have you ever felt isolated because you couldn’t open up to others? Do you worry that showing vulnerability might lead to more hurt?

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You are in for such an incredibly special treat today. This is such an honest, incredibly real conversation about the risks of vulnerability, the hurts that come from letting others in AND the incredible opportunities for intimacy, connection, and healing when we do.

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My dear friends, Kathy Tuan-MacLean and Tara Edelschick, authors of the incredible new Bible study experience, "Moms at the Well," surveyed over seven hundred moms and discovered most women struggle with worry, anger, comparison, escapism, a desire for control, and heartbreak. Yet most women feel alone in these struggles. If you've ever felt lonely or skeptical about finding community with other women, this episode is for you.

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Here’s what we cover:

1. The risks and rewards of vulnerability
2. How 1 marriage crisis launched a 20 year small group of friends
3. 2 essential ingredients to safeguard trust in a friend group
4. How they dealt with gossip
5. Strategies for dealing with hurt feelings, ruptures & repair
6. One shocking result from their survey
7. How I found friends as a single woman
8. The one thing that kills group trust

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Additional Resources:

• For 20% off + free shipping when you order Moms at the Well, use code IVPPOD20 at https://ivpress.com/moms-at-the-well
• Moms at the Well: Meeting God Through the Mothers of Scripture―A 7-Week Bible Study Experience by Tara Edelschick and Kathy Tuan-MacLean‍
• welcomejesuswelcome.com
• Hagar’s story in the Bible
• Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller
• John 7

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‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 103: Name, Frame, and Brave Gossip
• Episode 85: The Goal of a Healthy Family & 6 Roles We Take On In Dysfunction
• Episode 66: The Truth About Anxiety & How to Become a Worry Free Parent with Sissy Goff
• Episode 65: Vulnerability, Parenting, and Letting Go of Control—Inside A Guy’s Perspective With Our Friends From Dadville

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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.
• 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.
• 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!

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. Welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I am so glad you're here for this series where we are here to name, frame and brave some of these areas in our lives that bring up dissonance inside of us, a feeling of inner tension or even ambivalence about how to move forward.

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Today's topic is about the dissonance we feel about risking vulnerability, especially as it relates to how we show up with our friends. Vulnerability is risky. It includes exposing our inner selves, including our fears, our weaknesses, even our insecurities to other people. 

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This openness can lead to deeper, more meaningful connections where we're really seen and understood at such a deep level. But it also leaves us susceptible to judgment, to rejection, and even to betrayal at the hands of other people. When we open up some of these areas of vulnerability deep inside of us to other people, we can open ourselves up to being hurt.

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The fear of being misunderstood or hurt can stir up that dissonance inside of us. I do want to have close relationships and be intimate with other people on one hand, but on the other hand, it's too hard. I've already been hurt too much. I don't want to take that risk. We can wind up kind of stuck between two competing parts of ourselves. I want greater intimacy on one hand, but I'm fearful of being hurt on the other.

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If we're not careful to name, frame, and brave that dissonance, we can wind up with relationships that aren't deeply satisfying, that only keep things at a surface level. Learning to name, frame, and brave vulnerability is essential for personal growth and for building the kinds of authentic relationships that we all crave. 

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As you listen to this conversation in today's episode, I want you to think about naming some of that dissonance in your own life. What are the different feelings that come up when you think about taking a risk of being vulnerable? What conflicting feelings do you notice inside of you and then frame those feelings?

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Have you been hurt in the past? Is there a good reason you're a little bit nervous about being vulnerable going forward? Because if you've been hurt in the past, it's really important to honor that and to brave some healthy boundaries to help keep you safe going forward. Is part of what's hard for you about risking vulnerability your schedule?

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You just don't have time. You're so buried in all the things that you're already committed to that creating the time to develop those kinds of deeper bonds just feels overwhelming to you. So that's a different way to frame it.

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Then lastly, as you frame your own internal reactions and responses to this idea of braving vulnerability, you might ask yourself, what is the worst case scenario that might come from working to bring a little bit more authenticity, a little bit more vulnerability into your friend groups?

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What is the best case scenario that might come from that? And really honor both your fears about the worst case scenario and your hopes for the best case scenario. Remember, the work of framing is really to take the time you need to reflect on both of those possibilities so that you can anchor yourself and prepare yourself as you take brave steps to move forward.

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Finally, as you listen to today's episode, consider some braving steps you might take. For you, braving might mean introducing some boundaries into your relationships so that you can feel more safe to be vulnerable. It might mean being more assertive to ask some friends, hey, what would you think about moving our relationships into a deeper place?

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Let's structure some time together where we can be intentional about talking about some of the hard things in our lives, or it might be that you're not even sure where to start. You just don't even have the kinds of friendships where you can begin to brave more vulnerability. So for you, it might be considering the environment around you. 

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Where are some places, some clubs, some local communities, some church groups you might consider joining just to take a step toward putting yourself in the path of other people you'd like to get to know? And maybe consider if they're the kind of people you might want to go deeper with. 

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As you listen to this episode, I want you to notice what stirs up inside of you as you consider what it's like to be vulnerable in your friend groups. What do you notice? How do you frame it? What are some brave steps you might want to take in your own life? 

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My guests today, Kathy Tuan-MacLean and Tara Edelschick have written an incredible new seven week Bible study experience.

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It's called Moms at the Well and it's a beautiful guide that offers a modern day well for moms, a gathering place to encourage one another, to take an honest look at the challenges we face and to experience the God who invites us into a process of spiritual transformation through this work of gathering together.

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The book is born out of Kathy and Tara's own experience being part of a small group of women for over 20 years. I was part of this small group for two of those years, and I experienced firsthand the power of what they've created, where there's such transparency, where there's such vulnerability, where there's such honesty, even as they've journeyed through some of life's toughest challenges.

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As you'll hear from them today, it's not that everything magically resolved in all of their lives, but somehow through the power of gathering together, of continually coming back to each other and gathering around the well, they encountered God in incredibly powerful ways. Moms at the Well not only gives you seven weeks of content, but it gives you ideas about how to safeguard the trust of such a group so that it's safe for you to show up as you really are with this group of people you're forming. 

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I cannot recommend this book more to you as a way to begin to show up more vulnerably and more authentically with the other women in your life. This is an amazing resource for you. Tara Edelschick has her EdD from Harvard and has worked as an educator, teaching public high school students, graduate students, and homeschoolers throughout Massachusetts.

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Kathy Tuan-MacLean has her PhD from Northwestern and is the National Faculty Ministry Director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Kathy and Tara are so real and so honest about the challenges they've faced in their own lives, especially their challenges as moms. I am so thrilled to bring you this conversation today with my dear friends, Kathy and Tara.

***

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Oh my gosh, it's so good to be with you, Kathy and Tara. It's been too long. I was part of this group that we're going to talk about today with you for a couple of years. I was there for some of the first seeds of this beautiful book that you're putting into the world. I remember sitting in your living room, Kathy, you guys were starting to form the survey questions. So welcome. Thank you so much for being here with me today to talk about this beautiful book.

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Kathy: It's great to be here. I think you helped me with some of the survey questions, Alison.

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Tara: Yeah, around your dining room table. Kathy, I remember the three of us.

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Alison Cook: I remember and I miss it. I want to dive into this today because one of the things you talk about as a result of your survey is loneliness. What's so interesting about that time period is, you were gathering a lot and Kathy, we would just gather there and we'd all be parallel working in your home.

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I remember feeling as a writer, so much of the time, I'm working by myself. I remember during that time, just feeling like, the way I would describe it was, it took the edge off the loneliness. We weren't even talking half the time. I was sitting at the dining room table writing, someone was over on the couch, someone else was coming and going.

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Kathy, you're an amazing cook. There was always amazing food around, but I remember feeling, it just takes the edge off the loneliness to be doing this together. I think you're both so gifted at that. I'd love to start there because for the listener, you've been part of a small group of about maybe six women for over 20 years, 25 years?

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Kathy: I think 2004, so 20 years.

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Alison Cook: In the Boston area, this was the group I got the opportunity to be a part of for a couple of years while I was there. I remember my mind being blown by the depth of this group. The way that you really did life together., I'd love to just start by you sharing a little bit–tell me a little bit about how that group formed, why it formed, and then I want to dig into what you think the secret is to the longevity and depth of this group of women that you established?

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Kathy: Sure. In some ways, maybe the way we started is atypical, especially for what we're wanting moms to do. We actually started out of a crisis that was happening in a friend's marriage, because this friend came to a place of realizing that her marriage had some deep fissures in it that she had enabled.

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She came to the end of herself and was having a really hard time. I realized that because there were people connected to this friend, but who weren't as connected to each other, I suggested, why don't we just pray for you? So we started as a group of four who were all connected to this friend in different ways, praying for her and her marriage, and we started meeting every other week just to pray.

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For the first bunch of months, I think it was very focused around her and the crisis that she was in. But over time, the more we would share and challenge her and pray, we realized, okay, we know that her marriage is in crisis, but it isn't like the rest of us don't have to hear almost everything we're saying to her.

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It all applied. I think it was a year in, we're like, okay, and she even was like, okay, I appreciate how much care you've given us, but can we have this be a little more mutual and equal? We're all like, yeah, because we were all receiving as much. It really became a prayer group for all of us.

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Over time, we invited various people. Alison, we had the joy of having you for a while, and people have come and people have gone. We've walked one friend to death and into Jesus’ arms. So we've really dealt with every single crisis there is that you could have. Kid crisis, marriage crisis, life and death crisis, health crisis. We've been a group who've walked and walked with each other.

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Tara: I love that. The four who started are still in it. So others have come but the four who started, we're all still together. I can't imagine, we were much younger and recently we've been saying, oh, we're getting old together. It chokes me up. Like we're getting old together. 

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Then Kathy and I, when the pandemic happened and everything got shut down, I sent out an email to a ton of people and over the years, that has morphed and it became a group. We meet every weekday, Monday through Friday, from 7:30 to 8 am. Then there's usually a contingent who stays on until 8:30. We read a book and talk about a book Monday through Wednesday. Thursday, we pray for our kids. Friday, we do Bible study. 

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For more than four years now. Like Kathy said, there are people who might look like they're in crisis, but all of us have stuff going on. All of us are lonely. The pandemic maybe brought out a little more than others. But having walked through it all with each other has been transformative for both of us. I couldn't be more grateful.

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Alison Cook: Yeah it's amazing. The book is called Moms at the Well, and as I was reading it and thinking about the two of you, I was thinking, this book truly flows out of these wells that you've established over two decades. I think it's hard to do. There's a reason that women feel lonely, that moms feel lonely.

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I wanna ask you a little bit about that. What were some early mistakes that you were able to overcome that allowed you to stay intact? As someone who came in for a period of time and then migrated out, I can speak to the fact that it's not an in-group out-group type of well that you've created. There's a sense of stability with fluidity that allows for folks to come in, nourish, refresh, and then as life circumstances have it, maybe move on to the next stage. 

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But there is that core stability. So tell me a little bit about what. What do you think helped you to stay intact, to keep this well intact for so many years? What worked for you?

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Tara: I think that the biggest thing that worked is that everyone in these groups is committed to being honest. People are taking risks about pain, longing, suffering, and of course lots of cheering–yay, you did it! We are people who are for each other. 

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It's actually sometimes hard to find cheerleaders. It's hard to find people where it's safe to be honest. I think Kathy is very open and honest and vulnerable. I've learned a lot from her to just say, yeah, this isn't working. If the core group has that, then when people come in, it's oh, you mean my kids don't have to be perfect. I can be a mean wife sometimes, and then everybody goes, ooooooh.

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Alison Cook: That was my experience. I agree that there's a level of safety that you two and a couple of the core members have established that just breathes life. It just breathes life to those who come. What were some mistakes or disappointments that you had early on with each other that you were able to overcome?

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Kathy: I would say that the irony is, that if you're going to walk with people for as long, you get to know each other's flat sides or sin nature really well, as well as people's strengths. Part of the challenge, I think, the important thing, is to speak the truth in love. I personally am a person who really likes to be challenged, but I don't like to have people give me advice.

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So there's a difference that when people are giving you advice, often I feel really patronized or I feel like they think I'm an idiot. I don't know what the word is there, but I'm always like, I can figure out advice for myself. What I really appreciate is where I have blind spots and people can point out where I'm not seeing God, or where I'm not seeing my husband, or where I'm not seeing my God, my kids the way that I should.

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So I think that the commitment to challenge and the commitment to to try to not judge. We talk a lot about comparison in one of our chapters and how we can't help but compare, but envy and judgment, when those come out, it can kill a friendship and it can kill a group. We are really trying to be a group where we are for each other, going on with something Tara said too, I think actually making the commitment is huge.

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So we could have at any point quit, but I think because it was really life giving, because our group was really a well, I personally was just super-hyper-committed. I needed the group. I needed it, and I show up every morning for this book club because I need it. I need to have that sort of community.

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It is sipping from the well of living water when you get to be with these women. They pray for you. You literally do receive the Holy Spirit as people pray for you.

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Tara: When we keep talking about the well, I want to make sure, and I know that you know this, the well is not us. The well is Jesus. What this group of women does is not just pray for each other, but we believe that God is with us. We go back to the Bible. We remember each other's miracles.

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When somebody's faith is waning, we say, but remember, God did this for you. Along with that, I think maybe an early mistake, because we came out of crisis, was that we were going to pray really hard, and then their marriage was going to get healed and the man's addiction was going to get healed.

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Didn't happen. His addiction lives on, they ended up divorced. From the beginning, that's been the reality. God loves us, God's for us, God can do miracles, and a lot of the struggles and some of the judgment came from like, how come you're not getting better? How can you still do this 20 years in? Oh, cause I'm broken. 

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But Jesus isn't. The well really is finding those people who are honest about what's broken, who keep offering you that sip of living water, that Jesus, that the Holy Spirit is.

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Alison Cook: I love that. What you guys have lived, and this is what I want the listener to know– the book is amazing and it really flows from this experience. I love what you're saying. You're not, the people involved aren't the magic, it's the commitment to gathering around the well, no matter what.

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You’re going to still show up Thursday night, even though, nope, we prayed and my marriage is actually falling apart more. It's getting worse. Or we prayed and I'm still doing this thing. We're just going to keep showing up. There's such a vivid picture of grace, community and companionship, which I really think is at the heart of Jesus's message.

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Of course, there's a part of me that's like, we all need this. So how do we take what you guys did, and bottle it up so that everybody can experience this? Because again, according to the research that you did, according to what I see all the time, moms are lonely. People are lonely. 

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This isn't happening everywhere. So one of the things I'm pulling from this already is honesty and commitment. We're not committed to outcomes. We're not doing this so that we can all have healed, happy marriages and home lives and perfect kids. It's because this is the way of Jesus. 

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We gather together, whether in good times, whether in bad, yes, we're praying for each other, and regardless of the outcomes, we're going to continue to gather with Jesus and with each other. That's kind of it. That's really what you guys were able to do over these two decades. 

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Tara: Like Kathy said, one of our core members died. We prayed for her really to not die, obviously. It's a heartbreak. She's gone. But the longer you live, our hope is built not here. Our hope is built on Jesus. We may not see what we want, and all will be well. So you don't have to be perfect right now.

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Kathy: Maybe one more thing I'll say is that in the 20 years, it isn't that we haven't had conflict. When we've walked with people through hard stuff, there has been conflict, there's been hurt feelings, there's been confrontation, there's been working things out. It's funny because one of my friends in the group who happened to live across the street from me, her daughter heard us processing what was going on and she's like, I don't get why what you're doing isn't gossip. 

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She looked and my friend looked at me and I was like, it is processing, we are processing. It became our joke that we're processing, but we actually came to realize that if any of us is in crisis, on one hand, gossip is a horrible thing among women in particular–it's a way to judge usually, and think you're better than others.

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But because so often if someone's in crisis, you actually need the community to problem solve, to figure out, how do we approach someone over a very difficult issue? Or how do we support this person, or what can we do to help? We realized that any one of us, at any point that we're in crisis or need, having our friends process together without us there, is actually super great.

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At this point, I'm like, yeah, please go process and I'm never going to think it's gossip because I know that you're for me and you want me to have life and to choose life.

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Alison Cook: That's a really good distinction. There's a group norm. There's enough safety. There's established safety and trust within the group that you know if two people are trying to analyze or process the situation, they're doing it for your good. There's a spirit of the heart. There's a good motivation there, versus if someone's going and betraying your trust or betraying your confidence by gossiping at the playground at school about your stuff. That's a very different thing. There's that norm within the group.

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I love that you brought up conflict. I love that you mentioned conflict within the group. Is there an instance you'd be willing to share with us about a time you had to work through that? Because I think it's really real. There's no way that you don't go through seasons of hurting each other's feelings. Is there any time that you can think of where you really made a mistake or had to work through something that you'd be willing to share?

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Tara: In general, I think Kathy's exactly right. That we processed more than gossiped. But, some are a little more judgmental than some of the others. I'm one of the judgmental ones and sometimes when we talked, it veered into judgment. Somebody had some very difficult parenting issues. None of which I actually think I could have done any better at, but I was behaving, sounding, feeling judgmental about it.

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She was really hurt and really upset at me and my judgefulness and Kathy had to have a mediation between us. Then Kathy had to mediate between the hurt woman and the other woman who tends to also struggle with some judgment sometimes. There were still sore feelings at the end of it, but we worked through it.

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We were committed. We loved each other for each other. But yeah, I didn't want anyone to think oh, this is the perfect group. I could never emulate it.  It's messy. Whatever our besetting sins are, we bring them into group.

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Alison Cook: So I want to name something here that I think is important. I talk a lot on the podcast about triangulation, where we dump on a third party. We go to a third party and say, oh man, Tara really hurt my feelings. I'm so mad at her. We just dump that on the third party. We never really have an intention to go directly to you.

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You're naming something I think that's really important because I'm guessing what happened is the person with their hurt feelings went to Kathy and said, I was so hurt by how Tara responded to me last night. 

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That becomes triangulation if Kathy and the person who's hurt just gossip about it and bag on Tara and then never bring it back up, but in a community, the power of community, is in that situation, the person who's hurt can say, I don't know how to talk to Tara about this, but I'm so hurt.

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Then the third person can say, okay, how do we bring this back into the community? So there's a constructive purpose there. It's not dumping or venting. It's, we're going to let the community, the group hold the hurt in a way that the two of us can't at this moment.

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When you're that third person, where you're holding the pain of another member of the group. How do you handle that? How do you ensure that this becomes constructive versus destructive?

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Kathy: That's a great question, and I'm not sure I've always done it well. However, I do keep on thinking, as a Chinese person where in our culture, there's no such thing as direct communication, when it comes to conflict, having grown up in Hawaii, where it's primarily Asian American, I was very sick of all the passive aggression, the silent treatment. 

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I did not enjoy how my whole culture dealt with conflict. It strikes me that if you're the third person, the temptation is to hold the information and fan the flames because you're the person who's in and the other person's out. If you're all about trying to consolidate your own position in the friendships, your own safety, your own power, your own affection, whatever then it is, that would be the temptation. 

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It would be very destructive. But because we're Jesus followers, we know that everything about God is about reconciling God to one another. In all our relationships. I do think that the goal, therefore, that's implicit in committed relationships, is that we're always going to be trying to work towards reconciliation.

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Someone can vent, but then the next question is, so what do you sense God inviting you to do? Which is the classic spiritual direction question. I've received spiritual direction for 20 years, oh, 30 some years now and I'm a spiritual director. As you invite folks to consider, what is God inviting you in light of that? Then you can begin to include God in problem solving and knowing that God's heart will always be for reconciliation.

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Alison Cook: That's really good. We're always in the position of trying to point each other back to the well. So there's this: I want to validate that you're hurt. I'm not gonna say, “well, you just need to forgive. You just need to blow past that, she didn't mean to hurt you.” It's not that, but it's also not, I love what you're saying because that's that insidious, “oh, I'm the good guy here I didn't hurt you. You're telling me about how she hurt you. I'm better.” 

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That can creep in. There's a middle ground of, thank you for telling me. I know that's hard. I wonder what God is inviting out of this situation. Not rushing to advice or a solution, but holding together the information. I grew up with a lot of triangulation and having been hurt by it, having often been the third person that people dump on and just feeling the helplessness that comes from that. 

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That was often my role. I don't want all this information, but I don't know what to do because I was the safe person. I hated it. So I never wanted to do it to anybody else. But one of the things I learned through my time with you guys is that constructive component. 

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I think we have to look at the fruit there. There's a couple of key things there that involve a lot of trust, that ultimately we're all drawing, pointing people toward Jesus. Even when sometimes we're going to each other saying, I'm not sure how to make sense of this. This hurt me, or this is bothering me, or help me understand because I always have blind spots. 

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We need that group. I think that's a really nuanced thing that's hard to do well. I love that you brought that up, Tara. I love that you owned that in that case. Maybe there was a way in which you were being a little judgmental. You didn't see her blind spot and you guys were able to talk through that. That's really hard to do. That's why you've been doing this for 20 years.

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Tara: It wasn't maybe I was doing it and it wasn't a little, I was definitely doing it a lot. It was really hurtful, but I can grow from that. Because when she told me she was hurt, it allowed me to apologize and ask for forgiveness. I can grow from that. That's the beauty of the well,

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Alison Cook: And it wasn't quick.

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Tara: That's the thing. Even after that one conversation, everything's not all better now because I broke her trust. I hurt her. So you have to wait long enough to rebuild the trust. To say, okay, I'll put my toe back in, but you really hurt me, so I'm not jumping full-body in.

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She was really great. I'll say the brave part for me was, I wanted to run away, but I didn't. I had to sit in the shame. She had to sit in the mistrust, we had to work our way back. I think Kathy alluded to this, the judgment, the solution to both of those is Kathy's question. She was so good at this in the group. Now we can all do it because she taught us one:  What is Jesus inviting us to? Even for a while, the only kind of prayer we did was listening prayer. We'll just listen and see, we'll just pray for you to hear from God, because we were doing so much without giving advice.You can hear what God's invitation is here, you can hear what God has for you. The second you say those words out loud, the judgment melts away. 

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Alison Cook: Thank you for naming that because again, I want the listener to hear, the well holds space for pain between two friends and it makes sense to me. So someone shows up, they're sharing vulnerably, they feel judged in the group, even after they've said, hey, that hurt, even after there's been repair, man, I'm not sure I want to share that vulnerably next Thursday night about my stuff.

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It really takes some resilience. I love that the well creates space for that, creates space for the rebuilding of trust. It's okay. That you Tara, again, you had the resilience and the fortitude to sit even in the bit of shame. Where it'd be so tempting to just try to overperform to say no, I'll never do it again, as opposed to, the well has space to sit with that feeling of, oh, I'm sorry that I did that. 

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It isn't just a one time thing. That's an ongoing repair that happens internally between two people. It's really quite profound when you really begin to unpack what happens when we just commit to continuing to show up together and not sideline our emotions, not sideline what's hard, bring it with us around the well of Jesus.

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It's really amazing. I think this is the body of Christ. I think this is what we are supposed to be doing, but it's hard. It forces us to deal with our own stuff and not in a quick fix kind of way to sit with it with each other.

***

Throughout Moms at the Well, you're bringing In this beautiful weaving of the real things that women are dealing with these spiritual practices and biblical wisdom. So it's just this beautiful dance of real emotions and spiritual wisdom. Some of the key things that women are dealing with are worry, comparison, anger–we get hurt by each other–and a desire for control. We want to control our kids, our families, our marriages, heartbreak, the devastation of realizing that a marriage is failing or that maybe a marriage isn't failing, but not what we thought it would be, or our kids are failing, or maybe they're not failing and they're not what we wanted them to be.

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All the things that we deal with in life. I guess I want to know, as you got those survey results back, were there any surprises or were most of them down the list like yeah, this is what we've seen too.

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Tara: I'll tell you what was surprising–not the anger and the worry and the control, because we have, and everyone we know has all of that. That was not as surprising. What was surprising was the number of women who wrote in at the end, “This survey made me cry. No one ever asks about foster mothers. No one ever asks about adoption. No one ever talks about kids with disabilities. 

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“I'm not allowed to talk about losing it at church because then I'm a bad Christian mom. I'm not allowed to talk about this. I feel so alone. If other mothers knew what I was dealing with, they would judge me. I couldn't tell anybody at church what's actually happening in my family.” All of those responses, of how unseen and lonely maybe we could guess that but the depth of it, Alison, was so profound and sad.

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Alison Cook: Gosh, just the fact that you asked the questions evoked those kinds of responses. Just being asked what's hard. 

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Kathy: I actually remember that, because the first survey we did was when I was doing it for Intervarsity staff moms, and it was at the beginning. We actually have done two different surveys for moms and so I remember both of you helping me with that survey. I think it was both of your feedback that you said, I need to include widowed, grieving, single, divorced, step, foster, adoptive.

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We kept on brainstorming, what other mom is there? and making sure it got on my list and again, being able to tick off what kind of mom you were and seeing your kind of mom on the list, people were crying. People were writing me emails saying, I'm crying right now because I'm a grieving mom. I've had three miscarriages. There's no place to be seen as that sort of mom.

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Alison Cook: That is amazing. I remember that and it makes sense to me. When I think of moms, immediately, my brain goes to being a stepmom and bearing all of the challenges of motherhood and yet feeling like, does this apply to me?

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Thinking about women who don't have children or don't have biological children, but who are nurturing humans through life, through a lot of different ways that as women, we share this. We do share this commonality. It manifests in so many different ways, but this drive to be connected to and nurturing and bringing life into other humans, we all have that. 

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I love that. I love that even the survey teased out the nuances of loneliness in that experience. As you've written the book and put the book into the world, what words of wisdom would you have for the women listening who might be feeling some of what your survey respondents felt being asked those questions?

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Kathy: Our first chapter looks at Hagar, and the theme is on when you feel unseen. The good news is that Hagar, when you think about Hagar as the first person an angel of the Lord ever shows up to in all of scripture, she's at a well. It's the first time God ever shows up at a well, and we see God showing up at wells all the time from then on.

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She was outside of the family. She was an enslaved servant of Sarai, probably given to her when they were in Egypt, forced to bear Abram's child and then so mistreated that she flees. This is not the sort of person who got seen. You don't ever see Abram or Sarai calling her by name.

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The first person who calls her by name is God, is the angel of the Lord. I would say that her experience at this well is that she dares to name God, the only person in all of scripture who dares name God, and names him El Roi. The God who sees me. And then God tells her, go back and you'll have a son and you will name him Ishmael, which means God hears.

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So Hagar is the one who receives the message that this God of Abraham is the God who sees and the God who hears. They didn't know that before that. For anyone who is feeling alone or unseen, God does see you. The story of Hagar gives us such great hope. We are just as precious as Hagar. God sees you, God hears you.

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Alison Cook: That's beautiful. That is beautiful. I love that. That's the root of all of this, is that deep yearning to be seen and known just as we are. That's the yearning. We know that in God, but we also need places like the one you guys have created–wells where we get just a glimpse even of someone else seeing behind the mask that we feel like we have to put on, at school, at church, whatever, even in our families sometimes. And another woman saying, I see you, I get it, I see it all, and I'm here, I'm going to keep showing up. I'll be here next Thursday, whatever, I'll be here tomorrow morning, no matter what, whether it's gotten better, whether it hasn't, that's the desire, that's the longing.

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Tara: No matter what. That's the deepest longing in all of our hearts is to be seen and valued and obviously the person who gives us that most is God. When we find it in other humans, they are reflecting God. "I see you and I delight in you." We got an email this morning from someone and she said, "I got through the introduction and I'm crying." The only thing that's in the introduction is, there's lots of other mamas just like you. One of our chapters in Women at the Well, we call her Sam because we don't like being unnamed, so we call the Samaritan woman Sam. As far as we know, she likely never had children. But we include her in the book because she births the Gentile church after her encounter with Jesus and him seeing her in all her mess, and loving on her and offering her living water. 

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She runs back to town and tells everyone else about this guy who has living water, who saw everything I've ever done. That's her testimony. You don't have to mother in the way that the church celebrates on Mother's Day. Women are mothering and giving birth to lots of loving communities. We want to celebrate all of those ways of mothering.

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Alison Cook: I love that. Man, that is just powerful. Just naming that longing. What would you say to the listener who is aware of that longing to be seen? Who is aware of that yearning and feels incredibly lonely. What would you say? How would you encourage her as far as taking a step toward community? I think that taking this book to your church and saying, hey, let's do a group around it because it gives you a structure and a scaffolding for this that maybe you could put your toe in the water. You can study the stories of other women in the Bible as an entryway, but how might you encourage that woman who's listening?

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Kathy: I would say that, first of all, the gift of someone who will see you and value you and not judge you, not envy you, is a real gift of God. I think that when you yearn for that, the first thing is to ask God for that gift. God gives good gifts. I do believe, given our survey, that there are many women out there who are hungry to go deeper.

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in both their relationship with God and in their relationship with one another. So I do think asking God, please give me this gift, and then open my eyes, put on my heart, who might be a person I might ask, who might be someone I want to do this group with and then take some risks.

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Tara: Risking vulnerability is the way you can lead. Knowing that even if no one else is talking about it, they're feeling it. Not one of 700 women that we surveyed said, I'm rocking it. Not one. You can share vulnerably and somebody's eyes will open up. Somebody's shoulders will drop and go, oh, me too,

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Alison Cook: This is making me remember a story that involves you, Tara, and your husband, Jeff. When I first moved to Cambridge, I was single. I didn't know a soul. I was so lonely. I was so in need of friends. A friend of mine, a random friend of mine who'd been part of Jeff's community at Harvard, said, oh, you should reach out to Jeff. Jeff Barneson. I had coffee with him because he was at the head of the graduate Christian fellowship at Harvard. 

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So I thought, he probably knows people who maybe could be my friend. I'm pretty sure this is how it happened. I think Kim remembers it a little bit differently, but I said, do you know anyone who could be my friend? I told him about my life and myself and he said, oh, you should get to know Kimberly Miller. Kimberly Miller ended up being my coauthor on the book, Boundaries for Your Soul.

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We had coffee. She was studying IFS. She was also a therapist. He set us up essentially on a friend date. I thought of that as you were talking, I love what you said, Kathy, it's asking God. I was just praying all the time, I was like, man, I need friends. I was writing my dissertation, so everything I was doing was in isolation. 

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I didn't have kids. So there was no avenue for connecting with women in that way. Church can be hard as a single woman. So I started asking people, I need a friend. Do you know anyone who could be my friend? I want to share that because that's another way of being vulnerable and saying, this is a need that I have.

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Kathy: I was thinking about the metaphors that we use and I'm struck that the well is where you go to get the water you need for life. So if we're actually talking about the metaphors, the water is the living water of God. To give something away, in our chapter on Sam, we realize, what is the living water?

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Jesus promises living water. What is the living water? Then you have to go to John 7, three chapters later, to find out that Jesus says the living water is the Holy Spirit. The water that Jesus promises is God's presence living within us, the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit, which is what we believe happened to Sam.

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It’s why she went from being someone who seemed isolated and alone and in shame to being someone who could name everything and talk about Jesus with freedom and invite people into her experience of Jesus. So I'm just struck that the water is always good, and yet a well can fall into disrepair.

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A town well, you want to make sure people don't pollute it. Someone can ruin a well; that's what enemies do. They ransack a well so that people can't access the water anymore. So I was just thinking how when we wrote the book, we started out thinking, oh, we're writing this book on spiritual formation for moms, partly because that's a book I've been trying to write for 21 years now.

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We went through many iterations. We had a couple of rejections. We had friends read really horrible drafts that we actually even submitted for publication that got rejected, thank the Lord. Part of what we realized is that for us, the key has been this idea of a community of women coming to this well to try to get the water they need for themselves and their families. 

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This Holy Spirit living water, the water of God that helps us live our whole lives, that being careful around and stewarding well. The structure of the group, which we've actually talked quite a bit about, is important, and that's one reason we actually hit group commitment.

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It's pretty hard in the book because what will kill a group is if someone doesn't keep confidence, if someone takes up too much space, if someone betrays the vulnerability that others show. With our group commitments, we're hoping that people will create a safe and healthy and wonderful well where the Holy Spirit, the living water, can flow out freely and everyone can come and drink.

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Alison Cook: I love that. It's so interesting. Anger doesn't kill a group, comparison doesn't kill a group, envy doesn't kill a group, hurt feelings don't kill a group. What kills a group is what we do with those feelings, when we let those feelings come in between us and disrupt us from gathering, or we let the enemy start to let those feelings fester versus bringing those feelings into the well. I love that you laid out guidelines for folks in the book so that they can do this work together. I want the listener to be so encouraged, just as Kathy just said, there are norms that you can use.

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You can work through this, these feelings, some of this stuff will come up. Conflict will come up, but there are some ways in which God will begin to use those things toward the end of forming you, not letting those things divide you from each other. I think our fear of those feelings keeps us from each other versus God wanting to take those feelings and use them to bring us toward each other.

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I want every woman to experience this, to taste this. You guys have lived it just so beautifully. I'm so grateful for what you've created, for what it brought to me during that season of my life that I could come. It brings tears to my eyes that I could come in and sit with you guys around the well for a short season and taste the goodness and taste just a little bit of being known.

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I had some major life epiphanies and growth spurts just by coming in for a couple of years to being a part of this community with you guys. I take that with me. The fruit goes with me wherever I go. It's just beautiful. Now you're going to change the lives of tons of other women through this book. 

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I have two last questions for you before we wrap up. If you could go back in time, what would you say to the younger version of you with all the wisdom that you have now? What would you say to the younger version of you who was struggling with some of these things as a young mom?

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Kathy: I went into motherhood thinking I was not going to commit all the sins of my mother and my grandmother. We like to joke that rage comes down the female line in my Chinese family. I couldn't get over it. I couldn't get over it. We write about it somewhat in the book and talk about it in some of our videos. I think that the process of parenting has not been a process of getting over any of my issues. Instead, it's been a process of meeting Jesus in the midst of them.

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That's what we say about this book, that if you want to read a book about how to be a good mom, this is not it, because we never necessarily achieved that. But we did meet the God of the universe who loves us and walks with us and fills us with the Holy Spirit and loves our kids more, too. So I would say to my younger self, you're going to fail. You're going to disappoint yourself beyond what you ever thought you could do. And the God of grace and goodness will come and meet you in ways you never ever thought you would expect.

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Alison Cook: I love that. I love that. That's a good word. That's a good word.

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Tara: It's a good word. It's almost identical to what I would say, Alison. I remember going to bed, waking up in the morning and praying, God, please help me not be angry and controlling today. Then I would go to bed and say, God, please forgive me for being so angry and controlling. I say in the book, my kids say, oh, mom has dictator syndrome.

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Anne Lamott has this great line, I'm not sure it totally fits, but she says, oh, don't tell me worrying doesn't work. Of course worrying works. Nothing I worry about ever happens. I used to love that line, and I laughed so hard, and I was like, guys, quit worrying. Nothing you worry about ever happens.

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But actually, almost everything I've worried about has happened. Nobody has hurt my children more than I have. I could never have known that I was going to be the one who hurt them more than anyone else. Now, I think I've loved them more deeply than anyone else, too. That's who I was going to be as a mom.

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But what I also couldn't have imagined was that God's going to keep saying, you are my beloved daughter. He's saying, I love you and I love your kids. More than you can know. More than you can know. It's okay that you lose it on your kids. I know, I see it, and I still think you're awesome. Your kids are gonna be okay.

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Alison Cook: It's powerful. Even listening to you, I think about the graciousness of God. It's not that God doesn't see it all. The big thing I learned from the group was that I was in Enneagram 3, not in Enneagram 2. I remember the moment I figured that out, and it was being totally transparent about things that I have a lot of shame about, and so for me, even now today, that task manager part of me will just hit the ground running.

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I'm so sorry, God, I got too much to do to stop and talk to you. It just brings tears to my eyes because God is just like, I know. I know, and it's not okay. Also I know you, I know you, I'm still here with you. I'm still here. It's still a battle. I'm aware of it.

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God's aware of it. I'm more aware of God's presence with me through it. It's a really nuanced thing. I think for all of us as moms, as just all these things we struggle with, it's just that being known, being seen in the struggle takes the edge off. It reminds me exactly of what I used to feel with you guys. It just takes the edge off where I remember palpably leaving times with you guys and just feeling a little bit softer and lighter and more filled. 

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Problems weren't magically solved.

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Tara: It's living water.

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Alison Cook: This is just so rich. I could keep talking to you guys for the next two hours. I think what you guys have put your finger on with this book is so powerful. Tell everyone how they can find you and how they can find this book and how they can maybe use the book to get started with a group of other women on their own.

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Kathy: One of the great things is, because the whole vision of the book was that we wanted moms to do this together, which is why each chapter starts with a group Bible study. You can buy the book straight from InterVarsity Press and use a coupon code. If you buy more than five books, that's 40 percent off and free shipping.

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So I'm assuming that you can have that in your show notes. Obviously, you can buy it on Amazon or you can ask your independent bookseller. We have a website called welcomejesuswelcome.com, where we have a leader's guide, where we have playlists. It's where we have hopefully more material that will be helpful for that.

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So we want to support you all in the journey of walking together, following Jesus with your children and in your families. So yeah, lots of ways. We're on Instagram. We're on Facebook. You can follow us.

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Alison Cook: Grab the book. I'll put the coupon in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. I'm just so grateful for you both.

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We don't want to gossip, but most of us do it. What if gossip actually plays a deeper role in our lives and relationships?

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So often in life we bump into "grey areas," areas that can stir up dissonance inside of us. We hold certain beliefs or values, yet we find ourselves acting in ways that are contrary to those values.

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In this series, we're exploring some of these areas that can bring up dissonance inside. Our focus today is gossip. I explore the problems with gossip, as well as some of the surprising research on how it can be constructive. By examining both the positive and negative aspects of gossip, you'll feel empowered to name, frame, and brave a healthier understanding of gossip in your life and relationships.

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Here's what we cover:

1. Why gossip is a gray area (3:09)
2. What the Bible says about gossip (6:42)
3. What psychology research says about gossip (12:46)
4. 6 motivations behind gossip (13:43)
5. Constructive vs. destructive forms of gossip (21:40)
6. How to Name, Frame, and Brave gossip in your own life (29:17)

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.
• Go to thrivemarket.com/bestofyou for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!
• Go to AquaTru.com and enter code BESTOFYOU at checkout to get 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier!
• 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.

‍‍

Resources:

• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍Proverbs 11:13
• ‍Proverbs 16:28
• ‍Proverbs 26:20
• ‍James 1:26
• ‍Ephesians 4:29
• ‍Anne of Green Gables books

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‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 102: I Shouldn’t Feel Conflicted About God—How to Name, Frame, and Brave Complicated Emotions About Faith & God
• Episode 96: Signs of Emotional Immaturity & How to Bring Emotional Health Into Your Relationships
• Episode 89: When A Relationship Has to Change—How to Tolerate Discomfort, Face an Attachment Void, & Resource Yourself

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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. I am so glad you're here. I'm so glad you keep coming back each week to join me for these conversations. I am thrilled about this brand new series that is based on the framework I laid out in my brand new book, I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. 

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Many of you have it in your hands already. Many of you have already read it. In this series, I'm going to apply the framework, the three step process in I Shouldn't Feel This Way, to complicated real life challenges that I don't address in the book.

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So we're going to cover a wide range of topics in this series, topics that are sometimes the source of debate or differing opinions, and they might lead to some internal dissonance. Dissonance is this feeling of discord inside of you when you have two competing priorities that are at odds with each other, or maybe you're behaving in a way outwardly that doesn't match up to a belief you hold inwardly.

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As I teach you in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, that experience of dissonance is a gift. It's a cue to get curious. I wonder what that's about. For example, I noticed that I'm really tempted to tell a little white lie in this situation, even though I don't want to be someone who lies. When you notice that experience of dissonance inside of you, it's a cue to do some naming work, some framing work, so that you can brave a healthier way through it.

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My goal is not to give you formulaic or pat answers or quick fixes, but instead to empower you to name, frame, and brave a wise discerning path through some of these areas in your own life.

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Today's topic is the topic of gossip. Now listen, most of us tend to think of gossip as negative or bad. We don't want to be a gossip. We don't want to gossip with our friends. The Bible warns us against gossip. I personally have seen the damaging effects of gossip in so many ways. We're going to talk about some of that in today's episode. 

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At the same time, what's really interesting about gossip is number one, its prevalence. Social psychology research has shown that over two thirds of our conversations as adults contain some form of gossip. So whatever we think about it, most of us are doing it. Then number two, social psychology research has also unearthed some of the positive aspects of gossip that may explain a little bit why some of us are doing it.

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In today's episode, I want to untangle some of those knots through naming, framing, and braving this gray area of gossip. Why do we do it? What does the Bible say about it? What's negative about it? What is the positive component, if there is one, that we actually want to preserve? And how can we preserve that component in a healthy way? 

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There's so much in this episode for every single one of us. I had so much fun learning about gossip, both from the Bible and from social psychology research. I think there's some really interesting questions we can ask ourselves about the role of gossip in our lives to be a healthier human, a healthier friend, a healthier family member, and to help us in partnership with God's spirit to bring more goodness, more kindness, more compassion, and more wisdom into our relationships and into this world, which is in such desperate need for that. We're bringing it into the world through doing this work of naming, framing, and braving healthier paths together.

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At its simplest form, gossip is the exchange of information about the personality traits, the character, or the behaviors of someone who is not present in the conversation. So when we use the phrase “talking behind somebody's back”, that's a very clear picture of what gossip is. 

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It's simply talking about another person when they're not present. They're not there to engage in the conversation with you. Now, when I give you that very simple definition of gossip, talking about someone else when they're not present, I bet every single one of you listening, whether you're driving or at home or at work is saying, yeah, I've done that.

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I've done that. I've talked about someone with another person when that third person wasn't present. It's so common. I think that two-thirds estimate is probably fairly low. We do this all the time. Parents talk about their children when their children aren't present. Siblings talk about their parents when their parents aren't present. Friends talk about another friend when their friend isn't present. Friends talk about their family members with their friends when that family member isn't present. 

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We can get very literal about that description and see it everywhere. You begin to see why I'm labeling this as a gray area, because immediately we begin to recognize in ourselves those instances when we are talking about another person in the absence of that person. We're trying to do that in a constructive way.

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I want to mention what the Bible has to say about gossip, because it's an important backdrop for so many of us as we try to develop our moral compass around the topic. The Bible addresses the topic of gossip in numerous locations. We see it in the Proverbs, for example, Proverbs 11:13, “a gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret”. So we get at this component of how important it is to be people who are trustworthy, who do not betray the secrets that our loved ones share with us.

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We see another example in Proverbs 16:28, “a perverse person stirs up conflict and a gossip separates close friends”. So again, we get this idea that someone who is gossiping is trying to separate people, is trying to stir up conflict and chaos.

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On the other hand, we get another picture of what happens when we're not gossiping in Proverbs 26:20– “Without wood, a fire goes out; without gossip, a quarrel dies down”. So there's this image of gossip being the kindling that fuels and stokes the fire of quarrels and conflict that keeps it going, as opposed to being the opposite, which is someone who works to reduce the flames of chaos, reduce the flames of conflict. 

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We want to remove the wood from that fire. But, you can already tell as I'm saying this, that it gets tricky. Because I can already feel the questions forming in my own mind. Okay. Let's say I'm in a conflict with Bob over there. I don't want to stoke the fires of that conflict. That's not my goal. I do want to reach a resolution of that conflict. 

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But on the other hand, if I simply refuse to talk about what I'm feeling about that person, I'm also at risk of never solving the problem–of stuffing or sidelining or numbing those emotions that I'm feeling because I'm struggling. I'm struggling with this person. Yes, I do not want to stoke the fires of that conflict, but I also, in order to solve or resolve or arrive at a better solution, I do need to figure out and get to the root of the struggle that I'm having. 

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Again, this is why there's a gray area. When is it appropriate to go outside of this relationship that I have with this person or to divulge the secret information that I'm carrying about this person that is really troubling me? I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to do something damaging but I need help. I need wisdom. I need to be discerning. I need advice. 

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How do I go about that constructively? So we already see some of that inner tension building up as we read through these scriptures. Then we go to James 1:26 where we have this really almost harsh admonition about our tongues and the way that the words that come out of our mouths can be used to hurt others. They're really powerful. James 1:26 says, “those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless”. 

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James says the religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Now, I love this passage because it's really saying, here's what we don't want to be doing. Here's what we do want to be doing.

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We want to be people who are not slandering others and using our tongue to harm others and cause destruction and cause chaos and increase conflict. We want to be people of peace. We want to be people who are lifting up the poor, lifting up those who are hurting, caring for the most vulnerable among us, including the vulnerable parts of ourselves.

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So again, here's that inner tension. We want to be people who are using our words, using our mouths in conversations with our friends, in our families, with other people for good, to encourage, to empower, to improve the lives of others. Also, what do we do when we're struggling, when we're hurting, when someone has hurt us, when we're in a situation that's complicated and we need help untangling the knots of that situation?

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Again, to underscore the James passage, we see in Ephesians 4:29, another admonition that is such a beautiful aspirational admonition. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen”.

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Okay. So there's some very clear guidelines there of the kind of people we want to be. We want to be people who are really careful about what we talk about and what the impact is of those words that we use. So this is the backdrop that I'm going to drop into this conversation about gossip.

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We want to be people who are using our words to uplift, to empower, to create more goodness, to create more wholeness in ourselves and in the lives of other people. That's the backdrop. We do not want to be people who are stoking the flames of conflict, of hatred, of malice, of controversy, of slander. We do not want to be people who are sowing the seeds of division and destruction through our words. 

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This is a really important value for so many of us. It's why I love this podcast every week, because I know those of you who are listening, who are people wanting to live as fruit-bearing, goodness-bearing people in this world, we're trying to do that. Also, we find ourselves in complicated situations where we need to confer with other people in our lives about how to best navigate challenging relational situations.

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I want to turn now to some of the research in social psychology that has exposed the more constructive side to gossip. I think it's important in the interest of framing this conversation about gossip because most people do it. Why are we doing it? What is the motivation behind it? 

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According to research and social psychology, there are about six distinct motives that underlie gossip behavior. I want to walk through these with you. As you listen to them, I want you to think about them, honestly, inside your own soul. Which ones resonate with you? Yeah, I think that's why I do it. Or I think that might be underneath it for me. 

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Notice that again, without shame, as part of naming and framing your own relationship with gossip. What is the underlying motivation for you? So number one, the first motivation that was found to be the most common is information exchange. 

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We gossip about other people to validate our own perceptions about other people, and to gather information. So at its most basic form, gossip can be a form of information gathering. For example, I am starting to make a new friend, I'm going to make up names here, so these are not real people, but let's say for example, I'm starting to make friends with a woman named Joan, who I don't know very well.

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I don't know if I can trust her. I'm not sure how intimate to get with her. so I go to another friend who knows her very well. Maybe we're part of the same community, maybe we're part of the same neighborhood, maybe we're part of the same church group. I say, hey, what do you think about Joan? Do you trust her? Do you think she's a good person? What's your impression of her? 

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Suddenly I'm in a conversation with a mutual friend about Joan, and Joan is not present. My primary motivation is to gather information. I'm trying to understand my own perceptions and I'm trying to get more information. So this is one motivation for why we might talk about somebody else when they're not present. 

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It might happen in a family. Maybe you and your siblings are talking about a parent or another sibling. What's going on with dad this week? He's been so grouchy. Has he been mad at you too? You're trying to gather information. Is it me? Is he on my case? Is he in a bad mood? Is something else going on? What's happening? So you're trying to gather information. That's the number one most common motivation that we gossip about other people when they're not there.

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Number two is social bonding. It's a way to strengthen bonds within a group. If I share information with you about someone else, I might feel like I'm providing added value. I know things that you don't know. I have information that you might want. It's a way to establish my importance in a group.

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So for example, I might say, did you hear the news about so and so? Can you believe that this person did this thing? I'm bonding with you by letting you know, I know information that you might want to know. If I give you this information, I will be valuable.

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A third motivation is emotional catharsis. We need a place to vent sometimes. For example, if you're struggling, maybe you care for somebody in your family or maybe you have a friend or a family member that you really love and that's really important to you, and sometimes there are really hard things about loving this person.

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Most of us have been in a situation like that. Every once in a while you need to vent. You need to tell someone you trust about what's hard about being in a relationship with this third person when they're not there. Now, there's a really important distinction between venting and dumping.

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Venting is when you're sharing frustrations with someone you trust with the goal of reducing your own stress. It's like one of those Instant Pot pressure cookers. Sometimes the pressure is building and building inside of you and you need to release the valve and let some of that steam off so that you can re-enter the relationship from a healthier place.

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This is a really fine line. Talk about nuanced, because venting, if not done appropriately and in a healthy context, can actually become toxic and it can keep us from working through conflicts that actually need us to work through them directly with the other person.

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On the other hand, there are situations where sometimes we need to vent. For example, when you're parenting, or in marriage, or sometimes taking care of an elderly parent, it can be helpful to release some of that excess frustration to someone else so that again, you can be empowered to go back into that relationship from a healthier place.

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So again, when you're venting, you're really intentional about what you share. You're not trying to throw that person under the bus. You're primarily venting about your own experience, your own emotions about that person, and you're very mindful that's what you're doing.

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It's really wise to ask for permission. Hey, I am dealing with some frustration. This is really hard. Can I share with you some of what I'm dealing with in the context of this other relationship? You're asking for permission from the person. You've got an express purpose and there's a boundary.

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I'm going to do this for this amount of time, and then my goal is to be able to reenter that relationship and work through it directly. So this isn't going to be chronic. This isn't going to be habitual. I'm not going to constantly complain about this person without boundaries around that. That's venting. 

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Dumping is unloading emotional baggage on another person without any regard for the other person or for the person about whom you're dumping. You're maybe complaining incessantly without really ever doing the work to fix it or figure out how to navigate a better solution. 

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You're maybe oversharing about intimate personal information that doesn't need to be shared to effectively communicate about the frustration you're experiencing. You're probably not even aware of it when you're dumping. To be honest, it's become a habit or a chronic pattern of behavior where instead of dealing with a behavior directly in an effective way, you pull in an outside person. This is what often gets into triangulation. You triangulate a third person and complain to them constantly, while never really addressing it in your own relationship directly.

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So again, there's a big difference between venting and dumping, but when we're venting strategically, consciously, with boundaries around it, that can be a form of gossip that allows us some emotional relief.

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Number four, another motivation, and we're progressively moving toward the ones that are more damaging, this one is simply for entertainment and distraction. Gossip can sometimes serve as a pastime, a form of entertainment, where we discuss the lives of others as a form of amusement and a way to pass the time.

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I remember the Anne of Green Gables books. I loved those. There were some characters in the book that you got the sense that it was their hobby. That was their pastime. They sat on the front porch and gossiped about people who walked by.

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So this can be semi-benign, where we all know people who seem to know everything about everybody. That's what they do as a pastime. Maybe they're not even malicious. We see a lot of this in celebrity gossip. People want to know what's going on with what celebrity, who's dating who.

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So there's an entertainment value to it. It might be a hobby, and while this may not dramatically have a negative impact on the person about whom we're gossiping, at the same time, I would think about it like any passive pastime, such as television or scrolling social media or reading, gossip magazines–what function is that serving in your life?

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Is that time being taken away from other things? I put this category as a numbing category. When you think about numbing, we're trying to numb or distract ourselves and sometimes disappearing into the lives of others through gossip, celebrity gossip, or even gossiping about friends can be a distraction. It can take us out of our own problems. 

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The question I would have for you is, to what extent is that dominating, to quote Mary Oliver, your “one wild and precious life”? Do you really want to fritter a lot of time away down the gossip black hole? You might want to name for yourself, wow, I do spend a lot of time gossiping about friends. I wonder what that's about. 

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What am I distracting myself from? Is there another part of me that needs my attention? Maybe I'm more focused on other people's lives because I don't know how to engage with my own thoughts, goals, dreams, and hopes. Is that distracting me from real needs in my own life that need my attention? 

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Again, so as with any habit or recreational activity, it may not be super harmful in small doses, and it may not be harming other people, but is it really helping you or is it keeping you from other more important things that you could be doing with that time? 

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Then we move into number five, where it gets a little bit more overtly insidious, and this is the dynamic of influence and power. Engaging in gossip can be a way to manipulate. Maybe if you have information about someone else, you share that information and contaminate their own standing within a group.

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You might use that information to gain power for yourself. That gets pretty toxic where someone's reputation can be ruined. We can harm somebody else's life by sharing information about their lives that is not our information to share. Another form of that is sharing information about someone else in order to make ourselves feel better. 

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Maybe we share something bad that someone else did because it makes us feel better about the bad things we've done. At least it wasn't as bad as that person. This gets a little bit into social comparison. It can provide a means for us to puff ourselves up in comparison to someone else. At least I'm not like that person, at least I'm not as bad as they are. 

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Did you hear how they yelled at their kids? Did you hear about how terrible their marriage is? Did you hear about how they got fired from that job? With the subtle implication and the internal motivation that at least I'm doing better than that person is. Gossip functions as a way to puff myself up and make myself feel better at the expense of someone else. 

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Lastly, number six, it can really get negative and toxic if we are specifically using gossip to harm another person. At this point, yes, it's to puff myself up, but really I want to harm that other person. I want to take that other person down. My motivation is really to harm that other person. 

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Now, research shows this is the least common type of motivation. Most often when we're gossiping, it's not to try to directly harm somebody, but still it's a spectrum. We don't want to go anywhere near this side of the spectrum. This is what slander is, when you start to twist the truth about someone, maybe take a story that has a grain of truth and magnify it or distort it and spread it around about someone behind their back as a way to malign their reputation.

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Sometimes the word we use for this is backbiting or stabbing somebody in the back. We go behind their backs and say something mean about them with this specific purpose of undermining them, trying to get their job, trying to get their friends, maybe trying to erode attention that this other person is getting that we're jealous of.

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This is where we might start to spread rumors about somebody or really malign somebody's character in a really malicious way. Again, this is an extreme form of gossip, but it does happen. If you've had this happen to you, it is incredibly painful. It's incredibly damaging. It's incredibly toxic, and it's really destructive and something we don't want to be anywhere near in our lives. Nor do we want to be engaging with folks who are using the strategy to harm somebody else.

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So again, these are six motivations for gossip. So it's really important to search your own soul. Ask yourself, why do I do this? What do I get from it? What purpose is it serving? Where is there some constructive and beneficial value? Where is this getting toxic? 

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Not only maybe for the other person, but also for me, because if it's not good for someone else, it's also not good for my own soul. So really to do that personal soul searching, number one, but then number two, to think about the effect of that on the other person. There's a reason why we want to be really careful about talking about someone when they're not present. 

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Imagine a world with me, for a moment, where your friend group, your church group, your neighborhood, your community, where everybody really had everybody else's best interests at heart, genuinely. The bottom line is, I know that if people are talking about me, it is out of love. It is out of a place of love. They love me. They're for me and any conversation that has had when I'm not there is in the service of that love.

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To close today, I want to talk about how to name, frame, and brave gossip in your own life. So the very first step is always to name it without shame. I noticed that I'm so tempted to gossip about that other person. Or I notice that in my friend group or in my small group or even in my family, we tend to talk a lot about other people.

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I've noticed it. It makes me a little uncomfortable. I'm not sure what to do about it. I try to pretend like it's okay, but really it's bothering me. All right. So the very first step is to name it without shame. Notice: what do I feel like when it's happening around me? What do I feel like when I'm doing it? 

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Pay attention to those cues. What are the situations that trigger it? When am I most inclined to indulge in it? Is it after being on social media? Is it within a certain friend group? Again, naming without shame. We're not jumping to try to fix something. We're trying to notice and name without shame. 

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Number two, frame it. Think about those different motivations that we talked about and reflect on it in yourself honestly, in partnership with God's spirit. You might ask yourself, do I do it because I'm trying to get information? I'm trying to assess somebody's character. I'm trying to understand how to interpret this other person's behavior. That's valuable to me. I want to be able to exchange information. I want to do that in a healthy way, or do I do it for social bonding?

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Do I do it because it makes me feel closer to certain people? it's not all bad, but I want to watch it to make sure that it doesn't get unhealthy, or am I doing it as a way of venting? I have a couple of really hard relationships that are hard for me to navigate. Yes, I noticed that I tend to vent about these relationships, and if that's the case, how often am I doing it? 

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Am I aware that I'm doing it? Is it a habit that isn't really yielding fruit or am I trying to rely on other people constructively to help me carry a heavy burden? If I'm doing that, is the other person okay with that? Maybe I need to check in with that other person?

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Moving into those latter three, am I doing it as a form of entertainment and distraction? It's easier, frankly, to have conversations about other people than it is to get real about my own life, or to ask real questions about my friends or my family members. If that's the case, then maybe there's going to be a different braving step to take to pivot away from gossip as a distraction or even as a form of idle entertainment and move toward other shared activities that actually help me develop the intimacy and the sense of connection that I crave. 

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Number five, am I doing it to gain power or control or to manipulate other people? Or am I in groups where I notice that my friends or the other people around me trade in gossip to exert their power, to try to show their superiority, to try to maybe malign people behind their backs?

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I noticed that I don't like how those friends or how those work colleagues talk about other people behind their back, but I don't know what to do about it.  I haven't known how to get myself out of those situations. 

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Again, name and frame without shame. You're getting honest with yourself about how gossip shows up in your life. Then lastly, am I around people who are maligning other people in an effort to harm them? I don't like it and it makes me uncomfortable, but I don't know what to do about it. 

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Or am I ever tempted to do that? Someone's really hurt me and I don't like this person and I'm going to start spreading stories about them. If that's your motivation and you can name that honestly, good for you. That's the first step toward change. 

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I'm going to be honest with you. When I name and frame gossip in my own life, it almost always falls into those first three categories. I'm trying to bond with someone, I need to vent, or I'm genuinely trying to get information so that I can be more discerning. It's been so freeing to me to recognize if I can put it in one of those three buckets, I can figure out how to have conversations with the third party in a constructive way, and then I've worked through some of that dissonance in my own life.

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Here are some braving steps you can take based on how you framed the role of gossip in your life and in your friendship groups.

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Number one, according to the BRAVE acronym that I set out in chapter four of I Shouldn't Feel This Way, boundaries. What are your boundaries around gossip? Here are some examples of realistic boundaries you might consider setting.

Think about the boundaries within your family. What norms have you cultivated in your immediate nuclear family? For example, maybe in your family there is a norm and you even state it transparently in a family meeting. Listen, Sometimes your dad and I talk about you kids when you're not around because we're trying to understand you better. When we talk about you and what's going on in your life and with school and we don't keep secrets from each other, it helps us be better parents for you. It's for your good and for the good of the family. Likewise, sometimes you and your siblings might talk about us. We might do things that annoy you and when you're together, you might talk about us.

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What we would ask for you to do as siblings to support each other is, if you're sharing things with each other, to encourage each other, to come to us directly, to help us have more transparent conversation because we have blind spots. Sometimes we don't get it right. Sometimes when you go to your siblings and you guys talk about what happened, they might be able to help you come to us more transparently so that we can approach something we're not doing right. You begin to have conversations about what it looks like to rely on other people to help improve the relational conflict that we're actually having with another family member. 

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You might have norms within a friend group. We've got an upcoming interview coming up where a group of women who are in a small group talk about the norms they set with each other about talking about other members of the small group behind their backs. It has to do with consent and norms, and it's for the constructive benefit of the other group members. 

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So for example, if we're talking about another friend, because we're trying to understand that friend, we're trying to figure out how to help that friend, or I've got a blind spot about that friend. The goal of going to that third party who's not in the immediate situation is, I need to understand this better. So would you help me so that I can grow wiser? What do you think is going on? 

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It's from a place of love. We're trying to arrive together deeper layers of truth. If that friend were to catch you in the act of having that conversation, would she be surprised? Would she be hurt? Or would she say, I get it. I know that you're trying to love me better.

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You also want to set boundaries with your own self. Sometimes our motivations slip and we're like, I really want to pray for that person, but really, I want to tell you everything that happened. We know our motivations. We have to check that. If you need to vent, if you need to gather information about somebody you're trying to understand, is this someone I can trust? Do you see this the way I'm seeing it?

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Be clear to name that when you go to the third party. Listen, I'd like to have a conversation with you about this. Number one, do I have your consent? Are you on board with having this conversation with me? Because I don't want to pull you into it if you don't want to be a part of it. 

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Number two, state your goal. I'm looking for wisdom. I'm looking for action steps I can take and I need some help either through venting to you some of the emotions that I'm feeling so that I can get greater clarity, or through getting some information or some perspective from you to help me approach the situation better.

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You're always bringing the accountability back to yourself. Would you be willing to help me? I will be the one who will then take action based on this conversation. This conversation will be over after that. Meaning there's a beginning and an ending to it. This is not idle gossip or idle chatter that we'll keep coming back to. So you put boundaries around that conversation.

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The other thing you can do when it comes to braving steps around reducing gossip is to expand your range and learn about how to have direct conversations with people. Sometimes I think we don't know how to go to somebody and say, listen, I'm struggling in this relationship right now. So the easier thing to do is to talk about it behind their back with someone else. You might want to work on: how do I communicate more directly with people? 

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You might work on a norm of transparent communication, especially in families, especially in friend groups. Some of us who are more inclined to be people pleasers, we tend to tailor how we show up based on who's in the room. But the more you work on being your true self, the more you work on being authentic, the more you work on being transparent and you expand that range of authenticity, the more you can show up the same, no matter who's in the room.

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Number three, you might need to brave assertiveness skills to speak up when folks are gossiping in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable. Now, listen, sometimes folks are toxic. As we know from past podcast episodes, if someone is toxic, maybe the bravest, most assertive thing you can do is simply excuse yourself and get up and leave. Excuse yourself from the conversation.

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Please excuse me. That's a full sentence. Please excuse me. I have to go now. You don't have to tell them why, especially if you sense that there's a toxic situation that could have some backlash for you. You can simply excuse yourself. That's quite assertive. Sometimes, you might need to speak up. 

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Here's some examples of things you could say to a friend or a family member. They're really practical. You might say, listen, I want to be here for you, but I'm not comfortable hearing all of the details about that other person. Could you share with me broadly what you're struggling with so I understand enough to help you, but I don't feel like I'm getting information from you that's not mine to have? 

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Another norm you can set either for yourself or with someone else is say, Can you share with me the situation you're struggling with, without telling me who the person is? That's a great thing to challenge yourself on. I want to share with you something that happened to me without identifying the specific person involved, or I want to share with you some emotions I'm struggling with in a relationship without identifying the specific person involved, because then I'm getting the help I need without gossiping about someone else. 

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So those are examples of assertiveness skills that you might need to learn. If you're in friend groups where there's a lot of gossiping, again, sometimes it's excusing yourself, letting your behavior do the work for you. Sometimes it's speaking up and saying, hey, could we work on some different norms here? 

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If you're someone who resorts to gossip or resorts to reading about or talking about other people as a pastime, or it's become a part of the way that you bond with your friend group or within your family, what are some other things you could do?

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What are some other hobbies you could pick up? Are there games you could play? Could you go on a hike? Are there fun activities that would bring you joy and meaning and purpose together, not talking about other people? Sometimes I think it's a habit we get into and we need to gently remind ourselves, Oh, let's brave something more life-giving that we can do together.

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Finally, sometimes you have to change your environment. You might have to shift away from people who cannot stop bringing up other people when those people aren't around for no good reason. You might have to shift away from people who try to pull information out of you. You might have to shift away from family gatherings. 

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Maybe you go for an abbreviated amount of time. Maybe you excuse yourself early because it's so focused on criticizing or demeaning or talking about other people. Maybe it's a church group or a small group. Now, listen, here's the thing about shifting away from a certain environment.

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Is it possible that they'll potentially talk behind your back once you take that brave step to leave? Absolutely. They probably already are. People who are in the habit of constantly talking about other people aren't going to make an exception for you.

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But again, you're moving forward on your path toward wholeness. You're moving forward to different kinds of people where you're going to have shared activities, where you're going to have shared vitality, where you're going to only talk about other people insofar as it's ethical, edifying, and helping you be a better, healthier, more whole person. So who cares if there's some idle chatter behind your back? You've left that behind. You're on your path to a better, braver future.

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Do you ever feel distant from God? Do you struggle with conflicting emotions or unanswered questions that make it hard to feel God's presence in your life?

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Today's episode brings the 🔥🔥🔥. I'm passionate about naming the false guilt and counterfeit messages that keep us from a vibrant relationship with God.

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So often we try to shove complicated feelings aside or manipulate ourselves into feeling what we think we “should” feel in our faith. It doesn't work. The good news is that as with any relationship, when you name and frame what you're feeling honestly, you invest in a deeper, more authentic relationship with God. Here’s what we cover…

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Here’s what we cover:

1. The problem with spiritual bypassing

2. 6 counterfeit messages we internalize about God

3. 5 framing questions to help you transform those messages

4. Specific examples of braving steps you can take in your spiritual life.

5. My personal experience with spiritual dissonance

Today's episode is an excerpt from Chapter 11 of I Shouldn't Feel This Way, available everywhere books are sold.

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Resources:

• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍Matthew 26:36-46
• Research on religion as a buffer for stressful experiences
• James 1:2
• ‍Matthew 5
• ‍Romans 5:3-5
• ‍The Best of You by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍Philippians 2:12
• ‍The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson

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‍Related Episode:

• ‍Bonus Episode: Aundi Kolber & Dr. Alison on Writing & Launching Books

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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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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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Hey everyone. And welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. What a week this has been. I Shouldn’t Feel This Way is out in the world. It's in your hands. I'm seeing so many of you post about it and review it on Amazon and write to me about it and DM me about it. And I'm so thrilled that you've got in your hands the very best I have to give, this framework, this naming. framing and braving framework that I believe will help you tackle the challenges that you face.

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I'm so thrilled it's finally out. ​Talk about emotions. I've had so many emotions all week. It's a lot of work to write a book, but it's even harder in many ways to launch a book into the world, especially in this age where everything is done full-throttle, fast speed, you know, “more, more, more, more” type of energy.

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You can listen to the bonus episode I dropped on Tuesday with my friend, Aundi Kolber. We talk a little bit about the process of writing and the process of publishing in this day and age. I really enjoyed that conversation with her. It's just two friends really talking about writing, and it was a really fun way for me to celebrate launch day on Tuesday.

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This week also marks the second anniversary of The Best of You Podcast. So there's been a lot of emotions this week, a lot of feelings around this work that I've been doing these last several years of writing books and creating content and sharing resources with so many of you. I am so grateful. So grateful for you. 

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I am so grateful that you want to engage in this work of healing. It makes me feel less alone in the world to know that so many of you are interested not only in the work of healing mentally and emotionally, but also in the work of bringing your faith into that. Not only of inviting God into the work of healing, but also healing at times our own relationship with God.

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And so in today's episode, I wanted to specifically apply the framework that I lay out in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. It's a three step framework that applies to any challenge that you face, anything that kicks up a whole lot of emotions in you.

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This “Name, Frame, Brave” framework can help you find your way through that. And I apply that framework to a lot of different topics in the book. I apply it to the thinking traps that keep us stuck. We need to name, frame, and brave the negative thinking and the thinking traps in our own minds.

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I apply it to the numbing behaviors that so many of us struggle with. We have to name, frame, and brave those numbing behaviors in order to come out the other side in a healthier place. I apply it to feelings of comparison, to feelings of “less than”. Those are feelings that we also need to name, frame, and brave.

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I apply the framework to toxicity in relationships. How do we name toxicity, frame it, and then brave a way out of toxic dynamics into a healthier place in our relationships. I apply it to communication and conflict in our healthy relationships.

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We have to name hard emotions, even in our healthiest relationships, so that we can frame them and then brave a better path. And then in the very last chapter of the book, I apply the framework to the feelings that we have about God. It's one of the chapters that is closest to my heart.

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And so in today's episode, I wanted to share an excerpt from this chapter with you. It's one of the things you guys ask me about the most. What do I do with the painful emotions I feel about God? Whether I feel distant from God, or maybe I feel disappointed with God, or maybe I feel mad at God, or maybe I'm even questioning if he's even there, or if he is there, if he even cares.

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Our relationship with God is like any relationship that we have. We love God with all our being. And also sometimes we feel so frustrated that God isn't showing up in the ways we wish he would. Sometimes we feel disappointed in our lives and gosh, wouldn't it have been nice if God had just made that a little bit easier. 

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Sometimes we feel distant from God. We want to have faith in God and yet sometimes our faith wavers. What is this really all about? These are such normal emotions that we all experience, and it doesn't help to guilt trip ourselves for having these emotions. It doesn't help to gaslight ourselves about these emotions. It doesn't help to try to numb and avoid these emotions.

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What does help, is to name these emotions with God. And so today I'm going to share with you some of this chapter and some bonus content that didn't make it into the chapter, so that together, we can name, frame, and brave a more wholehearted relationship with God.

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The first problem I want to name when it comes to our conflicting feelings about God is a problem called spiritual bypassing. I write about this a lot on social media. Whenever I do, it gets a lot of traction. I think a lot of us have had this done to us and a lot of us do this to ourselves. Here's what I write in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way:

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If you grew up in a faith community, you may have been taught to spiritually bypass the complex feelings you experience. Spiritual bypassing is essentially a thinking trap. It ignores the richness and complexity of your God given design. Maybe you feel confused, scared, or uncertain. You don't know what to think or do. 

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Instead of carefully working through the different layers of a complicated problem, you try to force fit a spiritual pseudo-solution. For example, you might try to tell yourself things like the following: I should just pray more. Just forgive and forget. That's the best way to approach this situation. Just let go and let God. 

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Sometimes you spiritually bypass yourself. Oftentimes other people encourage you to spiritually bypass. They assume that all your problems can be solved with a spiritual solution. A friend might encourage you to jump to forgiveness when what's really needed is to grieve a betrayal and establish healthy boundaries. Or a faith community might encourage you to spiritualize a problem that is not primarily spiritual. 

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For example, a spiritual leader might encourage you to pray harder for God to take away your depression or medical condition, instead of helping you find a professional who is trained to help you. Or they might encourage you to love the person harming you instead of helping you to protect yourself.

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Spiritual bypassing keeps you from adequately addressing the problem you are facing. It also creates dissonance inside, which is internal discomfort. There's a whole chapter on dissonance, in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. You want to trust in God, but the problem is only getting worse.

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So you start to blame yourself. If only my faith were stronger. As a result of that inner tension, you resort to any of the following unhealthy coping strategies: 

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Self gaslighting. You tell yourself you don't feel what you really feel. 

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Numbing. You suppress your emotions instead of working to cope with them.

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Magical thinking. You disregard reality and deny yourself the opportunity to discover practical solutions. You miss out on opportunities to develop skills, gain knowledge, or receive care and comfort from others. 

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Here's what is true. God created you with an ensemble of interconnected parts, including thoughts, emotions, and a nervous system, each one designed to work harmoniously like an orchestra. Your job, in partnership with God's Spirit, is to be the conductor of that orchestra, working patiently with all the pieces, including your thoughts and even your painful emotions and the cues your nervous system is sending you and bring that noise out of dissonance and into a cohesive melody.

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It starts with naming the different truth pieces of what you feel. The truth is, you don't have to bypass your mixed up feelings. Instead, you can name them, frame them, and then brave a deeper understanding of yourself and your relationship with God. God doesn't ask you to bypass the conflicting emotions that you face. Not even the conflicting emotions you feel about him.

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So often, those feelings are an opportunity to brave even deeper growth and healing. It's normal to experience confusion, doubt, anger, fear, or disappointment when it comes to God. You could even argue that Jesus experienced complicated feelings about God as he anguished in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

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You can almost sense the desperation in his prayer. Really, God? Really, I have to go through this? A relationship with God is like any relationship. It involves complicated feelings. I want to pray, but I'm so angry. I want to believe God is good, but I see so much suffering. I want to trust God with this decision, but I'm not certain. You might also experience complicated feelings about yourself in relationship to God.

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I can't turn to God right now, I'm too far gone. I've done such terrible things. How could God love me? I should trust God, but frankly, I've done such terrible things. How could God love me? And this is my favorite: I should trust God, but frankly, I can't. I'd rather trust myself today. 

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Walking by faith is a delicate tightrope. It's the ultimate both-and. It involves trusting God and honoring the way you really feel. You can have faith and feel scared, confused, or uncertain. You can trust God and trust yourself, experience anger, disappointment, or doubt. You can follow Jesus and be uncertain about how to apply his teachings to the real problems in your life. 

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I would argue that true faith is the work of constantly reconciling what's impossibly hard with a hope in what's unfathomably good and beautiful. If you overweight either one, you miss out on the fullness of an active dynamic relationship with God.  If you are someone who chafes against naive spiritual platitudes, or who wrestles with complicated feelings about God or faith, you're in good company. This wrestling is the work of faith. 

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The good news is that as with any relationship, when you name your complicated feelings, you invest in a deeper, more authentic bond instead of bypassing them. We often try to shove these feelings aside and manipulate ourselves into feeling what we should feel, or we process these feelings with friends or loved ones without ever processing them with God.

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But what if spiritual maturity is bringing all of what you feel, including your anger, doubt, and confusion into your relationship with God? No matter where you are, whether you're journaling, waiting in the car pickup lane, or grocery shopping, simply start to name the different truth pieces you feel, and then address each one to God.

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It’s a practice I like to call comma God. “I'm worried” becomes “I'm worried, God. I don't understand what's happening”. “I need help” becomes, “I need help, God. I don't know what to do”. “I'm sad”, becomes, “I'm sad, God. I feel so alone”. “I don't want to pray”, becomes, “I don't want to pray, God. I'm kind of mad at you right now”. And just like that, you're engaged in a prayer.

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You become aware of yourself in the present moment and you become aware of God. Research shows that when you dwell on God and not only on yourself, you reduce stress and anxiety and increase your ability to tolerate painful experiences. To be clear, what you believe about this God with whom you're connecting matters.

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Is this a God who loves you? Is this a God who's for you? Is this a God who takes you by the hand and walks with you through the trials that you face? It's wise to reconsider the messages you've internalized about God. Imagine if a child were to come running to you, angry or scared. Would you rebuke her or offer her a platitude?

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Of course not. You would pull her close to you and give her the gift of your presence. “It's hard to feel angry. I'm here with you. I want to understand”. You'd give her compassion, tenderness, a sense that she's not alone. 

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Similarly, when we're mad, scared, uncertain, or heartbroken, we rarely need a reprimand or a pat answer from someone else or from God. We need presence. We need attunement. That doesn't mean we don't also want answers. We do, but just like a hurting child, we first always need connection. That's how God made us. 

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And if we know how to soothe a child who is hurting, how much more does the one who made us know how to attune to us in our sadness, hurt, or despair? Like a tender, loving parent, God meets us with compassionate kindness and presence in all of our complexity. God doesn't always fix things right away, but he does not ask us to bypass what we feel. He does not gaslight us. He does not ask us to pretend when we're hurting. Even when we're hurting about God, God gives us the gift of honoring the truth of what we feel.

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Sometimes I think about that perfect person, that perfect relationship, where we just need to vent all of the pain, all of the emotion, all that we're feeling, and we just need them to hold space for us. Even though some of the things we feel aren't fair, even though some of the things we feel aren't really their fault, even though we know they're doing their best, we just need to let it out.

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That's the kind of presence God gives us.

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The paradox is that when you name what's hard, what's true in this very moment, you open yourself up to God. You stop trying to analyze your motives or earn God's approval. You stop trying to fix yourself or figure out God. You move into the present moment. You attune to what you really feel and God's Spirit attunes right there with you.

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You're never closer to God than when you're naming what's hard. You're telling the truth and the truth is God's sweet spot. 

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When you name what's hard, you tend to bump into old messages. You've outgrown messages that keep you from growing deeper in genuine faith. You might be surprised at some of the messages you've picked up that interfere with an honest, authentic relationship with God. 

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Counterfeits–simplistic versions of otherwise beautifully rich spiritual concepts–such as what it means to love others, show faithfulness, experience joy, confess sin, or forgive are rampant. These false versions of these messages linger in your mind, often outside your conscious awareness, creating dissonance inside. 

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Naming those messages helps you tame them. You can then determine where you picked them up and why you believe them so that you can develop a truer viewpoint instead. Here are some of the most common counterfeit messages I observe in my work with clients and some ways to reframe them. 

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Number one, I should feel happy in my suffering. Passages like James 1:2 can be taken out of context and misinterpreted as suggesting that you should always feel happy. This counterfeit message encourages a false version of joy. The truth is that joy is a complicated emotion, intimately linked with experiences of sadness, grief and pain. 

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When I posted a video on Instagram on Tuesday about the book launch day, there was a lot of joy in that message, but that joy included some of the other emotions like sadness, like fear. My ability to experience joy, the fruit of joy, included my ability to honor some of those other feelings simultaneously.

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Number two, if I had more faith, I wouldn't be struggling. Some religious circles equate faith in God with health, financial success, or happiness. This counterfeit message pressures you to project an image of being “blessed” or successful as evidence of your faith. 

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This is me interjecting: I really dislike those memes when I see them on social media that somehow a vision of outward success, material success, a perfect family, a perfect life, is an indicator of being blessed. That flies in the face of Matthew 5 and what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. The truth is that a strong faith is no guarantee against suffering. Instead, God promises that as you persevere through suffering, you'll develop character and hope. That's Romans 5:3-5.

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Number three, I should just die to myself–which is the impetus for my second book, The Best of You. Jesus teaching about self-denial can be misconstrued to suggest that you should never consider your own needs. 

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This is a misapplication contrary to how Jesus lived his own life. This counterfeit message promotes a false version of sacrifice, encouraging you to disregard toxicity or boundary violations, instead of working in partnership with God's spirit to protect and care for yourself. The truth is that sacrifice is a delicate balance of selflessness and self-respect.

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Number four, I should always feel content. While contentment is a virtue, it's a cultivated skill, not a quick fix. This counterfeit message promotes a false version of peace encouraging you to bypass negative feelings. The truth is that acknowledging frustrations or areas of discontent in your life can help you grow and change aspects of your life, yielding more contentment.

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Number five, I should forgive and forget. Forgiveness is a central tenet of Jesus’ teaching, and it's an incredibly nuanced concept. The counterfeit version of forgiveness encourages you to minimize or overlook legitimate wrongs. That's not what Jesus taught. The truth is that acknowledging hurt and injustice is critical to ensuring that resentment and bitterness don't fester in your soul.

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And that's the primary goal of forgiveness–to release the resentment and bitterness. It's a process, a practice that does not happen in an instant. It takes time and effort to engage in the work of forgiveness.

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And number six, I'm a terrible sinner. This term, sin, reflects a complicated theological belief about the imperfect nature of humans and the need for redemption through Christ. The counterfeit version of confessing sin induces shame, false guilt, or control.

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You try to shame yourself, beat yourself up, or others try to control you by exploiting the imperfect nature of your humanity. That's not what God intends. On the other hand, when you name the imperfections you see in yourself in a loving environment without shame, you find freedom, acceptance, and belonging, the opposite of shame.

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You don't have to dupe yourself into these counterfeit versions of faith, hope, love, forgiveness, peace, or joy. Our God is so much deeper and richer and more intricate than the simplistic formulas we're so often given. Be honest about what you feel and create a place in between to reflect on the different truth pieces in partnership with God's spirit.

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Here are some framing questions you can ask yourself if you're struggling with feeling conflicted about God. Facts. What counterfeit messages have I believed? Roots. Where did I pick up those messages? When did I start to believe them? Audit. Are these messages true? Do they yield spiritual fruit? Are they helping me discover more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self control toward the parts of myself that are struggling, not only toward other people? 

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Mental messages. What messages do I tell myself about how God views me? What messages do I tell myself about how I'm feeling toward God? And finally, expansion. What do different passages from the Bible say about these messages I'm telling myself? What would someone who loves me and is for me say about these messages I'm telling myself? 

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Those framing questions are based on the FRAME Acronym. You'll find that full acronym in chapter three of I Shouldn't Feel This Way. I want to close today by talking through some holistic spiritual practices. This falls under the category of the step of braving. Sometimes we have to brave a different path. Or maybe brave a different way of doing things even while we stay on the same path we're on.

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The antidote to spiritual bypassing is to brave a holistic relationship with God. One that includes all of your being, including the complexity of your thoughts, your nervous system, and your emotions. You're fighting for a more vital relationship with God. And in doing so, you're working out your salvation, which can also be translated as healing. This is from Philippians 2:12. You're working out your healing all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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One practice I've enjoyed, I call whole body prayer. Many of us have this idea that praying means sitting quietly with your heads bowed and eyes closed. We measure the success of our prayers by the intensity of emotion or the minutes on the clock. But what if you incorporated your whole being into your prayer, including your thoughts, feelings, and even your body?

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For example, in chapter five, you learned how to mind your mind throughout your day to pay attention to your thoughts. As you mind your mind while cooking or gardening or walking or driving to work, consider inviting God into the process of attuning to your thoughts. I'm worried about my child, my health, and my bills. Help me to think clearly about what's really going on, God. Be with me as I get to the root of what's happening.

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Or I can't shake this idea that someone is mad at me. I hate the way that feels. Help me to consider the facts of the situation. God, help me discern if I did something wrong or if this is false guilt. Or I'm wrestling with anger. I'm feeling angry. I'm frustrated that this person is getting away with harmful behaviors. God, I'm not willing to be harmed anymore. Lead my thoughts as I consider how to best protect myself.

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In chapter six, you identified different activities to help you process negative emotions instead of numbing. You might incorporate conversations with God into the activities you identified. For example, when you become aware of painful emotions, consider walking outside, eyes wide open, and naming what you notice as an act of praise. 

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I see that mountain, God, it reminds me of your strength. That tree is beautiful, God, it reminds me that all seasons pass. I'm grateful for the sun that always rises, God, it reminds me of your constancy. When you can't find words to pray or to connect you to God, give God thanks for the tangible reminders that you see in nature all around you.

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Finally, in chapter seven, you learned how to ground yourself when your nervous system is activated, when you're experiencing an intense emotional reaction in your body. Remember that when a child is scared or upset, you'd first gently soothe her by pulling her close and taking deep breaths. As she soothes, she's more able to communicate with you about what happened. 

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Similarly, when you're activated, it can be hard to pray in the way most of us have been taught. It's helpful to calm your nervous system as you articulate what you feel or what you need. Consider the difference between the following prayers. 

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God, I'm desperate. Please make this go away. I can't take this anymore. As you pray, your heart is racing. Your body is tense. You're begging God to intervene in your situation. Now listen, there's nothing wrong with this type of prayer, but imagine a different way of turning to God in prayer. 

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God, I'm struggling. Take a deep breath. I know you're with me. Another deep breath. I'm scared. Take another deep breath. I need you. 

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God designed your body to release endorphins and good chemicals. When you breathe, sing, experience nature or move, incorporating any of these activities as you name what's hard with God will help you soothe your nervous system in partnership with the way God designed you.

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And finally, you might need to brave new forms of healing communities. The first time I experienced the pain and dissonance that comes as a result of church-sanctioned spiritual bypassing was while I was working at a Christian summer camp as a college student. During an early Bible study, a leader of the camp taught us that if we didn't hear the voice of Jesus whispering in our ear telling us what to do each day, there was something wrong with our faith.

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I didn't hear the voice of Jesus that summer, At least not in the way that the Bible teacher thought that I should, as proof of my faith. Instead, I watched as my peers sought to showcase the superiority of their spirituality through quoting Bible passages and public displays of morality. All the while, not one word was said about the cliques, overt racism, and cruel jokes about the very people we were there to serve that permeated staff culture.

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That's not the Jesus that I serve. The dissonance inside me that summer was almost intolerable. I felt heartsick and confused. Not about Jesus–I knew that the hypocrisy I witnessed was not the fruit of listening to his voice. Still, I was confused about how people who claim to follow Jesus could be so horrible to other people. 

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Somehow, even at that young age, I knew it was okay to feel what I felt. I named it and framed it constantly with God. How could people who claim to love you, God, and hear your voice, behave in these ways to other people? I didn't force myself to pretend it was okay. Over time, this relentless naming and framing paid off. I began to see how I could brave a healing path. I couldn't change that experience, but I could do my part to help others who are hurt by toxic spiritual cultures.

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Over time, my family and I also braved a whole different kind of church community, one where the focus was on caring for those who were hurting the most, those suffering tremendous pain, addictions, homelessness, and debilitating mental illnesses. In that community, we felt connected and accepted in ways we'd never felt before.

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This is me interjecting here, but the words that we use constantly to describe that community was holy ground. It's where we sensed God's holy presence the most. When people were being the most honest and real about their brokenness.

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One of the practices we came to cherish was a time each Sunday during the service to give testimony. I was always amazed by the honest naming that ensued. 

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I'm Bob, and I didn't use last night, even though I really wanted to. 

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We love you, Bob. 

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I'm Peggy. I found a wallet, and I really wanted to steal the money in it, but I didn't.

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We love you, Peggy.

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I'm Stan. I'm depressed, but I got out of bed this morning, praise be to God. 

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We love you, Stan. 

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I began to brave a new vision of what it means to be in community. What if we learned to name together, honestly? What if we lovingly attuned to each other's struggles instead of trying to fix them? What if we could chase away old messages of shame and counterfeit virtues? 

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I'm Matt and my heart is broken today. 

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We love you, Matt. We're glad you're here. 

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I'm Anne and I cannot stop people-pleasing. 

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Welcome, Anne. We receive you. 

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I'm Joni and I'm so mad at my friend. 

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It's good to see you, Joni.

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I'm Chad and I relapsed last night. 

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Welcome, Chad. Thanks for coming. 

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I'm Sue and I yelled at my kids this morning. 

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We did too. We're so glad you're here with us today. 

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As we name together, without shame, we become a truer, more beautiful oasis and embodied experience of Christ for each other. Psychiatrist and fellow therapist, Curt Thompson, wrote in his beautiful book, The Soul of Desire, about small groups of people he leads called confessional communities.

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In these communities, individuals gather to name their longings, their heartbreaks, and their traumas. What Curt said is that all are “acts of prayer, creating spaces for connection and transformation…it is in communities like these that we encounter the possibility of being deeply known and where we practice for heaven. It is in a body of like minded people who are working hard to tell their stories as truly as they can, that Jesus shows up right in the middle of their narratives and utters in the voices of others to hear in the room, peace be with you”. 

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And I would add, “you're not alone”. I experienced what Curt described, not only within my church community, but also with my sister and two childhood friends. We gather regularly with the purpose to name, frame, and brave what's hard in our lives as one person shares the truth pieces of a fragmented story.

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The others listen attentively not to solve the problem, but to bear witness to all the pieces. As a result of being attuned to in this way, we each catch a glimpse of a truer, more beautiful picture of our lives. As a result of being seen and known by a loving community, we grow stronger and steadier, sure of ourselves, our convictions, and our purpose. We develop a deeper sense of integrity within ourselves, with others, and with the one who made us.

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If you've been taught that working out your faith should be simple, unthinking, or one size fits all, I would argue that you've been taught wrong. The Bible is not a simple book. Following Jesus is not always straightforward. Learning how to forgive, walk by faith, love others, and live joyfully takes skill. It takes perseverance. 

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It requires you to attend to various truth pieces in partnership with God's Spirit. Name, frame, and brave your way through complexity in your emotions. Shallow, simplistic formulas won't cut it. Not in this world. 

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The good news is that like your maker, you are beautifully vast and rich and wonderfully deep and intricate. You were made with the capacity to attune to your inner being, to shape the content and direction of your own thoughts and emotions, and even the responses of your nervous system. Learning to access and harness the power of your God given design to shape your life is one of the most joyful and lasting sources of satisfaction.

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As a tree grows tall and strong over time, its root system spreads out, providing more stability to the tree and tapping into a broader range of nutrients. The complexity of the root system contributes to the overall strength and resilience of the tree.

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The same is true with your spiritual growth. When you do the work to navigate uncertainty, process disappointments, and grieve painful experiences, you become stronger, wiser, and more resilient in your life. Even as you expand to tap into a broader range of spiritual practices, you don't have to choose between honoring yourself and your experience and honoring the God who made you. 

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That choice is a false dichotomy. Instead, you can connect and attune to yourself and with God. You can name what's hard and claim your hope. You can honor all the things that you feel and honor the faith you have in God.

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Here's the paradox of hope: to experience hope, you have to face what's hard. You have to practice the awkward motions of naming what's wrong, examining the truth pieces and reflecting on what's not working. Sometimes you tumble to the ground. You ask for help. You get back up. 

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Hope emerges as you find your way through the suffering. It's a paradox. There's no comfort if you don't face the truth of exactly where you are. Counterfeit hope bypasses reality. It ignores landmines and obstacles. It pretends everything is just fine. Even though you're floundering, it's like offering someone a shiny red plastic apple when they're starved for real nourishment. 

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True hope, on the other hand, enters into your reality. It helps you name what's hard. It helps you unearth deeper understanding. And as a result, it catalyzes you into brave action. Shame is eradicated. You experience the thrill of working your way through a tangled-up mess and discovering a beautiful clearing on the other side. 

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Best of all, you start to find hope within the journey. You start to activate glimmers of hope every step along the way. You activate hope when you catch yourself in a thinking trap and redirect your thoughts with patient tender care. You activate hope when you gently nourish yourself through pain instead of numbing. You activate hope when you patiently soothe your nervous system. You activate hope when you name toxicity for what it is and set a boundary with it.

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You no longer fear suffering or hardship because you've learned how to brave it to create harmony out of dissonance, calm out of chaos, peace out of pieces. The entire process, naming, framing, and braving, becomes a virtuous cycle of hope. You're taking charge of this beautiful life you've been given.

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You're shattering the divide between where you are now and where you want to go. You're shattering the divide between what's hard and the goodness you long to see. You're shattering the divide between the pain of this earth and the glorious hope of heaven.

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Happy Book Launch Day!

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Today I Shouldn't Feel This Way is out in the world AND it's the two-year anniversary of The Best of You podcast. To celebrate, I asked my friend, fellow therapist, and author, Aundi Kolber to join me for a special bonus episode! Join us as we share insights into why we started writing, what we keep private vs. what we share publicly, and how to navigate the publishing industry.

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Additional Resources:

• Connect with Aundi Kolber at www.aundikolber.com or on Instagram or Twitter
• Purchase Strong Like Water or The Strong Like Water Guided Journey by Aundi Kolber
• Purchase Try Softer or The Try Softer Guided Journey Aundi Kolber
• Purchase I Shouldn't Feel This Way out today!
• Get free study aids for Boundaries For Your Soul and The Best of You on my website.

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‍Related Episodes:

• ‍Episode 45: Strong like Water—Finding the Freedom, Safety, & Compassion to Move through Hard Things & Experience True Flourishing with Aundi Kolber‍
• Episode 46: People Pleasing as Survival, How Jesus Regulated Emotions & the Problem With Toxic Positivity and Spiritual Bypassing with Aundi Kolber

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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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