Science-backed tools.
Spiritually-based wisdom.

I absolutely loved this conversation with Alli Worthington. We get so real about the toxic traps all around and how to stay sane as a parent. From "parenting book trauma" to bad advice about friendships, we've got you covered. You'll learn practical tips & fascinating research from Alli's new book, Remaining You While Raising Them. Alli's a business owner, podcast host, and the mom of 6 kids.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The #1 source of mom guilt

2. The most important question to ask yourself each day

3. How parenting failures actually help kids

4. The surprising research on which relationships are happiest

5. Which friends to keep, and which ones to release

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Resources

• ‍Remaining You While Raising Them by Alli Worthington (click here for Audible version)
• ‍AlliWorthington.com
• ‍Listen to The Alli Worthington Show‍

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Thanks to our sponsors:

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• Sleep deeply and wake gently with Hatch Restore - go to hatch.co/bestofyou to get $20 off and free shipping!
• 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 www.simplemodern.com/bestofyou and by sharing your email you'll get a unique discount code just for you or bundle and save for back to school. This should be your go to brand for your family.

Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the best of you podcast where we are rounding out and closing out this little series on back to school where we're talking all about parenting and kids and how to just be present and attuned to the different things that the young ones in our lives are struggling with and how to bring our best selves into those conversations and into those roles, whether it's as a mom, a big sister, a grandma, an aunt, a godparent, whatever the role is that you have in front of you, maybe you're just someone who is fairly young yourself and just feels like some of this relates to you.

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And how do you begin to learn? Whatever role in whatever capacity that you are, where you are trying to, and you'll whatever role you're in this whole series, if you've noticed a theme, the theme is the more we become whole ourselves, the more we become The people that God wants us to be healthy, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually.

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The more we're tending to our own heart, souls, mind, emotion, becoming clear, capable, confident, courageous in our own lives. The better we're going to be for the people who we love, especially our kids. And that's why I'm so excited to round this out with a conversation with a new friend of mine, Alli Worthington.

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And Alli has a new book out and the title just really speaks for itself. The title of this book is Remaining You While Raising Them.

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And I just, I love the idea behind everything Alli is doing, which is the more we are ourselves, the more we are caring for and attuning to and healing and becoming more and more clear about the people that God made us to be, the more we're going to be able to show up for our kids in an effective way.

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It's really hard to shepherd, to lead others. It's really hard to lead. Others through the challenges that they face if we haven't done our own work, right? If we haven't navigated, if we haven't blazed those trails first. And so in today's conversation, I'm so excited. I'm so thrilled to introduce you to today's conversation.

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Today's conversation is for every mom who's felt overwhelmed or frankly, a little bit overwrought by all of the information that's out there for parents. Alli just has a great way. You'll hear it in today's episode of just applying practical tips to everyday life. And she's come by her wisdom the hard way. She will tell a little bit about her story in the episode, but she really had to go back to work after a financial crisis in her own family while parenting five boys and a stepdaughter.

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So she has lived what she talks to us about every single day. Alli Worthington lives outside Nashville with her husband, Mark, their five sons, and their five sons, she with their, with her husband, Mark, and their five sons. She's a popular Christian woman speaker who travels the country sharing practical advice and encouragement.

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She hosts. It's a weekly podcast called the Alli Worthington show. And she's a sought after coach and consultant who has worked with individuals, small business owners and fortune 500 companies. She built her business in 2008 after her family went bankrupt with 42 in the bank and here she is. And she had to do all of that while taking care of these precious babies all around her. 

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I am so thrilled for this conversation today on how to remain yourself while raising them with Alli Worthington.

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*Music*

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Alison: Thank you so much, Alli, for being here today. I'm just super excited about this new book and I love the title: Remaining You While Raising Them. You have five boys and a stepdaughter. Is that right, Alli?

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Alli: Yep. A lot of children.

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Alison: Yes. So I would love to start there. Actually you tell a story in the book about early on in parenting when a teacher reprimanded you a little bit for not having looked in the proper folder for one of your And you had, you talk in the story about how you had gone back to work, you and your husband had lost a home, you'd had a financial crisis, you had, I don't know how many kids you had at this point of this story and you'd started working and I love the picture that you paint.

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You had literally set up a business kind of in the middle of your home and I'm just imagining all the chaos around it and you'd really struggled with beating yourself up. And I'd love to just start there for a moment. What were some myths that you still believed as a mom at that point in your early parenting ?

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Alli: Yeah. Such a great question. So all five boys were here on earth at this point. This was my middle son. He's in preschool and in preschool they give you a folder full of nonsense and it's, what time did they go to potty, and some scribble that they did and who knows what else, right?

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It's not nuclear codes that they're sending home every day as my husband reminded me. The teacher took it very seriously as you want a preschool teacher to do, but I'm coming in, I have all these children. I have a newborn on my arm. I have a business that I have that I'm working on my computer in my living room because I can't even get to my home office, because I'm always with the kids. And this sweet teacher says, I know you don't look in the yellow folder, but there's something really important for you to look at today.

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She didn't just say it to me. She said it with all the other moms around. So I just have this weight of mom guilt that my work that I'm doing, my job, the company I'm building, it is ruining my children. I am a terrible mom. My children are suffering. And what stopped me from quitting is we didn't have the financial privilege for me to quit. As you mentioned, I was a stay home mom, and was very happy in the stay home mom role in 2008.

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My husband lost his job. We ended up losing our home. We lost almost everything except what fit into two storage units. And I knew after that it was going to take my husband's job plus me starting my company to make sure that we were okay. But had I not had the financial pressure, I think I would have quit.

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And I think I wouldn't have followed my calling to build what I built through the years. Now I can look back now and go, he was fine. There weren't any nuclear codes in the folder. It was just to make sure he wore a certain color of socks the next day. But we as moms are so hard on ourselves. And we sometimes think that every little decision we make and every little thing we do is make or break for our children's lives.

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Alison: Yeah, I just love the benefit of hindsight, right? You can look back and go, it was a yellow folder. It was a pair of socks, but it doesn't feel that way in the moment. And I think the more you're juggling in a way, the more pressure you can put on yourself. You say in the book, you say, thank God I didn't have the financial privilege to quit.

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And I thought that was such a provocative statement that in the moment, and you might have had that been an option for you, but with hindsight, what is it about juggling both the work that you ended up doing in the parenting that you're grateful for looking back, even though perhaps at the moment you felt like the guilt of it's taking me away from my kids, or it's taking me away from the yellow folder.

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Alli: I can look back now that I have most of my children at adulthood or beyond. I have two that are still in high school, a freshman in high school and a junior. And I can look back on my work through the years. And no, for sure it didn't harm them. But I was convinced at the time I was harming them. My youngest used to come up to me in the living room when they were all playing and smack my MacBook closed and say, no more work, mommy. And I would go, oh, I'm damaging him forever. 

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He's just fine. So the stories that I told myself of, I'm hurting my children, my attention is divided, I'm going to have so much in therapy bills just because I was building this company when they were little. None of that happened.

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That it is for us to be great moms. We need to model emotional health. We need to take care of ourselves as we're taking care of them. Being a great mom doesn't mean I sat around on the floor and braided everyone's hair and taught them Latin and we knitted socks for the poor. Now, if some moms have the time to do that, that's great.

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But sometimes we think that we have to go over and above to be good moms. There are moms who grow their own organic wheat in the backyard and make fresh sandwiches every day. And if it makes them happy, that's great, but it's not what every mom has to do.

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Alison: That's right. And you're making such a good point here that if you're doing that because it lights up your own heart, that will spill over to the kids as well, right? Because the kids will pick up, are you doing this because this is just what brings you joy, therefore vicariously it brings all of us joy, whether it's whatever the work is, or are you doing this out of some guilt?

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You talk about as a little girl watching, and this really stood out to me because I related to it, watching the women in your family, the older women in your family, just killing themselves to put on these lavish holiday meals and being bitter and resentful.

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And you do a great job of implying they didn't feel as if they could give themselves permission not to do it, but there were a lot of ways in which they were doing that not because it lit up their own hearts. They were doing that because they felt like they had to. Tell me a little bit more about that.

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Alli: Yeah, I'll never forget. I was eight years old. The first time I noticed it and it was my great aunt, Shirley. She had everyone over for a Christmas celebration, and she's loving, and she's kind, and she's nice, and she's doing everything right, and she had cooked for days. And she told everyone she cooked for days, often.

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And I couldn't tell at eight because she was smiling and her words were coming out sweet, but I knew something was wrong. And I knew whatever was going on, I did not want to be a part of. So even though this Christmas celebration with amazing food and presents, even though it was a “happy time”, I wasn't happy being there because I could feel the tension.

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It wasn't until I got older and after she passed away, some family members said, oh, she hated cooking all that time. She hated hosting. But she did not feel like she could say anything because she felt like the way for her to be a quote unquote good mom, good family member, was to do all this.

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When she felt like she had permission, she could have raised her hand and said, hey, everybody bring a dish. Or I'll do it this year, you guys do it next year. But she felt like that was her role. And as much as she tried to be loving, the resentment and the bitterness came out. And so we can quote unquote, do all the right things. But if it doesn't light our soul on fire, everybody's going to know it.

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Alison: Yeah. They'll pick that up. When did you start throughout this journey of parenting, when did you start to arrive at some of these conclusions that you're walking us through in the book –taking good care of yourself, being your most healthy version of you and who God made you to be? When did you begin to really lean into that as a mom and how did you come to that?

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Alli: I think it was slow, a lot of it did have to do with watching the women in my family. I grew up with a family who is relatively poor. And I remember when I was getting ready to have my first child, making the decision that for as much as I could, I didn't want to be a mom that didn't take care of herself.

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I didn't want to be a mom who had holes in her shoes and her kids didn't. Not that I wanted to force everybody, but I saw how the women in my family had struggled financially, and I knew that I wanted to do everything I could to not just take care of my children, but to make sure that I, as a mom, was taken care of too.

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That I didn't have to be a martyr as a mother, and that's just a from a practical sense of growing up in poverty and that slowly just through reading a lot of books and a lot of therapy that I had, they ended up getting through the years turned into I not only need to make sure that I'm okay physically, I need to make sure that I'm okay emotionally because everybody has an Aunt Shirley in their family that feels like she can't speak up for her needs and she's bitter about it. 

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I didn't want to turn into Aunt Shirley in whatever way that happened because it happens to women really dangerously easily. And I wanted to protect myself from that.

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Alison: Yeah. That's interesting. So you had a template in your mind that you very consciously were trying to counter in your own life and which led you to just continually work against that guilt tripping voice in your head. You had it initially, the guilt tripping voice, but you were able to counter it along the way.

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Tell us a little bit about these myths. These guilting myths that so many moms, your friends, people in your life, people you work with, that you see time and again.

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Alli: Two of the biggest ones are that if we are good moms, our children should be well behaved. That one is huge. And the second one is that we should get it all right. We should essentially be super moms. And the super mom one is so interesting. I'm a huge fan of the Wonder Woman movies. Love them. Love the gold cuffs. Love her whole vibe. 

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But I was thinking about how if Wonder Woman were a mother, she would completely ruin her child's ability to deal with anybody in the real world because she'd be perfect. She wouldn't struggle. She wouldn't mess up. She wouldn't have to go to her kids and apologize for losing her temper. She wouldn't have to repair a relationship because she does everything right. So her kids go out in the world and they have no ability to deal with real people.

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And so that changed my perspective to a mom who does work to be healthy in the sense that yes, we're going to lose our temper and we're going to apologize. We're going to repair a relationship. We are going to verbalize when we have needs. We're going to be able to have boundaries and let our children watch us grow.

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We're setting our kids up to be able to be in real healthy relationships when they're older. And if we did everything perfect, we wouldn't. If we did everything perfect, they would go away to college and just be a mess because they couldn't deal with the fallibility of humans.

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Alison: I love that. I never thought about it that way, but I often say to people, in the therapy world, sometimes I feel like we put a number on parents because we talk a lot about the importance of parents, that we are the first secure attachment. We are the first place where our kids experience presence.

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In fact, a lot of research in the psychology of religion talks about how we are the first glimpse of how kids conceptualize God, right? Because we're that first safe figure. That can put a lot of pressure on parents, but I love what you're saying. Cause in a way, what you're saying is we're also their first glimpse of what a human is.

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And how to deal with a human. And so both things can be true. We're incredibly important in providing that first glimpse of safety, that first glimpse of love and presence and unconditional regard. And we're also that first opportunity to work out things that are hard, to see when someone messes up, what they do with it. I love that perspective.

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Alli: Yeah, and you can really think about it in terms of when a child is very small, that's when we're always there to comfort and we're building that secure attachment. But as a child gets bigger between years, teen years, especially even elementary years, your child needs to slowly see you as more and more of a human because you are setting that child up for successful relationships in the future. And if we have this mask of perfection, it's not going to help them deal with people in the real world.

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Alison: You're right that especially as they age and especially as they develop, we're coming alongside them, another set of eyeballs on the realities of life and a lot of modeling. And again, which gets to the topic of your book, which is the more we've done the work of becoming healthy, the more we've done the work of making peace with the things about ourselves that we don't like with other people, with challenges, with complexities, the more we're going to be able to lead them through their own challenges and frustrations. 

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Alli: Yeah. And it's been so interesting as people are reading the book, I've heard a couple of different things that have been very surprising. One is that I don't want to negate the importance of the word trauma, but I've nicknamed it parenting book trauma. So many women who've said, oh, I read this parenting book and I couldn't finish it. I wish I never read it. I felt ashamed because I couldn't live up to these standards. 

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So even talking about motherhood brings up a lot of really triggering feelings for women. And then another thing that I've heard often is, oh, I wish I would've had this book when my kids were young, but really this book is as much for women who have teens and tweens and adult children because for me, what my what my husband and I discovered having adult children is we can't really guilt them into coming to see us. 

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We have to make sure we're the best versions of us possible to woo them to us, so it’s interesting, just the conversations of all of the terrible experiences that women have had reading parenting books in the past, but also the fact that for some women, we really put ourselves on the shelf and don't work on ourselves in terms of our motherhood after the first year of having our babies.

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Alison: Paradoxically, it's not only harmful for us, it does a disservice to our kids. We actually aren't servicing them. I love what you're saying about being the parent of adult children. I found that to be true in my life. And I say this a lot that one of the things you want to do to have a healthy relationship with your kids all the way into your old age as they become adults is frankly, to be so okay with yourself that you're right there when they come back with you to tell you the things that you didn't do quite right,

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Alli: –Right.

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Alison: –because the more they grow and the more they change and the more they get a little bit of their own perspective on life, they're going to come back and say, wait, why did you do that thing? Or what was that? Or this is what, and the more we've done the work and we can go, yeah.

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And we're not triggered by that and we just sit with them and let them process that with us. That's where that connection stays alive. It's not through trying to be perfect or trying to avoid that conversation, right? That's where intimacy comes in. That's the good stuff in any relationship. It's not that we never have the rupture. It's that we really know how to lean into that repair.

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Alli: Oh, yeah, or at least we can pretend we aren't too triggered and then we can go deal with it later.

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Alison: We can do our deep breathing

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Alli: Yep. 

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Alison: Tell us about, you talk a little bit in the book about different types of moms. Tell me a little bit about that.

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Alli: I think that for most of us, we have this idea in our head of what a quote unquote good mom is. And we've all picked that up. Maybe we saw something in childhood or it's just from the awful social media messaging that we're getting all the time. But it is not as if our children are in our lives accidentally.

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We are placed together in families by divine design, whether adoption or by birth. And once we look at ourselves and go, what are my strengths? What kind of mom am I? What am I leaning into? Once we can do that, we can stop beating ourselves up for the strengths we don't have. Like me, I'm not outdoorsy.

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My cousin, she's an outdoorsy mom. They're always hiking or kayaking. I only want to be outdoors if I'm at an amusement park. Or I'm at Disney World or something luxurious. That's my outdoors, and that's my thing. I like to ride roller coasters with kids, and I like to do fun things like that. My cousin would never do that in a million years.

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She wants to be in a kayak. There are moms who love crafts. There are moms who have an organic garden, and they're teaching kids about growing your own food and homesteading. And once we look at how we go about life, what our strengths are, what our passions are, and then go, this is who I am. And this is actually good for my kids.

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Because my kids are placed with me by divine design. It's not like us leaning into the fullness of who we are is going to hurt our children unless the fullness of who we are is to be an assassin. But my guess is no one listening right now is gosh, my, the fullness of my life is an assassin, but we really look at our personalities and go, this is my design. My kids will benefit from this. I don't need to mother in any way that isn't natural for me. I think that's really powerful for women.

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Alison: It's almost like a strength based approach to parenting. You think about the strengthsfinder, we've talked about that here, where you identify what I have to bring and you do better if you lean into your strengths versus beating yourself up for the things that are not your natural strengths, a great way to look at it.

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And I think it's interesting, you've got the parenting book trauma that you described. And also, if you add on to that, the social media comparison trap. Because that's where you're seeing all of that, right? You're seeing all the pictures of all the things you're not doing.

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Alli: Oh, yeah. I think social media is such a driver of mom guilt. I did a survey of over a thousand women before I wrote this book to find out what's the biggest trigger of mom guilt. How often do you have it? What's the trigger? It's not us. It's not our spouses. It's not our friends. The number one individual trigger is social media, where you feel like you're doing okay, life is okay, and then all of a sudden you open it up and there's this beautiful video of someone growing organic wheat and you're like darn it.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Alli: Look at that. I'm not growing organic wheat. I guess I'm a terrible mom after all or whatever it is. We know that social media is a highlight reel, but there is something that happens in our brain. Our brain doesn't know because if we look at family pictures where everyone's dressed in matching clothes and the dog is smiling, and then you look around your house and your teenager's mad or your toddler's having a tantrum and your dog's throwing up in the carpet, something happens in our brain and we can't help but compare. 

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It's just what happens.

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Alison: Yeah. It's that negative voice, right? That cannot see, in that moment, all they see is the perfection in that image and cannot see all those moments, right? That no matter how glamorous or unglamorous they were, that you as a mom were with your child in a moment of need that didn't get captured.

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And it's such an important thing that you're naming there to really know and lean into your own strengths. This is not being arrogant. This is healthy pride. Take pride in your own work, take pride in what you're doing. Make a list of it every single day. Write it on your mirror, especially when you're in the weeds of parenting.

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Alli: Oh, yeah. And also, I think it is important for us to have conversations like this about the danger of social media. Now, I love social media. I built my company on it. However, if we don't know someone personally and we are following accounts with images and videos of perfection. I am of the belief they should be unfollowed.

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Especially because we now have an influencer culture and I'm never going to say, hey, you shouldn't make money however you want to make money. But there are huge accounts out there with images and videos of perfection. And it is all a business. It is not real. If people are selling or people are saying like, here's my outfit and here's a 20% off code, it is a business. It's not natural. And we can't compare our real life to someone else's business model.

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Alison: That's a good word. It's a good word. I agree with you. It is just the data on it. The research on it is just unequivocal that it's just not healthy. It's not healthy for our kids to see all the comparison traps. It's not healthy for us. You talk a lot in the book about different habits. What are some things in your own life that have helped you just, again, you've got these five boys, you're running this business, you're in the weeds. What are some of the most helpful tips that have just kept you balanced in those moments?

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Alli: That's a great question. One of them, I put in that back section of the book about habits to help us thrive. And it's a simple question that I've learned to ask myself a few times a day. I have pop up reminders that come up on my phone and I ask myself, what do you need right now? Because that question, what do I need?

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Most of us go, I have no idea, I haven't thought about myself in so long, but just changing it to what do I need right now has been a game changer for me because sometimes I need a glass of water. Sometimes I need to make lunch plans with a girlfriend because research shows healthy friendships are so important for moms so we don't get taken out by loneliness.

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Sometimes I need a housekeeper. Sometimes I need to plan a trip, sometimes I need a snack, it can be big, it can be little, but it keeps me checking in with myself so I don't run myself ragged as a mom and as a business owner. And it lets me check in with myself and also it models for my children that I'm worthy of care.

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They are worthy of care and one day they are going to marry women. And we want them to know their wives are worthy of care. They, as their husbands, are worthy of care. We should all be checking in with ourselves every day and going, What do I need right now? What do I need? And give ourselves permission. It's the permission that Aunt Shirley didn't have. And it's the permission that most of us, at different parts in our life, don't feel like we have.

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Alison: Yeah, I was just thinking that. Can you imagine if Aunt Shirley had been able to say, what do I need right now? I need someone to get in the kitchen and help me, or whatever it might have been?

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The other thing that came to my mind as you were talking was that isn't that what we're trying to teach our children? Learn to ask for what you need, learn to use your words. And so if we're not doing that for ourselves, as they say, more is caught than taught, with kids. So if they don't see us saying, hey, here's what I need right now, how do they learn that's what they need to do?

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Alli: Yeah, I could think about so many times in my life I have wanted to play the perfect mom role and I've just sacrificed and then finally I just lose my mind and blow up because I'm so angry because I've just been stuffing my needs for too long. You play nice and you play nice and you play nice and finally you explode and if we can make sure every woman has permission to go, hey, what do I need right now, so we don't have to just play nice. 

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So we can just continually take care of ourselves, so we don't have to explode. That's the game changer.

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Alison: What does it look like for you when you've lost it in a moment with one of your boys? How do you go about the process? This is one of the things women often ask me, how do I apologize to my child? How do I make it right? What do you do when you have had a moment with your kids that you need to go back and repair?

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Alli: Oh, it's “I'm so sorry that I did that. I was a jerk in that moment. This is what was going on inside of me”. So I can explain it had nothing to do with them. But it's just, you were unlucky in that moment. And you were part of that moment with me. But I was just like a ticking bomb. And I ask for forgiveness, but just own it.

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Alison: Yeah, I love that. I love the modeling for kids when we get it wrong and we go back and let them know because they're going to get it wrong too.

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Alli: Oh, yeah. Every day they get it wrong.

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Alison: Yeah. And so they're learning. Oh, that's what you do. When you mess up, you just go back and you say, hey, you take responsibility again. 

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It's not that we're after perfection. It's that we're after that awareness or, again, when you think about that question, what do I need? What do I need right now? I might need a timeout from my kids so I don't explode on them in that moment. And you can say that too to your kids, right now what I need is to just take a little timeout. I'll be back.

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Alli: When they were little, I used to do this thing where I would start at 10 and just start counting back to one and they all knew, oh that's mom trying to get ahold of herself and we should scatter or we should be real quiet. Because I was either going to yell at them or I was going to count from ten to one.

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And sometimes I counted from ten to one very aggressively. And I didn't understand at the time that it was me regulating my emotions. So I didn't lose it. So I was regulating myself, but it was also a warning to them, hey, we're out of control. Let's give her a moment.

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Alison: That's another spin on the counting, the counting to 10. Usually, we're giving kids the time to behave, but we're really giving ourselves the opportunity to stay calm so that when we do enter in, it will not be from that activated place. I love that. What are some other habits? What are some other tips that you found to be particularly helpful in your own parenting?

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Alli: Investing in friendships was surprisingly powerful research. I found research that showed that friendships are the happiest relationships, and that our families give us joy and great meaning. But friendships are just happiest because we choose friends because we like them, not because we have to be around them.

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And for a friend of mine, author Eric Barker said 30s is where your 30s is where friendship goes to die. And for so many of us, it's true–between our careers and families and so much going on. So I use the concept of bundling friend-time when I'm very busy with my real life and can't get together with friends, that I will find things that I have to do and I'll include friend time with that.

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Whether it's talking to a friend on the phone on a commute. I have two friends who make dinner together every Tuesday night in their own homes. So they set up an iPad and AirPods and they talk to each other Tuesday night from five to six while they make dinner. Their families know that's their time.

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So it's something they already have to do and it's boring, but they use that to bundle friend time. So for me, I bundle friend time into all sorts of things. I have a business with a friend of mine and we have taken our strategy weekends to Disney. So we're having friend time and work time so I'm always looking at all the things that I have to do. How can I include friends and how can I make it more fun?

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Alison: Yeah, I love that bundling friend time. That's great, just being smart so that you don't lose touch with your friends. You build them into your life as best you can. I love that. That's a great tip. I often talk about structuring it, right? So for me, sometimes I'll put it on the calendar so at least it's there on the calendar, like another date, like something I have to do, but I love the idea of bundling it into something else you're already doing. That's great.

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Alli: Yeah, I have one friend who loves to organize and she will come over sometimes and go, let's visit but let me work on your closet. And I don't enjoy that at all. So it's fun letting our hair down and finding friends. The key is finding friends who are helping our lives in a positive way.

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And that's not necessarily the friend, I use air quotes around friends, that is sitting next to you at PTO or even sitting next to you at church or your neighbor, but really identifying the friends who get you, who you can be your real self with, who you feel better after you interact with them than before.

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Investing in those friendships because I hear a lot of advice about friendship lately and it's basically, whoever you're next to is who you should be friends with and I feel like that's a really dangerous concept for women. We need to be selective and thoughtful about who we let into our inner friendship circles.

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Alison: I agree with you. I love that litmus test of, do you feel better about yourself after you've spent time with them? Because you can fall into the comparison trap with friends and you can start pursuing a life that isn't a life you actually want. And it comes back to those gifts as you're saying, like I've noticed.

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In my own life, I'm not really a great home decorator. It's not something I enjoy. It's a patchwork quilt. I love it, but I used to feel really bad about it. And you know what I've discovered, Alli, to your point is, friends of mine that are really great at it or good at it.

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If someone's really into it, it's all about the attitude. If that's really what they care about, I will feel it the second they leave my home.

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Alli: Yep.

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Alison: And that's just, it's okay, that I don't want to have to feel that way. That's not going to work. On the other hand, I have friends who are also really into it. And I don't feel that at all because they fully accept me. I fully accept them. 

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And I think that's really wise, especially when you're in the weeds of parenting and when we're so vulnerable to feeling we're not maybe as good as because we're all gonna feel that we're all so vulnerable in parenting.

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Alli: Yeah, we've all had friends who make the little comments and they sting and after we're around those friends, we go, oh, that was awful. Those are the people you need to spend less time with.

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Alison: Yeah, it's a really good point about our kids, about anything because it's just it's tender. If you think about this idea of these vulnerable parts of us, boy, being a parent brings out that vulnerability like nothing else. And it is the time you don't want to be erred toward loneliness, of course, but gosh, sometimes really befriending your own company is healthier than exposing yourself to folks who are going to make you feel constantly judged and criticized.

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Alli: Absolutely.

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Alison: Tell us a little bit before we close here, Alli. What would you want the younger you to know about parenting that you know now if you could go back and spend just a few minutes with her.

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Alli: Oh gosh, that is an amazing question. I would tell myself that what mattered was the emotional climate of the home. That having my children feel safe and secure and fully loved is what matters most. And I would have myself dive into a lot of the genetic research about children. That children are really coded in their DNA to be who they're going to be.

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And as long as we provide them a healthy home, and nothing horrible happens to get things off track, they're going to be who they're going to be. You can look at twin studies of twins, divided, separated at birth, and they grow up to be pretty similar. And it is fascinating. I think that I fell into some early parenting advice when I was a young mom, religious parenting advice, especially, that almost tricked me accidentally into believing that I was God to my children, that every little thing I did mattered and if I didn't do everything right, their whole future was gone. 

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But the truth is God and I am their mother and I'm there to love them and discipline them and disciple them and give them something great that I'm modeling. But I don't have the power in one little mistake to ruin their lives. And there's a lot of pressure that's put on moms unnecessarily. That's what I would tell myself.

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Alison: I love that. Yeah, we are not God.

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Alli: How about you? What would you tell a younger you?

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Alison: Oh gosh. I think I would tell myself kind of along the lines of what you're saying about strength, that who I am is exactly what they need. Who I am is exactly what they need. No more and no less. And be that. Because that's what they need. And it's not everything, but thankfully they don't only need me.

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They do need me to be fully me. And so who I am is what they need. And I think that's where trying to make up for things in myself that I feel like I didn't have could sometimes trip me up. I had to really work hard on Inhabiting who I am. 

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I think also, and again, what we've touched on is just the incredible value of modeling–more is caught than taught. The more I show what you do. I love what you said, what you do when you make a mistake, the more you show your own ability to course correct, the more you show when you get it wrong, you name it. You don't blame someone else. 

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Those kinds of things really are what kids pick up. They're just smart. They see through your words. They see our actions. They see how we're living. They just pick up what's real. Which is incredible, really. It's very freeing in many ways.

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Alli: Because all the parenting books that say you have to do these 10 things to be a good parent. No, to be a good parent you work on yourself and the natural overflow of that is a happier healthier household and happier healthier kids. That's what just hasn't been taught to mothers yet, until now.

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Alison: Yeah. Thanks. And on that note, tell everybody how they can find your book, your work and all that you're putting into the world.

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Alli: Oh thank you. I'm Alli Worthington everywhere. Alli Worthington dot com. Alli Worthington show. The book, Remaining You While Raising Them. It's great in paperback, but I will say, we threw in an audible bonus about the mental load, which I call the mother load. And we even threw in some scripts for how to ask for what you need, how to identify and ask for what you need, whether it's your spouse or other people in your life.

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So it's just a fun little bonus in the audible version.

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Alison: Oh, that's great. It's a great book. I'm so glad you're saying all these wise things for so many women to benefit from. I have one last question for you, which I ask all my guests, which is what is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Alli: I love that question. In my 40s, I decided to prioritize fun. So I'm 47 right now. And I love taking vacations. I have a business coach with business clients. I've been doing retreats for them. I'm taking my team on trips. 

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I will probably be in Orlando at a theme park six times this year. I was just riding roller coasters a couple of days ago in Orlando, so anytime I get a chance, I'm prioritizing fun, whether it's with my kids or with clients or people on my team. I'm going all out in my 40s.

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Alison: I love that. So you're being very literal. You like amusement parks.

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Alli: Oh, yeah. So sometimes I take my kids, but sometimes I take my team. Yeah, we're having a blast.

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Alison: That's great. I love that. Thank you so much, Alli, for joining us and just sharing your wisdom with us. It's great to have you.

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Alli: Thank you so much. It's been great to join you.

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Today's episode is straight up fire! I got to know Cindy Gao last year, when she reached out to me about an internship. As a student at Harvard College, she experienced a crisis of meaning and found her way to faith and emotional healing. I have loved getting to know Cindy, and I know you are going to love her too.

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This episode is raw and inspiring. It's packed with insight into faith, mental health, and Gen Z.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The phrase Cindy Googled in a moment of desperation & what she found

2. What to do (and not do) when a young person expresses interest in faith

3. Why emotional healing & faith cannot be separated

4. The core belief that almost kept Cindy from faith

5. The challenges & longings of Gen Z

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Go to www.simplemodern.com/bestofyou and by sharing your email you'll get a unique discount code just for you or bundle and save for back to school. This should be your go to brand for your family.
• Get 35% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com/BESTOFYOU or use code BESTOFYOU at checkout.
• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.

Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

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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Resources

• ‍Ecclesiastes‍
• Boundaries For Your Soul by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller‍
• Try Softer by Aundi Kolber‍
• Matthew Mark Luke John‍
• Psalm 34:8‍
• "We all are born into the world looking for someone looking for us, and that we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives." -Curt Thompson

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Transcript

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Alison:  Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Oh my goodness do we have a treat for you today! I've been looking forward to having this conversation all summer, and I am so excited for you to hear it.

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Today we are going to talk with my assistant and media coordinator, Cindy Gao, about her incredible story of a search for meaning and coming to faith in a really dark place. She is part of Gen Z and I know that so many of my listeners, you have either kids who are headed off to college or you're reading the news there's just a lot of buzz around this generation—what they're dealing with and what they're thinking about and  Cindy just has such a unique ability to articulate her own experience with clarity and honesty and sincerity.  

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I am just so grateful that she was willing to share all of that hard earned wisdom with us as we seek to understand the young ones in our lives, whether they're your own kids, whether they're your grandkids, whether they're just the kids that you care about in your life.

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You first heard from Cindy on Episode 62, where she and I discuss your questions about friendship. It's a great episode. I love the wisdom that she brings to it. So you can check out that episode. And she also helped me out in the Best of You Facebook Book Club. So if you were a part of that this past January, Cindy will be a familiar voice to you. 

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I first met Cindy last November, almost a year ago. She reached out to me via email. She was looking for part-time work. I was in need of assistance. She came on as an intern and she's been helping me out ever since. She's just been such a gift to me. And when I first heard her story, it just stayed with me. It's just such an incredible story and a beautiful example of how God works through Google, God works through the pandemic, through even the isolation that was so awful. God met Cindy in such a powerful way through all of those terrible circumstances  and he wants to do that for all of us and all of our kiddos to find us, to restore us and to heal every single part of us.

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I love this story and I'm so thrilled that Cindy shared it with us today. Cindy Gao graduated from Harvard College in 2022 with a major in economics and a minor in psychology. She is married and she's starting her master's degree in counseling at Denver Seminary this fall. She was on the Canadian national fencing team for five years and was a six time national champion fencer. You'll hear a little bit more about that in today's episode. She's just a great woman. I'm thrilled to have gotten the chance to get to know her. There's just so much wisdom here for all of us as we work together to help each other become more whole.

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***

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Alison: I'm so glad that you're here with me today, Cindy, we meet every week, but this week is really special that we get to know more about your story. So thank you so much for being here today.

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Cindy: Yeah, I'm so excited to be on again.

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Alison: That's right. Yes. This time we're putting the spotlight on you. All right. So you reached out to me via email about a year ago, maybe a little less than a year ago, just letting me know a little bit about your story, of coming to faith partway into your career as a student at Harvard. One of the things that was really important to you on your spiritual journey that we're going to learn more about today was bringing together this mental health piece with theology and with your faith journey.

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I'd love to start a little bit backtracking to the beginning. Tell us a little bit about your background. What were you raised to believe about faith, about the nature of reality, about the purpose of life? Tell us a little bit. Set the stage for us about what Young Cindy was thinking heading off to college. What's your idea about the world and about faith and things like that?

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Cindy: Yeah. I grew up in a suburb close to Toronto in Canada. I was raised by an immigrant mom, and both my parents are from China. So my mom raised me and my brother on her own, really, while my dad worked in China. He visited a few times a year, but from a very young age, I knew how hard it was for my mom to be raising me and my brother.

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Also since we were immigrants, I felt a lot of pressure to assimilate to North American culture in order to belong and feel safe and really for my mom, she believed that this path towards safety was through prestige and success and having other people's approval. So really, ever since I can remember, I spent every waking second trying to achieve and perform and be recognized and seek my safety through that sort of stuff, through the high regard that other people would have of me.

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Yeah, I got pretty much straight A's since kindergarten. I made sure I was always very positive and bubbly, so people would like me socially, and then I was also a really high level athlete, starting from fifth grade. I started fencing, and then I started competing on an international circuit from my first year of high school up until my last year of college.

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So I guess to paint the picture, essentially, on the outside, I'm this really confident, bubbly, high achieving, really decorated, scholar, athlete, popular kid. But, what's really going on in my heart is that I'm being driven by really deep fear and insecurity. And I just think about whenever I got my good grades, or won a competition, or was elected a student body position, I never felt proud of myself, really or confident in those moments.

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I felt relieved. Relief for avoiding the alternative situation that felt really dangerous. 

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Alison: Which would have been what?

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Cindy: Not winning. Not winning and losing felt like it wasn't an option for my survival. Saying that out loud, I understand that I would have been able to survive if I didn't win, but in those moments it really felt like life or death.

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I was so stressed out. I tried so hard for everything. And for most of my childhood I would say it worked out like I did win a lot of things. But yeah, to answer your question about reality and what I believed about my purpose, I'm just going to get pretty raw and honest here, I believed that I had to make up for how bad of a person I thought I was. 

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I saw how hard I made my mom's life. Growing up, my mom tried her best, but an experience that really impacted me deeply was when I was in kindergarten, I was afraid of the dark and I couldn't sleep at night, and I would knock on my mom's door and she would just be so upset with me.

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But I couldn't control my fear. I was just scared. But that kind of made me just believe that this unchangeable part of me was just causing my mom to suffer. And that's basically this core belief that I had of myself was that I was just bad and I needed to spend my whole life working to offset that.

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Alison: Yeah, children pick up these burdens. It makes sense that a part of you picks up a burden. That mom's stress, even if that's not literally being communicated, that you see her stress, you see the pain she's in and you tell yourself, a part of you tells yourself, it's my fault. I am responsible. And so then you're working overtime to make up for that.

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So that's that life or death, the stakes. And what I hear in everything you're saying, Cindy, is a really activated nervous system. You're in a state of fight flight, most of your growing up years to try to Get that hit of, I can't bring, I, I can't lose, I can't let this drop because it's not just, and it's not rational, I understand that, but there's this sense of it will, this will bring more pain to my mom and I will be responsible for it if I don't get this just right.

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Cindy: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

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Alison: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about Cindy, were you raised with any kind of particular religious worldview or faith background? Did you guys go to church or anything like that?

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Cindy: No, well, I remember when I was in first grade going to church a few times, but something happened at church. There might have been some church drama, and my mom was hurt by a family in church, and then we never went again. 

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But I would say I grew up very agnostic and I grew up in an environment where it was even a little bit hostile towards Christianity, painted this picture of Christians as just people who weren't very rational, just believed in crazy miracles and didn't think too much about what they believed and also judged other people for not believing what they did. 

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Yeah, I'd say that was the environment I grew up in.

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Alison: Yeah. And then, so what, tell us what happened. So when you reached out to me, the extent of the story that I know is you told me a little bit about how you were, what year were you at Harvard when you

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Cindy: I was a junior when COVID hit.

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Alison: Okay. You told me that there was a point at which you started Googling meaning

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And through that Google search, that's what ultimately led you to an experience of faith in Jesus. So tell us what led to, so everything you've said up till now, you're super successful. You are, I would assume up until you go to Harvard, I don't know, but you're not happy, but this is just the only way you know, and it's working in a sense.

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Cindy: Yeah.

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Alison: The exterior, it's working, people like you, you've got those accomplishments, you're now getting into Harvard. So what happens in those first two years of Harvard that leads you to that moment of Googling meaning?

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Cindy: When I first got to Harvard, I was still trying to achieve, trying to make my mom proud of me, and to see her happy.

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And I remember very distinctly sophomore year I was working so hard, I was sprinting on a treadmill every day. And my mom fell into the deepest depression I've ever seen her in. And I just felt so helpless. And I soon followed suit, because I knew I was pushing myself to my limit. I couldn't try harder physically than I was, but it still wasn't enough. 

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Externally I seemed to be thriving, but I knew, some part of me deep inside knew that something wasn't right. I felt really empty inside, and every time I tried to bring it up with my mom or my friends, I was met with, “Oh your life is so good, Cindy just don't think about that”.

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And, that was really hard for me because I knew something was wrong, but whenever I tried to talk about it was, “Look at your life. You're so lucky. Look at all these things you have”.

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Alison: Yeah, you started to become aware of cracks between the external you and the inner you that's not feeling very great, but I hear what you're saying you went to the people around you who were caught up in that same mindset going, “You have everything”.

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And so you're not getting that validation of someone saying, “Tell me more–what's going on”. So you're probably feeling even more isolated to some degree.

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Cindy: And that's what led me to really question the meaning of life. If this is what people are telling me, and what I have always thought is supposed to be the meaning and purpose of life is to get these achievements and have all these things that I have. But why do I feel so empty and so devoid of meaning and purpose?

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And yeah, that just stopped me in my tracks and I fell into a pretty deep depression starting in sophomore year. And then COVID hit my junior year and I really had to stop living my fast paced life when COVID hit because everything just shut down and slowed down. And that's when I really started having all this time to be alone with my own thoughts and my own anxiety and had to face all this internal angst that had been building up for a while 

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Alison: Your old coping tactics of just running, pursuing, achieving, producing were stripped away during that time. Oh, wow. And were you also isolated, literally? You had to be alone in a dorm room, probably?

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Cindy: Yeah, we got kicked out of school. That was actually a pretty scary moment for me because my parents were both in China at the time and so I was actually completely alone, just me, in Canada In a house all by myself. So that was really scary. I thought it would be temporary, but it wasn't.

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Alison: Yeah, okay.

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Cindy: That's pretty much the backdrop of when I started Googling, “Why does everything feel meaningless”? And it was a pretty desperate move at that point. I never thought about doing anything to actively end my life but I was definitely in a state of suffering. It was a pretty desperate move by me to Google that. 

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But yeah, when I googled that I was scrolling through all sorts of different web pages and resources and I found the book of Ecclesiastes. And this is a book in the Bible that starts out with, “Everything is meaningless”. 

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And I got sucked in. I just kept reading it and so much of it just resonated so deeply with me. The author talks about how he's achieved all this wealth and done all these things that people seem to care so much about. And he's like, “It's just the blowing of the wind!”

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And I was like, “Oh my gosh! That's exactly how I feel”! That was the beginning of this journey for me to explore more deeply what meaning and purpose is.

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Alison: It's like you found someone finally who validated your and mirrored your experience versus what you're getting from your friends. He's saying, it was Solomon who wrote Ecclesiastes, he's I got everything and it feels empty. And you're like, “Oh my gosh, I'm not alone”. 

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Cindy: Yeah. That connection and validation I felt was so life-giving. So life-giving. And I really needed that because, as I said before, whenever I tried to bid for connection in my relationships, I was shut down with “Get over yourself, like your life is really good”.

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But here I was reading this book that validated what I was experiencing and I just wanted to go deeper. So that's how I got sucked into reading more of the Bible and connecting with Christians.

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Alison: So what happened from there? So you're at a really desperate moment. You start connecting with Ecclesiastes. You start reading more of the Bible. What, where do you go from there? What, tell us what happens next.

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Cindy: I really wanted to talk to people who read Ecclesiastes and I wanted to understand how they found meaning and purpose. So I, and everything at this point was shut down, we were still in the pandemic, in the initial stages of it. But I reached out via email to a Christian campus group at Harvard, and it's the Cru Campus Group.

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And I just said that I'm curious to talk to some Christians, that I didn't want to be Christian, I didn't really want anything to do with Christianity, but I just had some intellectual questions. And they connected me with a small group called Big Questions, and it was so amazing. I remember meeting every Friday, and I'm so excited every Friday for those two hours that we met through Zoom. 

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It was a place where we really explored deep existential questions. And I met Christians and non-Christians alike who were really engaging in these questions. And I also met Christians who actually had really intriguing reasons for God.

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They weren't just Christian because their families were. They weren't just saying “oh, I just believe in this stuff because it's true”. They had put a lot of thought into their faith and there were such rich conversations about the nature of reality and historical evidence for Jesus's resurrection and I didn't believe all of it right away, but it was so interesting these conversations. 

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And it helped me rethink a lot of the assumptions I had made about Christians from growing up.

So during this time, I was also reading the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, telling the story of Jesus. Ecclesiastes was what I was really in for, but I then also wanted to read the other parts of the Bible, and, the Bible is centered around Jesus and the Gospels tell his story, so I went there next. 

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And the stories of Jesus just hit me like a train. I was reading about His life and seeing how he acted and how he really did not people-please. He did not live for the approval or praise of other people.

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He went against his own family sometimes, to live out who He's meant to be and I saw that and it was so inspiring. I saw in the life of Jesus what I needed. This strength that I saw in him to be able to do that? I was like, I need that. Where is that strength coming from?

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And there's other parts of the Gospels where Jesus talks about the Pharisees, and he's criticizing them for judging people who aren't following the rules. And this whole time I thought that Christians were just supposed to be like that. But then when you read the Gospels and Jesus is criticizing people who are like that, you really have to be like, “Oh, this isn't what Christianity is about”. 

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Christianity is not about just judging people and imposing all these rules on people's lives. It's so much more than that. It's so much deeper. And so I would say all of those things just drew me further in.

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And one last thing I'd add that was really important for me was that I met safe adult Christians. They were the first people I felt safe sharing all this pent up pain and anxious thoughts with. I had never shared those things with anyone before. And I shared it with them and I experienced the healing that happens when you share hard things, and there are compassionate people present with you. 

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And all of those things just changed my life. And I didn't need any more convincing after that. I was like, this is the way to life. There's no other way towards life. This is it.

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Alison: It's like your nervous system had that healing reparative experience from those first of what it feels like to feel seen and soothed and loved and safe. And it's almost I hear you saying there's a bunch of different things, but that was one factor for you of, when the psalmist says, I've, or I don't know who says this in the Bible, but “I've tasted the goodness of God”.

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You experienced it. It was intellectual, but you also experienced it–Oh this is what I've been needing is this kind of acceptance and unconditional love.

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I want to ask you, and we'll circle back to this because I, there were some key ingredients that when we circle back to talking about Gen Z and more general issues here for folks who are listening, because there were some really neat things that Christian groups on your campus did right. 

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I'm thinking about that big questions group. I get the sense it wasn't high pressure. There wasn't an agenda. There was a lot of authenticity. People were just allowed to show up with their questions and ask them. Because my sense of you is you would have seen right through. A hard sell. That's what brought you in is genuine interest, not someone trying to proselytize you.

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Cindy: Yeah. And I do have to say, if someone tried to just tell me what the gospel was and ask me to ask Jesus into my life, at that point, I would've run away. I would've been like, Nope, I'm outta here. That's not what I'm looking for right now. 

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I just want to have some conversations, and I don't want to feel pressure to not be in the place that I am now. I want people to be with me where I'm at, and not to push me in the direction they want me to go.

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Alison: That's right. Yeah. You'd known enough of the pressure system. Your whole face just lit up when you talked about those Friday evening zooms where you could just ask the questions that were actually on your mind and show up. As that part of you that had been so buried deeply inside that was really hurting.

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Yeah. Oh man, it's just such a powerful story. So you've talked Cindy a little bit to me here and there about how it seems as if fairly shortly thereafter you did take an interest, I don't know if it was through books or if you saw somebody in faith based therapy. Tell me a little bit about that.

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You're in this journey of thinking about Jesus, of reading the Gospels, of getting to know other Christians. Your nervous system is having this whole different experience of a way of being. So there's a lot going on at some point in here, you come to a whole body experience.

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People can have an intellectual belief and never have really tasted the good, and hearing you, it's like mind, body, soul, emotion, every part of you is like something here is true. This is a whole body experience. And so this is happening. And then somewhere in there, you also started to be drawn to some Christian mental health resources. And I'm just curious how that played into your journey.

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Cindy: Yeah I would say it's inextricable, the mental health and emotional healing and my faith, those two things had to come together for me. A big barrier for me to accepting the gospel was this core negative belief I had about myself, that I was bad and unworthy.

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And I had lived experiences that shaped those beliefs for me. I had experienced things growing up that I interpreted to mean these things about myself. And, for someone like me, hearing the gospel that there's a God that loves me, that I'm worthy, that I'm good, that's gonna trigger a lot of cognitive dissonance in me.

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That does not align with what is true. And I'm not gonna be able to just latch on to that story when I have so many experiences that back up what I believe to be true. And it was always very intuitive to me that I would need this deeper unpacking of what has shaped me to believe these things about myself.

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And no amount of theology was going to help me just bypass that pain and believe this new story. You could tell me all these facts, quote all of this scripture to me, and it would do nothing. I would just be like, ah. I understand that's what's written in the Bible, but I physically do not feel that to be true, sorry but I don’t exactly know what’s wrong with me.

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I had to choose a different approach, and in the psychology/therapy field, we learn about corrective emotional experiences. And that's this idea that your healing doesn't come from insight alone. It's experiential. 

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I needed corrective emotional experiences with safe adults, like therapists that I found, like the Cru staff in my life, who showed me that when I share my emotions, that doesn't make me a bad person.

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Like, maybe it's possible that there are people who care about me enough to want to know how I'm doing, and they care about my suffering. I thought that these adults were gonna respond in a way that's gonna shut me down and all those things, because I had those experiences in the past.

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But when they didn't, I started to be like, oh maybe it's possible that I am not a bad person, I'm not just complaining. Could it be possible that I deserve better? Could it be possible that I'm worthy of being treated this way? Could it be possible that there is a God who loves me?

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That's how it went for me. And without those sort of experiences I just would not have been open to the gospel.

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Alison: Yeah. There's something so powerful in what you're saying about this. You can have all the world's best theology, but there's that lived experience where the parts of your soul, your nervous system, whatever, whatever words you want to put on it. You are experiencing the truth, the whole body, the lived truth of the words.

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Otherwise it's just words. And you can want to believe it and you can even intellectually believe it. But yeah, I just hear you saying it was through and you knew something in you. There was something in you that knew. You gave yourself permission to almost expose yourself to a different way of someone being with you and someone experiencing you. I would imagine that was pretty intense.

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Cindy: Yeah, it was. Honestly, Alison, reading your book Boundaries for Your Soul, and I also read Aundi Kolber's book, Try Softer, and reading about these psychology/mental health/therapy fields, ‘cause you guys are in that intersection between faith and mental health and therapy–it gave me insight and helped me understand that I needed to form this basis of safety and allow my pain to be seen.

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The insights that you guys drew from your field of study and how you integrated that with faith, it made a lot of sense to me. And it helped me to take that risk, because it is a risk to expose yourself again. But yeah, I knew I needed to do that in order for my pain to be seen, to make room for hope. I had to, that's just how the process goes.

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Alison: It's so interesting listening to you because I could see it so easily. You could have the intellectual, you could have the joy of wanting to believe this. And if you had bypassed the pain, it would have come out at some point, but I love that you, and this is the work and now you're going in to do this work, which is so beautiful.

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I love that you almost instantly were like, I got to go deeper. I got to do that. The healing work as part of this whole thing, it's not. optional. It's not a la carte, it's part of it. It's intertwined. That deeper healing work is intertwined with really absorbing and metabolizing the truth, which isn't just intellectual.

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Again, it's the true experiential truth of a God who is ultimately this safe place for us, but when we've never had an experience of safety, how in the world do we understand that? That's just abstract until other people show us what that experience of a presence, a loving presence, is.

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Cindy: Yeah. And even just reading the Bible, that is the sense that you get of what God wants for us. He does not want us to just know all these scripture verses and be able to quote them off. He wants us to experience His love. He wants us to feel the safety and strength that comes from truly believing that He loves us. Unconditionally. 

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He loves us so much that he would send his son to die for us. What kind of people do we become when we let that truly sink into our souls? That's it changes who you are on a very deep level. And that's what God wants for us. It's not just this behavior change that he's looking for.

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Alison: Head knowledge, behavior change. Yeah, we really short sell it. I don't want to ask you to speak for all of Gen Z. That would not be fair. But I do think some of what you're saying speaks to the cry of a heart of the generation that wants more of what you're saying.

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Before we get there, I want to touch on one other point, which is that you told me at some point that speaks to this whole body transformation that was going on. Mind you, you're still at Harvard. You're still like, doing classes. I'm assuming this is most of that junior year where you were remote, but you told me that at some point, maybe this is when you return to campus, that your nervous system had undergone such a shift in how you experience things that it would be hard for you to be around the anxiety, the fight flight kind of crowd, the achieving producing crowd, your prior friends.

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And I, these are my words, but it was almost as if you were saying, ‘cause your nervous system had experienced a different way of being in the world, I don't have to just move through life in a constant state of stress and fight flight that it was hard for you for a while too. You had to almost extract yourself during that season a little bit. Can you tell me a little bit about that? And are you comfortable talking about this?

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Cindy: Yeah, I can try. That was a really hard thing to navigate. I took a gap year right after my junior year and that's where a lot of what we've talked about really happened for me. All these insights and seeking healing and beginning to open up to people that all happened during my gap year. And then, I was really scared to go back to Harvard to finish up my senior year because I didn't want to fall back into the same patterns I had when I was there last.

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Alison: Totally. Yeah.

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Cindy: And I mean, I look back and I don't think I necessarily did everything perfectly. It was so hard, but yeah, I did have to learn to give myself permission to say no to a lot of things my first three years of college, I partied a lot.

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I lived such a fast paced life ‘cause I didn't want to ever be alone with my own thoughts, but I knew I needed to embrace a slower lifestyle. I needed to say no to a lot of parties and things that were going on and that was really hard. And I had to navigate changes in my friendships.

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That was really hard, because my friends also had to adjust. It was like I was a new person and not the same person that they knew from before. And so navigating all of that was really difficult. We talked in that Q&A episode about friendships about the guilt that comes up when you change as a person and how that can affect your friendships. You feel guilty because you're like, Oh, my friend is actually uncomfortable because I've changed.

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And it's not because they're a horrible person, but it's just, it's different. So it's uncomfortable. And, is that my fault? Oh no, I don't want to make people uncomfortable but I can't go back to how I was. And so really, learning to sit through that, and be okay with disappointing other people because And that's what Jesus did, he disappointed so many people because he just needed to be who he was. And he wasn't gonna change himself for other people, so I remember always reminding myself that my senior year of I, this is really hard, but this is the path to life. I need to be who I am.

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Alison: And Cindy, what I love, the fruit of the spirit is so evident in what you're saying. It's the humility of it's, I don't want to hurt anybody. I love these people. I'm not trying to send a message. It's just, this is what I have to do for my health and wholeness. This is what I have to do to be more like the person God wants me to be.

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And I love the humility in that, but when there's that humility, there's also sometimes more of that sensitivity. to, it's almost easier to put on the mask of starting to judge other people, which is why sometimes Christians it's, we don't have to then face the pain of that feeling of separation.

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There's such a genuineness in what you're saying. I just needed to save my own soul. I needed to mind my own heart, mind, and soul in these old ways, whatever they were, whether it was overperforming, whether it was trying to distract myself by staying busy all the time, I have to make different choices.

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And I do think about Jesus a lot, he had to stay true. It is the narrow way. It's not an easy way. It is the way of life though. So I love that. I'd love it if just here at the end, if you would share with us a little bit again, not asking you to speak for your generation, but what do you think?

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So as you, as about your story and about listeners who are sending their kids back to college or are preparing their kids for college or , I just am curious, some of your thoughts about what do you think other folks in your generation are needing or longing for or seeking as it relates to faith and wholeness.

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How can we be more mindful and more attuned to those needs as adults as those safe, hopefully moving toward those healthy adults. What would you say about that?

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Cindy: Yeah. Mental health is something my generation talks a lot about. A lot of us are struggling with anxiety and depression and, a whole host of things that are, that we're struggling with internally. And it's really interesting because Gen Z, we have enjoyed so much progress in terms of all these technological advances, advances in medical care, and we just have access to so much more stuff than ever before.

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And it looks like it's so much easier for us to navigate life, technically. But, I would actually say it's been extremely hard for my generation to navigate life emotionally and psychologically. We grew up with cell phones and the internet and, you're like 13 and you're reading about all the tragedies that are happening around the world on your phone.

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And you're scrolling through them one by one. And, our brains are developing, we're so overwhelmed, there's so much going on, there's, we're also exposed to, cyberbullying, or, all the social pressures that you feel when you're in person at school growing up, we had to feel that also online, you don't get a break from that when you leave school and go home, you're wanting to belong and wanting to fit in. You can't only care about, Do I fit in, do I belong at school? 

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You also have to care about your online ever present persona. And a lot of us just grew up so overwhelmed and constantly alert and emotionally burdened. We have access to so much technology, but how do we navigate that? I don't think we necessarily know. Having opportunities doesn't guarantee that we have the wisdom to navigate those opportunities.

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So we need people to guide us and lead us to resilience and emotional intelligence and these sorts of skills that we can't learn just from the internet. We need the presence of other people in our lives, teachers, parents, safe adults who we can talk to about our feelings.

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We have so many feelings. And we really need safe places to talk about that. We need unconditional love. 

Alison: It really makes a lot of sense. In last week's episode I talked with Sissy Goff, who is a therapist, and she talks about anxiety, but one of the things she talks about is how, it underscores what you're saying, which is it's really on the adults, it's on the parents. We can't, as adults, sit around and bemoan the state of, it's no, we have to be a safe place.

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We have to figure it out and walk in there with you and hold that calm space with you so that your nervous system has a chance to release some of all some of that cortisol and some of that toxic stress that you're carrying around. We have to do. our jobs, if it means we have to get off line, if we have to do what we have to do to regulate so that you have someone to help you find those reparative emotional experiences with. It's really interesting what you're saying. Yeah, it's pretty profound.

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Cindy: And I would add, people in my generation, we're all trying to fit in, to be accepted, to belong, to be cool, maybe. And, what would be great for parents to be able to provide to their kids, or just adults to be able to provide to people that they're leading:

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As adults, you have all sorts of fears and desires for these kids, in your lives. But the big blessing for those kids would be, in the situation that the kid ends up doing something that you didn't want them to do or they didn't do something that you wanted them to…Do you think you can still be that safe person for them to talk to about it to walk with them through that?

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Because as kids, we are sometimes maybe even pushing those buttons like hey, is there a point where we will no longer be accepted by you? Where we will have to hide from you? And we want to push that sometimes. And having that safe experience with an adult, it's like a lived experience of what God's love is for us.

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God has high standards for his children. And those standards don't change if the children don't want to fulfill those standards, but God continues to pursue our hearts and continues to be our refuge and our sanctuary when we fall short and when we do the things that break his heart.

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And that's a very lofty thing to ask of parents, but it will give your kid a lived experience of God's love. And that will change your kid's life.

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Alison: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good word. Preach that. It reminds me of what Curt Thompson says, something along the lines of “we're all born into the world looking to be found”.

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And when you're describing whatever the kid is doing, even if it's to push you away, they're trying to be found. They're trying to say, will you come find me? Will you come after me? I love that. Is there anything else before that you want to add or answer? You've done such a great job. Oh my gosh, you're so articulate.

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Cindy: I've really enjoyed this conversation. We could probably talk for hours about just all the stuff.

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Alison: I know Cindy, you are just you're so articulate. I appreciate just your perspective and you're sharing your perspective. And I find myself as I listen to your story thinking I'm, when you paint that picture of being all alone during the pandemic and facing the existential realities as painful as that was. If there's a severe mercy in it to use that, is it forced to the surface? But I just think of how many kids are probably feeling that. And I just so appreciate your, you're sharing it with us. What would you want? Your younger self? I don't know, maybe back to 13. What would you want her, or whatever age.

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What age feels good to you?

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Cindy: Maybe four?

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Alison: Four. Yeah. What would you want your four year old self to know that you know now?

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Cindy: This is interesting. I'm still currently pretty deep in the process of grieving my younger self and when I think about some of the ways that I interpreted the world and messages about myself, it just brings tears to my eyes and I feel my body tense up as I remember how unsafe I felt and how deeply troubled I was always feeling. 

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My heart just breaks for her, but my younger self can sense that, and she knows that I feel that way about her, and that's really healing. Yeah, I guess I wish that she would know that she's a gift, and that she's not a burden. I wish that she would know that she's good. But, yeah, I don't even know if current Cindy is fully there yet. I guess that's also my wish for my current self.

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Alison: Yeah. Yeah, I love what you're saying. There's a paradox of grief, of having to revisit and the pacing of it too, the pacing of revisiting and knowing that we have a whole lifetime really to do the work of it. Re parenting those younger parts of us and helping them to understand what we know.

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But I love that you're getting little glimpses and that she's getting little glimpses from you and from other people around you. So it's beautiful what you're, all the work you're doing to give her what she deserves, which is just that. One of the things I love about IFS work is when we invite these young parts of us to unburden, they almost always want to dance and play. 

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It's always really light, and I just think about that for you, when about your little four year old girl, that's what I'm like, ‘cause I, I picture this hard working and I'm like, Oh man, I just hope she gets to have a ball. And I know you've been having, you've been doing a good job of helping her out. And what is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Cindy: Yeah, what you mentioned, allowing that younger part of myself to play and be silly. I have spent the past two months this summer in a really small town in Illinois. It's called Dietrich. It's where my husband and his family live. There are 800 people in the whole town, and it's been really good for me.

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From my story of just always chasing prestige and feeling a lot of pressure to always get the best job or like the most prestigious whatever it is, in this town, I feel none of that. It's so much easier for me to give myself permission to do less here, to slow things down, to just have fun and relax.

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And that's been so good to me.

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Alison: Every time we would get on the Zoom to talk this summer, you'd be like, I was at a carnival, 

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Cindy: Yeah!

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Alison: –or I was at a fair. It's funny listening, in the context of this conversation, there was a sort of wonder about you, just like that childlike wonder oh, she went to a fair.

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And it was just so cool to see you just enjoying it. That's cool. I love it. Let's see here. I cannot wait to hear more from you as you enter into this new chapter of your journey at my alma mater, at Denver Seminary, where you're going to be studying counseling. One thing I love about you, Cindy, is you are very clear about not putting that pressure back on yourself.

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You're doing it because you love it. You're doing it because you want to learn, you want to grow and you're really good about just being very clear about your intentions. And so I would love to, I cannot wait. I'm so excited to vicariously hear what you're learning about and what's bringing you life as you go through this journey.

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But we just thank you so much for just sharing your wisdom with us. You're just a gem and just such a gift. You've been such a gift to me. It brings tears to my eyes. I remember when I got that email from you and there was just something about it, the way you wrote it was so authentic.

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And I was really on this journey of needing help and not knowing how to get help. And we just started talking and both of us had very different seasons of life, but committing to being very true in the moment with each other about what we needed and our different growth curves and just effortlessly figuring out how to work together.

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And it's been such a gift to me. So I'm just so grateful for you and grateful for you sharing this wisdom with us today.

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Cindy: Oh, it's been a really big blessing for me to be able to work with you too.

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Alison: Yeah. It's fun.

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Alison: Thank you for being here and we'll I'm sure we'll hear more from you down the road.

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Cindy: Hopefully!

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I am thrilled to be back this week, diving into an incredible conversation with beloved therapist, Sissy Goff! We're tackling the topic of anxiety and its ripple effect on our kids and on our parenting styles. With 30 years of experience guiding kids and parents, Sissy brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. Plus, she's sharing tips from her latest book, The Worry Free Parent.

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We cover so much in this episode, including:

1. A parent's most important job

2. Why we are seeing more anxiety in kids (and parents)

3. 5 parenting traps

4. A parent's surprising superpower

5. Sissy's moment of hope in the Covenant School shooting aftermath

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

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Resources:

• Connect with Sissy on Instagram or at raisingboysandgirls.com
• ‍Pre-order The Worry Free Parent by Sissy Goff and get a free bonus chapter
• ‍Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna LembkeRelated Podcast Episodes

‍

Related Episodes:

• Episode 65: Vulnerability, Parenting, and Letting Go of Control—Inside A Guy’s Perspective With Our Friends From Dadville
• Episode 6: Do I Really Have an Inner Child? What It Means to Reparent Yourself
• Episode 54: Can I Pray My Anxiety Away? A Surprising Approach to the Anxiety Pandemic & How to Walk Yourself & Your Kids Through It

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

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

Head to GreenPan.us and use promo code BESTOFYOU and you'll receive 30% OFF YOUR ENTIRE ORDER plus free shipping on orders over $99.

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Visit hiyahealth.com/BESTOFYOU and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.

Get 35% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com/BESTOFYOU or use code BESTOFYOU at checkout.

Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week’s episode of The Best of You podcast! I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you guys last week. I took a mini break during the middle of the summer, and I’m so happy to be back today with you with a brand new Back to School series. This series is about parenting and kids and culture. This will apply to you if you’re a parent, but even if you’re not a parent, we’ve got some really great topics on anxiety and the culture in general and how to stay healthy as an adult human which is what all of us need, not only for our own kids, but for every kid and all the people in our lives. 

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You’ll see a theme through all of these episodes. The more we do our own work to become healthy, to become whole, to become centered, to learn what it means to honor those C words, those C words we talk about in Boundaries for Your Soul, and also back in Episodes 39 and 40 on the podcast: Calm. Confident. Clear. Creative. Curious. Courageous. Compassionate. Connected. Right? These grounding words where we know we are leading from that Spirit-led place inside, from a calm nervous system, where we’re leading ourselves, and we’re leading our emotions not the other way around. Right? When we’re in that place, we’re going to be the best parents we can be. We’re also going to be the best neighbors, the best aunts, the best uncles, the best siblings, the best godparents, the best grandparents. . . all those roles we step into with greater clarity and with greater courage, when we’re calm and doing the work ourselves. So, these episodes are really for all of us who are trying to show up effectively in the lives of the people we love. 

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So in today’s episode, I’m talking with a fellow therapist, Sissy Goff. Sissy’s amazing, and we really get into today why it’s so important for us to not parent out of worry, out of anxiety and what holds us back from that. Why is it so hard not to let our worry and our anxiety take us over, especially when we’re parenting, but really in any challenging situation. And some of the even really well-intentioned coping tactics we all have that actually get in the way of allowing our kids to grow and develop and thrive and develop their own coping strategies as they deal with worry and anxiety. So this is complicated to tease out, right? We’re trying to parent our kiddos through worry and anxiety, meanwhile we have to deal with our own worry and anxiety in order to do that.

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So if you’re looking for more resources as you’re listening to this episode, first, please check out Sissy’s brand new book, called The Worry Free Parent: Finding the Confidence You Need so Your Kids Can Too. And that’s exactly what this book is about. It’s a real deep dive with a ton of practical content to help you figure out how to major in the majors, what’s important, what matters, let go of what you can’t control, let go of what’s not yours to control, so that you can show up in the way that your kids need.

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And another resource you might consider, are Episodes 39, 40, and 41, or my book with Kim Miller, Boundaries for Your Soul, which is all about differentiating from parts of us. And particularly, in this case, you’d be differentiating from an anxious part of you as it comes out in your parenting; from a worry part of you as it comes out in this world—and learning to take charge of that part of you so again you’re leading from that calm, clear place inside, where you’re showing leadership. So you’re majoring in what’s major and letting go of the rest, and you’re seeing clearly to help guide your kids through the challenges that they face. 

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So with all that being said, I’m so thrilled to bring you today, my conversation with Sissy Goff. Sissy is the Executive Director of Daystar Counseling Ministries in Nashville, Tennessee. Since 1993, she has been helping young kids and their parents find confidence in who they are and hope in who God is making them to be. Sissy is a sought-after speaker for parenting events across the country and is a frequent guest on media outlets including CNN, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, NBC, and Christianity Today. She is the bestselling author of 13 books including her brand new book, which we talk about today: The Worry-Free Parent: Finding the Confidence You Need So Your Kids Can, Too. It’s such a great resource. Sissy’s a gem, and I’m so thrilled to bring you today’s conversation.

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Music

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Alison: Thank you so much for being here, Sissy. All of my work is with adults, primarily women, and I don't work much with children. I did a little bit during my internships, but I was so thrilled that you have this book coming out and have so many questions for you and and really excited to have you on the podcast today. So thank you for being with us.

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Sissy: I'm so honored to get to be, I've long been an admirer of yours and it's fun to get to connect and be kind of in person as much as we can be.

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Alison: I know. Thanks to technology. There's so much more we can do this way. I kind of want to dive right in. Sissy. I mean, you've been working with kids for 30 years. Is that right? And I'm curious, what, what got you started? Why kids? Why did you start out specializing, working with kids?

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Sissy: I wonder how many counselors would say this very same answer. But I became the person I wish I'd had in my life growing up. I grew up in a family where we didn't talk a lot about emotions or what was going on. I mean back in the 70s nobody was really talking about that a lot.

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No one was passing feelings charts around the dinner table to talk about that. And I was the kind of kid who smiled all the time, no matter what was going on. And I had a lot of really amazing mentors in my life. But I would have loved to have had someone who had said, 

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“Hey, Sissy, no one smiles all the time. There's got to be more going on inside of you”.

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And I didn't. When did you start doing this work?

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Alison: Oh, it's been about 25 years ago, myself. Yeah.

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Sissy: So similar. And I didn't even, I did not know a person who was in counseling. I didn't know people talking about counseling. And the only person I ever heard of doing something like this, you're going to laugh because we're probably, I'm older than you probably, but we're close to the same age, was Marlena from Days of Our Lives.

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And she was a child psychologist. And I thought, well, that sounds cool.

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Alison: Wait, was she really? I forget.

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Sissy: I think so.

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Alison: I wasn’t allowed to quote unquote, to watch Days of Our Lives, but I would sneak it because, and frankly, part of it was similar to what you're saying, because in the eighties, when I grew up, we still weren't really talking about feelings. And so some of the only ways you could get that was through television.

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You'd hear people having these dramatic conversations or whatever. So that is so interesting that Marlena was a child psychologist,

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Sissy: Can I ask you how you got started?

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Alison: As a therapist? Yeah, I love this. We can definitely go back and forth because I love talking to other therapists so much. For me, it was very much, it was, I didn't yet know when I started to become a therapist. It was less about thinking–I still thought I had a perfect family. Although through the process of becoming a therapist, you kind of realize all the ways in which all of our families, even the best of our families, don't get it right.

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And I love in your book that you talk about the fact that yes, in many ways we are learning now how to focus on mental health. And we talk about our feelings with our kids more, but we're all still in progress. We're all still learning. for me, it really was, my specialty is in faith and psychology, my PhD is in religion and psychology.

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So for me, I had this really deep faith in Jesus. I had a really strong faith, but I had no clue who I was. I didn't know myself and I didn't even know that it was okay to think about myself, to look at myself, to understand myself. I thought that was selfish. So everything I've done is all about really focusing on, wait a minute, it's not selfish to look at your own feelings, to understand your own needs, to think about your own nervous system. 

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Psychology was coming alongside my faith–it's great to know a lot about God. We need that. And also we need to know about ourselves. That's part of becoming a human, a healthy, whole human.

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And I love that you're taking that to parenting. The best gift we have to give to our children is to become our whole selves, which means we've got to deal with our own anxieties. We've got to deal with our own fears.

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Sissy: Yes. Yes. That's a beautiful way to put that, to become our whole selves. And we get to reflect more of Jesus the more we know of ourselves because we're able to be more authentically the parts of him that he's placed inside of us. So cool. Thank you for sharing that with me. I love hearing that.

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Alison: Yeah. Well, I love that you became that person that you had wanted to have been there for you. You became that safe attachment figure for other children, which is really what we're doing as therapists. We're becoming that reparative experience.

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Sissy: Yes, exactly.

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Alison: I love that. So as I read the Worry Free Parent, one of the things–I don't want to project onto you, but as I was thinking about what you were doing through my therapist lens is I could imagine you've worked with kids for 30 years. And through that, you're also working with parents. And I imagine, because it's really a book to parents, and in such a gentle, beautiful way, I hear you coming alongside parents saying, you guys are really the solution here.

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You're the solution to your kid's anxiety. Tell me what, what led you to want to write this book, especially to parents?

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Sissy: Yes. Exactly that. I mean, I can think of a parent I met with not long ago who came in and she was very concerned about her daughter and her level of anxiety. And the longer I sat with this mom in my time with her, you know how it is when someone's really anxious. It's like it wafts over to you.

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You can't help but absorb it. And I was feeling it as I sat there with her and tried to be really gracious and say, “Have you ever thought about going to see somebody yourself? Tell me about your family history, all of that”. And she said, which I so appreciate, she said, “I have a very limited amount of funds and I have a very limited amount of time. And so I've got to prioritize getting my daughter in”. 

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A lot of parents feel that way. And that feels like good parenting. I mean, I'm going to take care of my child first. And with this mom, it was evident that what her daughter really needed was for her mom to do the work herself first.

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Everything we know about family systems tells us the cogs are dependent upon each other and they're keeping each other turning. And so if the daughter had gotten help and not the mother, then nothing would really get better. And so I wanted this mom to get help herself because it's a trickle down.

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I mean, it's contagious. And her daughter was young enough. I really did feel like the source was the mom and in her most well intentioned loving heart, she was missing it.

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Alison: Yeah. Exactly. I love that. That in our most well-intentioned moments, we can still miss the very thing our kids need, which is for us to take that time, maybe even a little bit away from them, in order to become healthier so that the time that we're with them is more constructive, is of a higher quality, has more of that non anxious presence.

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I know so many of the moms I work with, they think that more, more, more, more, more is better. And I'm always saying, actually, what's better is quality. If you can give those kids some quality moments of that non-anxious presence. You say in the book, and I thought this was such a powerful quote, you say, “A parent's job is to be the calmest person in the room”.

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Sissy: That's a direct quote from a parent I was meeting with. I mean, it was a beautiful statement by this dad and this couple that I work with who are doing an amazing job with their kids. 

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They don't have parents that have modeled neither one of them anything that they want to do as parents and so we do parent consults at Daystar where parents are coming in to talk about their parenting and things they could tweak and that's what we were doing.

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And he was talking about how they both get angry with their daughter more than they want to, which I feel like you and I could talk about that. I'm hearing that from parents more than I've ever heard it before. 

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And he said, I was yelling at her and all of a sudden I heard this voice that I had recently heard at a conference I went to who said, “I'm the CEO of my company. A CEO's job is to be the calmest person in the room”. And he said, “ my job as a parent is to be the calmest person in the room and I am blowing it”.

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Alison: You're bringing up such a good point. Why are we all so on high alert right now? There's so much going on in our world. 

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You see all the things parents are dealing with. There's so much that we are dealing with, let alone our kids. And to myself, sometimes probably our collective nervous systems are activated. There's lots of research on all the reasons why, I don't know if there's any way to quantify that over history, but we certainly know this isn't a calm period of our history, 

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I guess what I first want to ask you is, you've been doing this for 30 years–are you seeing more anxiety? The stats are telling us kids are more anxious. I'm sure parents are more anxious. Do you actually see that in your practice? 

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Sometimes I look at the stats and that there's truth in them. And I also wonder, we're also diagnosing more. Right? We have more names to put on these things than maybe we did 30 years ago. So tell me, you've had a bird's eye view with kids. What do you think about that?

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Sissy: Oh, I love that you're saying that. I'm so glad we're friends now because we think very similarly. Yes, we're diagnosing more than we've ever diagnosed before and we're over diagnosing so many things today and at the same time, yes, I am seeing more anxious kids and more anxious parents than I ever have before.

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Especially for children the average age of onset used to be eight, it's dropped to six. And I would say for elementary school age kids, I'm seeing it more than I ever have. And then there is this significant uptick around puberty.

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Alison: Mm hmm.

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Sissy: So in those two time periods, I'm seeing it. I mean, among adolescents too, but especially those ages.

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Alison: Do you have any sense of the why?

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Sissy: Like you said, there's so many things we can talk about. I have never felt like there was as much pressure in as many areas of a child's life. And I don't think it's pressure that parents are putting on kids. It's cultural pressure that kids are supposed to be excelling academically in ways that I don't think it would have even occurred to us that we could do as well as kids are putting pressure on themselves to do.

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They're supposed to be excelling athletically, artistically, and be doing five different activities at all times and in leadership positions. Honestly, there are times that , “How do I become a lobbyist and go to the government and say, we've got to do something academically”?

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It's too much for kids. And I really do believe that. There's so much pressure. We could talk about technology. that parents are over-parenting right now. When you're talking about how things have changed and asking why I got into this, when you think about the 70s and 80s, especially in the 70s, the only parenting book was Dr. Spock. And all that I know he said was “smile a lot at your kids”, because that's the only thing my mom took from it. 

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And she smiled a lot and my sister and I, ironically, that's the compliment we hear the most–is that we smile a lot. Here, you and I are speaking to parents and adults from a mental health standpoint, but there's so many people giving input into all the things that parents and all of us are supposed to be doing.

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And that is lending itself to parents feeling more like failures than ever before. I mean, there's so many things that are factoring in. You could speak to this, more than I could even. I'm seeing parents who are overcompensating for what they felt like they didn't get.

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And so they're over-identifying emotionally with their kids and they're hearing them and attuning to them, but they're not giving 'em coping strategies to work through it.

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Alison: Yeah. We're being really candid here, listeners. So here are two therapists giving their thoughts on, I sometimes think of it as the pendulum. I was probably on the back end of the, “children should be seen and not heard parenting approach, which is, you don't talk about your feelings. All the focus is on behavior. 

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Especially when you bring the Christian overlay into it, which was part of my experience. And I do see what you're seeing. There's so much attunement and obviously we need attunement. We know that attachment is so important and also, children need boundaries. We know that children need resilience. We know that children need to learn to cope. We know that children need to be able to survive hard situations. 

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And so I do think you're right. I do think that the pendulum can swing so far the other way to put so much pressure on parents, but it's also not so good for our kiddos who sometimes need to learn a little bit the hard way.

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Again, it's that healthy balance of that book Dopamine Nation. Have you read that book? The author talks about the pleasure pain principle and how we need a little bit of hard things because that actually regulates in the brain the pleasure. We need the balance of both. We have to learn how to deal with challenging things in order to have that proper balance. So what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me. 

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So in your book you talk about different parenting traps, one being the helicopter parent. What are some of the other ways that you see parents out of really good intentions, but not quite getting it right?

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Sissy: Yes, and I'm glad you said that and that's what I mean as we're being candid, that's what I would want to take it back to again if you're doing any of these things it's because you're a really good parent and you're trying so hard to love your kids. You want the best for them and out of that wanting the best, helicopter parenting is definitely one. 

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I kind of made these up based on what I'm seeing the most and one of them would be snowplow parenting, that idea of we're going to clear the path ahead of them so they don't have to deal with hard things. We can make the bump smooth and make it really easy on them.

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Backhoe parenting, where I'm going to clean up their failure because I don't want them to have to deal with the repercussions of their failure. It is too much. 

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Sidecar parenting, which I feel like we both see a lot. This is what I went through when I was growing up. A parent thinking, “She's like me. So I'm going to step in because I assume that she's feeling exactly what I felt. And so she's going to be in the sidecar zooming around with me”.

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And then parade float parenting, where I'm going to make this as fun as it possibly can. And we're going to entertain ourselves along the way. So you won't feel any sadness or anything hard.

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Alison: How do you encourage parents who are listening, how do you mitigate? How do you begin, because all of this is driven by anxiety. To bring this back. I was thinking about how there's all these headlines screaming about anxiety. Our kids are anxious, it's such an anxious world.

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The news is half of what's feeding all of the anxiety and the response to all that is more anxiety. We start to clench. Our nervous system goes into that fight, flight, stay. We start to get more anxious and we double down on the anxious parenting, which is the exact opposite of what it means to be the calmest parent in the room.

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When we read all the headlines, when we see all the anxiety, when we see all the landmines and the pitfalls that our kids might be even headed toward, the response is not to double down on one of those styles that you listed. It's actually to take a step back and do the work of calming ourselves.

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So how do we do that? Right? The first step I would think is to begin to understand, gosh, this is the voice of anxiety. This is the voice of anxiety. I've got to take a U-turn and do my own work to work through my own anxiety. So how do you talk parents through that?

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Sissy: Yes. And I wonder if you experienced this too. There's something that happens with the amygdala. That's the part that's taking over, as we know, that it's almost like when you lived in a dorm or a sorority house and one person would start their period and then everyone's on their period.

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I feel like one amygdala gets activated and everyone is in that place where everyone's screaming, panicking, going down in the spiral together. I don't know that that's scientific, but it feels like it's what happens so much of the time. 

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So, okay, so what to do? The first thing I would say is, and again, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. We probably have the same ideas, but I want every family to have a code word. And a humorous code word is even better, so it could make you all laugh when you say it, but anybody in the family has the authority to say, “Watermelon” or whatever it is. 

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And when that is said, we're going to stop. Because like you said, if we're functioning out of our amygdala, we're not going to get to a rational place. There's going to be no productivity in conversation. There's going to be no healing, no reparations, nor restoration.. I can't even get to the words, you know what I mean. So, nothing good is going to come, like you said. And so, we need a pause. A word that makes us pause. And we each go to our separate spaces.

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And I will say to parents, “It is fine if you need to go to the bathroom and lock the door, it is absolutely fine to get away from them at that moment”. 

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And then it was funny when you were talking earlier, Alison, I was thinking, I would bet you're an amazing therapist, because even the way that you talk as you're engaging with someone, you talk slowly and I can hear your breath. My breathing is being regulated as I'm hearing you talk and breathe.

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That's where we need to start. We've got to slow down with parents and we've got to get their bodies calmed back down so their blood vessels can dilate, the blood flow can shift back to the cortex, all the things that we know. 

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Because it's easy for people to feel like mindfulness is really hokey pokey and there's nothing to it. Instead, it changes the chemistry of our brains in those moments and we can come back and have that healing conversation.

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Alison: That's so true. And no matter what, you have seen it all. You are truly working with parents who have seen the worst of the worst. And no matter what, I want people to hear it, going back to that breath of, I am here in the moment. I have what my kids need in the moment. They have my love.

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I always think, Sissy, that is how God loves us. God doesn't always fix it. God doesn't always make it better. God doesn't always clear the path ahead of us, but God is always with us. And that's what we're modeling for our kids. We may not be able to fix it for them. We may not be able to make it better. But you know what? We're going to be with them through it and that's what they need.

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We have to find that in ourselves. And I love that you'd go through such practical mindfulness, grounding, breath work with parents. That really works to keep you in the moment with those kids. And that's what they need.

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Sissy: And anxiety pulls us right out of it. We are not there with them in those moments.

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Alison: The other thing I love that you talk about in your book, Sissy, is another fantastic quote, “If you don't learn to stop criticizing yourself, that very same criticism will spill over onto your kids”. Tell us a little bit about that. What's the danger of our own criticisms for our kiddos?

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Sissy: well, I would say I am one who has a lot of critical self talk and somebody said that to me. A good friend said that to me years ago. She said, “you cannot hate yourself that much without some of that hate spilling over onto the people closest to you”. And it had never occurred to me up until that point that that's what happened.

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Are you an Enneagram person? Okay, I'm a One. What are you on the enneagram?

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Alison: Three wing Two. I always tell Beth McCord I'm a two and a half. I ask her if that's the real thing. 2.5.

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Sissy: 2.5, that's good. That's a great combo. Yes, so you do too then with some three. I mean, I'm seeing parents do this more than ever, where I feel like they're being so hard on themselves and so critical of themselves, and there's no way to stop that voice from spilling out onto them, because we have such high expectations of ourselves, and we're not meeting them, and inevitably, we end up putting the same high expectations on them, and maybe it's not academically, but in terms of their character.

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Our work, as you said before, our work is always going to ripple over onto them. And so when we're learning to have a kinder, gentler voice with ourselves, we're going to have a kinder, gentler voice with them. And like you said, it doesn't mean we don't have boundaries. It doesn't mean we don't give them consequences. But at the same time, we're compounding the problem if we're all in this shame spiral together.

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Alison: Yeah. There's such a difference when you're in a calm place yourself. When you say to your child, “I love you and we're not going to do this now”. And it actually carries more authority and more weight when we are calm than when we're activated and yelling or trying to extinguish a behavior versus entering into it with that. 

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Again, we're humans. We're fallible. We make lots of mistakes. I love in the book that you say “we get 50% of it”. 

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Sissy: Dan Allender. Well, and what you're saying Alison, one of the things I've seen happens is all the trends we could talk about. Kids are struggling with self-regulation more than ever before. Part of what I'm watching happen in counseling is kids, rather than learning to use coping strategies, are using their parents as coping strategies.

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And so I'm a child and I've gotten all in my amygdala and I'm reactionary at this moment and upset. If I can draw you into that battle with me, then I'm going to have an emotional release and I'm going to feel better because I got all that out. Which we know is a terrible pattern to be learning for the rest of our lives, if that becomes how we process our emotions–by drawing someone else into a fight.

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Alison: Wow, that's so interesting. It's sort of like, it's almost like co-regulation, but the unhealthy version of it. Instead of co-regulating them in the sense that we become that calm presence, which allows them to regulate themselves, we get drawn into it with them.

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Sissy: Yes, I never thought about it like that. That's exactly what it is.

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Alison: That's so interesting. I love that you talk about this in your book toward the end about trusting your gut. And it goes back to something you said about, there's so much information out there. This information highway can kind of freak any parent out. 

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There's so much, it's almost the opposite of what we had right when we were little. There was almost no information. Now there's too much. It's saturation. And so I love that in the middle of that, you're saying at the end of the day, you are their parent. You know what they need.

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Talk to us a little bit about that. It's good to read books. It's good to learn about these things. We need to educate ourselves. But at the end of the day, we are the parent. We are the ones God has put in our child's life.

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So what's that balance? How do we know when to kind of let the noise fade away and be in that moment with our kids? How do we know how to do that?

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Sissy: Well, we've got to do our own work. I mean, that's the biggest piece of it because the danger of anxiety with kids is being like the worry monster. With teenagers, I talk about it being the worry whisper, but we all have that voice in our heads.

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And with a kid, with a fifth grader, it is really easy to say, “You are not sick. There's no way you're going to throw up at this moment”. There’s worry spiraling you around that. What you and I would both know is that we could track development and know what kids are going to get stuck on in terms of the worried loop of thoughts based on their development because it's the worst thing they can imagine at that age.

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For parents, the worst thing that you can imagine is something happening to your kids. But instead of being able to say, I'm not sick, I'm not going to throw up. It feels real. Anything that you start to perseverate on as a parent can feel like this is my intuition and I've got to take care of my kids in this rather than “I'm in a worried loop and I'm stuck”. 

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And so like you said, teasing that voice out, learning to recognize that that’s anxiety. That's not my gut. That's not my intuition. That's not the Holy Spirit speaking through my gut. And then learning to trust. Pray and trust that that's God's voice and that's certainly what I do as a therapist more than anything.

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I pray that my gut is in line with the Holy Spirit and that's what I've learned to trust the most in a conversation with somebody as to where to go next. As to the question to ask. And for parents, intuition is a superpower and the more they use it, the more they lean into it, the more they'll trust it.

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Alison: Yeah. I love how in the book, you go after anxiety. It's a tool of the enemy because paradoxically, it actually takes us away from that God-given intuition, that God-given-Holy-Spirit-led gut. And so I love what you're saying. I kind of want to slow this down here for the listeners. 

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Number one, learn to identify the voice of anxiety. In the book, you say, give anxiety a name. It's a part of you. It's a part that needs you to learn to differentiate from it. When you name something, you're saying this is not all of who I am. I'm putting it out here. I'm separating out from it.

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You give some great names, and you do it with kids where they can really learn to identify, this is the worry voice. This is the worry monster. But that's what we do as parents too. We have to start to go, this is my anxious voice. 

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So number one is identifying that. I would suggest for those of you listening, if your heart rate is up, if your pulse is high, if you're in that state of fight flight, if you're tense, if you're feeling panicky,

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Sissy: –with the same thought circling back around and around,

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Alison: –all of those things are a good cue. It's your worry. And then you've got to do those other exercises: you go through the grounding, the mindfulness, the calming, so that you're not making decisions out of that anxious place. And that's what taps you back into that gut.

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the big part of it is first identifying when we're in the anxious mind.

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Sissy: Yes, exactly. And again, it's hard to do because the issue feels more valid than any other topic that our anxiety is going to attack.

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Alison: What do you see as the most common things that anxiety is going after? In one section of the book, you gave a list–you did a poll on social media, and you sort of created a list of the kinds of things anxiety is saying, the ways that it's speaking. Can you share some of those with us?

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Sissy: Two that stand out to me right now, off the top of my head: One is attaching future meaning to present problems. I remember a mom who said to me, “We were on a trip and my daughter threw her trash at the trash can and she did not put it in and she left it there for the cleaning people to pick up. She is not going to learn how to function as a human!”

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I get that that was disrespectful and unaware. And we're making this a little bigger, maybe, than the situation warrants, but that same version of the story I have heard thousands of times. Something my child's missing right now means that they're not going to be able to drive, they're not going to be able to have healthy relationships, they're not going to be able to xyz. We project and project and project and project. And so that would be one. 

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The other, and when I did that social media poll, in some ways it may have kind of birthed this book more than anything, but I was so disheartened for parents about their own sense of failure. That's what I felt like they were circling around the most. The thought of, “I'm not doing it right.  I'm not doing enough. I don't know how. I'm not the right parent”. 

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All the things, all the places we go in our heads when we're not our healthiest selves.

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Alison: And that voice, whether it's the anxious voice or a critical voice, when we're leaning out of that, that's what then is actually bleeding out to our kids. It's what's leaking out to them. They're picking up on that. It can feel righteous in a weird sort of way–that's not the right word–to beat yourself up. I'm a terrible parent. 

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But it's not helpful. It's not helpful to us and it's not helpful to our kids. So what's a way to reframe that? How do we reframe that voice in our heads as we begin to notice it?

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Sissy: Well, it's part of that code word of wanting parents to back up in the moment and do the breathing. And I want parents to think about why am I anxious in this moment? Because as much as parents feel like failures, as much as they're getting angry, it's typically because what they're wanting for their kids in that moment is really good.

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E.g. I'm angry as we're trying to get out of the door for school, really, because I know my child's already had five tardies this semester, and if they get another one, they're going to have to go to Saturday school, and then they're going to miss the birthday party that they really wanted to go to. 

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So it's all of these good things I want for my kids, but the delivery is off, and I'm getting angry instead of stopping myself and saying, I'm wanting more for them in this moment than they do.

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I'm more invested than they are. I've got to stop and let them deal with the consequences. But that reframing idea of, I feel anxious because I care about my kids, I'm trying to be the best parent I can be, it enables us to have a kinder, gentler voice towards ourselves.

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Alison: Yeah, I love that. I had a friend years ago and sometimes this comes back to me, but she would say the phrase, “sometimes you have to let the ceiling fall”.

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And when you were describing that moment. like even in my own life, still something will happen–I'll get sick, I had COVID recently and I had to cancel some things and it can feel like the world's going to end.

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And it's such a good reminder that the world doesn't end. It actually keeps going. It's okay. And the more we pause to really notice those things, there's a gentleness to that even in those parenting moments. 

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I love what you're saying. Like, I don't want my kid to get another tardy and the world won't end. We're gonna be okay. We're here really that changing that self talk inside of us and sort of showing up with that with our kiddos.

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Sissy: Yes. And if that parent could think, not only is the ceiling not gonna fall, but I know that suffering produces perseverance. And perseverance, character and character, hope. And so what my child is learning in this moment is hope, which is so much more valuable than the fact that they're gonna get another tardy

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Alison: Mm hmm. That's good. Oh, that's so good. Sissy, as we kind of wind down here, tell us a little bit about what's bringing you hope as you work with kids, as you work with families, as you work with parents. What's bringing you hope? 

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Sissy: I'm going to go to a really dark time before I come back to that, if that's okay. We have a little summer retreat program for the kids during counseling. So I have been there this summer and I've been in worship every night and really rich teaching and all of those things this summer.

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But when you ask that question, where I went to was I have been very involved in the Covenant School. A friend of Catherine Koontz, the head of school and I have spoken over there a lot of times and we have a lot of Daystar families that are there and so I was at the reunification center that day and walking closely through that with the school and the families and you know, it's one of the worst things that is imaginable in our world, certainly as a parent, as a therapist.

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I mean, it's unspeakable. Because I'd been there anyway, I ended up being on some news programs talking about it because of being local and all of that. And one of them was CNN and I had gotten a call to go down early in the morning to be on this live CNN broadcast and I get really nervous on things like that and I certainly don't want to but I certainly do and I was nervous about going and I was so emotional and exhausted and depleted.

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This was the very morning after it happened and I was supposed to be there, I can't remember, 5:30 in the morning and I went down, and I had not thought about the fact that it's cold in Nashville in March in the mornings. and I thought we were going to be inside some kind of trailer. And I go down, and we're outside, and I'm a nervous wreck.

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And I'm standing there. I didn't even know what it was going to look like. And it was like across from the White House. you see all the people lined up, and all the people are lined up on the street. And, I'm waiting to go on camera on live TV, and when I get cold, my kneecaps shake.

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That's such a silly thing, but I don't know why they do it, but my kneecaps were shaking. I don't know if it was more cold or nerves. And I turned around and the street we were standing on was directly opposite the Covenant School. And this was late March. And so here was the sign for Covenant.

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And that means you're entering onto their property. And I was, you know it's the darkest day I've ever experienced living in Nashville. And then next to that sign was the sign for the Easter services. And I thought, that's it. Like, there is nothing else we can say on our darkest day that I remember other than, he is risen. And this is the reason we even have Easter.That hope, that reminder of hope has really carried me. Every time I go back to that, every time that has spoken to me more powerfully than anything.

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Alison: That even in the midst of this darkest hour, he has risen.

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Sissy: Yeah.

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Alison: That is, that's it. That's the basis of our hope. And I love that. I mean, against the backdrop of everything you're trying to communicate through what you do and through this book, that's why we have to do this work of staying calm and staying in a place of hope.

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That's it. While we are still living, while we are still on this side of heaven, we have reason to hope and we have reason to give that hope to our kids. Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for the work that you do. 

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Sissy: Right back at you, Alison, you are delightful to talk with.

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Alison: Oh my gosh. I imagine you among all of these kids and I'm so, so grateful. And I know it's not easy. I know you see really hard things and such good work that you're putting into the world. So thank you for that. Tell people how they can find you, how they can find your work and this beautiful book that's coming out into the world.

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Sissy: You're so kind. Raisingboysand girls.com is our website and it connects you to all things related to us. And we get to be a part of the same family, the same podcast family, which is so fun. So we're podcast cousins. We could call ourselves that at TSF and you can find that at Raisingboysandgirls.com and then I try to be as active as I can on social media helping parents as much as possible.

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So @SissyGoff on Instagram and then David Thomas who's my male counterpart. He and I both are doing things on raisingboysandgirls.com.

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Alison: Great. I love it. Well, please get yourself a copy of Sissy’s book. It's so practical. So wise. So gentle. I mean, you really struck a balance of giving some real truths in a really gentle, encouraging, beautiful way. So, check it out and, I have one last question I ask all my guests, which is what is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Sissy: That's a great question. I would say I have a senior dog. She is almost 15 and she doesn't sleep as much as she gets older. And so she has gotten into the habit in the last year of waking me up at 6 or 6:15 every morning. I didn't used to wake up that early and it is bringing out the best of me. It has taught me to have margin in a way that I wasn't having before and I love it.

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Alison: I love that. Well, thank you so much for being here, Sissy.

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Sissy: Alison, thank you for having me. Thank you for your voice in the world and the difference you're making.

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Alison: Thank you.

Research shows that many men are struggling and not sure how to get support. So I asked our friends from the Dadville podcast to come on and talk about how to encourage the guys in your life! What a joy to host this insightful and fun duo! Jon McLaughlin and Dave Barnes are best known for their careers as musicians and song writers, but on their off-time, they encourage and inspire us on their popular parenting podcast, Dadville.

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You'll find so much wisdom in this conversation, including:

1. How to find joy in the dream vs. the destination

2. Guys and vulnerability

3. The true goal of parenting

4. Why we all have to face our own blind spots

5. A beautiful picture of letting go of control with our kids

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

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Resources

• "Art is never finished, only abandoned." -Leonardo da Vinci
• "Whenever we come together to share strengths it breeds competition; whenever we come together sharing our weaknesses, it breeds community." -Anonymous
• The Timehop app
• ‍Dadville Podcast
• ‍Alison's episode on the Dadville Podcast
• ‍Resources for support

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‍Related Podcast Episodes

• Episode 32: Productivity and the Never Ending To Do List: How to Stop Hustling & Embrace the Joy of Enough
• Episode 28: The Pain of Performing For Others and How to Claw Your Way Out with Toni Collier

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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.Visit hiyahealth.com/BESTOFYOU and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.Go to AquaTru.com and enter code BESTOFYOU at checkout to get 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier! AquaTru comes with a 30-day Money-Back Guarantee so if you don't like it just send it back for a refund, minus shipping.

If you've been searching for a better alternative to traditional healthcare and want to take your health to new heights, visit www.WildHealth.com/Premium to apply for membership.

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

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

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Transcript:

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ALISON: I really loved the conversation that we had when I was on your podcast. The thing that I'm most interested in, and I think my audience will be really interested in, is this friendship dynamic–how you guys are so open about how you're growing as men through being dads.

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Also, this way that you've connected to each other. There's so much research right now that shows that men struggle in making friendships. They don't know how to do it. We're seeing this with young boys too. How do we help men connect in ways where it makes sense to you? That’s intuitive. 

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And I love it that you guys are really doing it. You're so open and transparent about what's been hard about even being in therapy from time to time. And then you have this clear connection to each other.

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So I want to get there, but I would love personally to hear a little bit more about your background as musicians. Tell me a little bit about your journey.

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DAVE: Take it away, Jon.

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JON: Take it away, Dave.

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DAVE: See, that's how humble we are. We're constantly trying to make way for each other. So Jon's story is, which he'll tell you, he grew up basically playing piano since his fingers could move, which is one of the reasons he's so good at piano. But I got to do it kind of later.

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I played drums growing up, but when I went to college at Middle Tennessee State University here, I kind of got into songwriting and singing and really loved that. And it was a totally out of nowhere God thing. I mean, there's no way to explain what I do for a living other than God's very dynamic and catastrophically wonderful intervention in my life to change the inertia of my direction, where I was going. 

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Not in any dramatic way. I mean music, singing, and songwriting was not anywhere on my radar at all. And so when I was there, I started playing and really enjoyed it and singing and stuff. And then moved here and pretty much started immediately. I worked for another producer for a while and kind of did a record with him. And then, since then I've done it full time. And so that's 20, whatever it is, 22 years now. 

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Nashville is the place to do that if you're going to do it because it's got the ecosystem and, you can, you can do it here because there's a way to do it. And so I think that's some of why I continue to keep getting to do it.

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But, and, I think the longer you do it, you sort of find other things to supplant a little bit of it, like I write songs for other people now too. And we have the podcast. There's just, it's like doing music in 2023 is a wildly different thing than doing it in 1985.

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JON: It means that you don't do music full time.

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DAVE: Yeah. Well, I should say, and Jon can speak to this too, but, if you really do want to have a family, if you want to be home and sort of have any kind of home life, you really do have to sort of figure out other things to do to sort of help that so you're not gone all the time.

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But, I love it. I mean, I wouldn't do anything else. Ever, ever, ever. It's the best.

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JON: Yeah, like Dave said, which I do want to point out that Dave's kind words are very kind, but it's also a way of him saying like, “Oh, you guys have been doing this your whole life? Grammy nomination? Oh,I started doing this.”

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ALISON: Right. You got a head start.

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JON: But yeah, I grew up in a really musical family in Indiana. And the family is all still back in Indiana. I'm the only one down here in Nashville. And Dave is actually a huge part of me and my family being down here. We moved down here about nine years ago, but I grew up in Indiana playing classical piano from the, I mean, I don't have any memories of not having piano lessons, 

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DAVE: That's amazing.

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JON: And extremely grateful for it because I have no other skills, and so I don't know what else I would do. I'm glad that podcasting is a thing, because then it's like, well, I guess I could do that. As long as Dave's with me, I think I could do a podcast.

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DAVE: We listen to people talk well, is what that means.

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JON: That is exactly what we do. We have smart people like you on, and you help us get from week to week. So yeah, I moved down here with my family to kind of, dabble in the “writing for other people” thing as well. 

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Once my oldest daughter came along, up until that point, I had only written and toured for myself. And I had this panic moment when Luca was born, I was like, I can never leave the house again. I'm never, well, I can't leave now. Like Amy, my wife was always on the road for seven years. She came out on the road with my band. So it was a huge shift. And Dave was starting to write for other people around that time and having massive success.

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And so I moved down here and kind of dabbled in that it did not work out for me to write for other people. I know nothing about country music at all. And so I still tour and write for myself and I do this podcast with my neighbor Dave.

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ALISON: I hear from both of you that you've had to make some hard decisions along the way. There's these dreams–big dreams, big talent and some success. Tell me a little bit about how you've arrived at some of those, the maturity, I guess, that is required to both hold on to dreams and steward talents that God has given you. 

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And also make these hard decisions around your family and being a dad and being a good friend to each other. How does that, how does that play out for you? What are some of the milestones where you saw some of those decisions staring at you in the face and had some come to Jesus moments?

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JON: Yeah, I mean, as you're talking what comes to my mind, and what comes to my mind often especially living in Nashville and doing what we do, is you have to make–I don't know how to say it exactly–but you have to decide to enjoy the life that God has given you. Because there are a thousand different ways to see your life as a failure, and sometimes it feels like there's one little tightrope of a way that you can enjoy it.

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And it's there, but you have to decide to enjoy it. I mean, not to throw labels under the bus, but there is a way that they can, and artists as well, can turn successes into failures, where you do something, it hits, you're on the chart, and you were like, oh, we weren't even, we were just, the goal was here, and we've exceeded that, well now, let's move the goal to here, because all these people are. We're in the top 20 now, and then, well, let's get to the next goal. 

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I mean, Dave has had many number ones. He had this massive song with this artist that Dave, you posted the other day, which I thought was a great post because, and he wrote this really well written caption underneath it that was celebrating the song that had this massive success. 

And it got to number two. That is an insanely massive success.

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There's a way that the labels and there's a mindset you can have where you can be like, yeah, we thought it was going to be number one, and we didn't quite get there. And you're like, wait a minute, this is a huge success story here that we should be celebrating.

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And it's easy. Again, in this town with all this activity, with all this creativity and talent, it's really easy to take that mindset of like, well, I've got this, but it is nowhere near that or that or that. So in order to survive, you kind of have to choose to own the enjoyment of your own life and your own talent.

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DAVE: Yeah, it's, it's true. That's well-said Jon. And thanks for saying that. I think music is to me (Jon has heard me say this 5,000 times), but music to me—

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JON: Change it up. Change the wording up.

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DAVE: Okay. Music is a lot like roller skating and I've never gone here, but let's see what–oh, you've heard that one.

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I think it's a lot like professional sports in that it really is kind of a young man's game/young woman's game. And so, it runs on dream juice, it's like, it's all about what the next thing is and where you're taking it and where it's going. It's not so much about maintenance, it's about what the next thing is and what gets hard.

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And you asked such a good question, Alison. It's like, what gets hard as you get older and your priorities change is that it really doesn't help your business the minute you have kids and you get married. You have kids and you have this home life. 

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Your dreams start to divert, and all of a sudden this engine that has run on this juice suddenly, your family is the new engine that runs on that juice. And so you're looking at this thing at the side, kind of going like, “Man, what are we gonna put in that now”? 

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And so it's really tricky. It's a weird occupation that way because it's like, I laugh with a lot of my friends because novelty is king in our industry. And so you spike fast, you come out and you catch, and all of a sudden you shoot, you're at the top of that chart and then you're kind of like somewhat descending the rest of your career. And you'll stay and you'll plateau. But like, I laugh with my friends because we'll go get coffee, and they got the CFO job, CEO job…

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ALISON: They climb.

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DAVE: …they're climbing, and I'm kind of waving on the way down a little bit. Thankfully, it doesn't mean you can't have a career, it doesn't mean that you can't be successful and still enjoy it, because Jon and I both do. I mean, I've probably never enjoyed it more, which is great.

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I don't feel like we've ever been better at it, if you think about the 10,000 hours principle, but at the same time, it's a tricky job because you kind of realize a lot of your friends are now hitting their peak and you kind of do that in your twenties when you're us, because that's when it is the most valuable, it's the most interesting, it's the newest, you got to go see him live. He's awesome. 

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And then, the 10th time you've seen somebody live, it's still great, but some of that magic has changed into nostalgia, which is totally fine, but you really have to have maturity about it to your point, Alison.

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It's like you kind of have to know how to, and like Jon is saying, to think about it, to not walk off stage and go, “Man, when I played here three times ago, there were three times more people”, but instead go, “Man, there's still people coming to my shows that really enjoy it, and I still can do this for a living, you know”?

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ALISON: It takes some soul work. You guys have made choices and we all have to do this work. Whatever your job is, somebody's always got a bigger boat, whatever the thing is in your life. 

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But for you guys, you didn't have to make the choices you made, you've made decisions to keep your souls intact in some sort of way, shape or form that you didn't have to make, and I guess I'm curious, what do you attribute that to?

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I love your image of the tightrope. To kind of stay on it, continue to love what you do, but not fall off either side–the side of giving up everything, losing your soul, but to stay on top, killing yourselves and all your relationships, and I think the other side of that tight rope might be giving up all together on these beautiful talents.

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JON: Yeah, I mean, I think that some of the things that have kept me going are, like Dave, I absolutely love creating music and performing music. I love it. I would do it. I mean when people ask like, what would you do if money were no object? You have a billion dollars in the bank.

What would you do? I don't know. I would get more massages, but I don't think anything In my life would change, you know what I mean? I would like to get the house painted. I don't know. 

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So like, that is huge. I mean there is what I'm doing, and what Dave and I are doing, there is like a soul and our souls are involved, so it's easier to not be quite so drawn to the results of something.

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And I'm not saying that I'm above that. I have a new song coming out here soon. I'm like, I want it to do well. I want it to get on some playlists. I want people to hear it. So that's still there, but there is a very real element of “the work is already done”. I created this song that could do nothing.

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I could even not release it and I still have a huge box checked internally of like, I created this thing. There's this beautiful relationship with the art itself. Not to sound cheesy there. 

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ALISON: I love that. Because the irony of what you guys are saying is I think it could be Daniel Day Lewis who will still have that feeling of “it could be better”. That tension that you're describing is probably endemic in any creativity or work. 

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So the illusion is, if I got to that number one or if I got to that, whatever, I'll finally feel good, but the reality is you get there and there's something else.

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And so what you're saying is so beautiful–that the work is constantly remembering: “I created this beautiful piece of art.”

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DAVE: That's it.

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JON: Well, and that's another thing that is huge. I think it is a huge gift that I have seen time and time and time again–that sort of myth of like, you get to the top of the mountain and you've made it and there is no “made it”.

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There's nothing up there. You can get to number one but there's always again there's always some way that you can spin it. If you're doing it for the wrong reasons, there's some way that it won't give you what you are looking for. 

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If you're needing success in your job to give you something, it's not going to give it to you.

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DAVE: It's ladders that lead to more ladders.

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ALISON: It's so true. Yeah, and I think, again, it's such a subtle nuanced thing where there's ambition, there's drive, there's talent that are not bad things and you want to do well, of course.

I think sometimes in the Christian community especially, it can be too easy to have sort of a pseudo-humility or to kind of repress that all together. I see this in women. I'm sure it's there for men. You guys tell me. You want to do well, but you don't want to find your identity in it, because that is a house of cards that is never going to last. And I kind of hear that ongoing work for both of you.

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DAVE: Well, I think the thing you have to realize at some point, all of us, and it doesn't matter, industry or gender, we are co-creators. Like, we are the church, we are the bride to Jesus, and that means that God initiates relationship with us. He initiates. So much of our relationship, it's two ways, it's like God being with us and us being with God.

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And I think when we think about creation and jobs especially, and really anything, we have to get to this place. And it's such a struggle for me where it's like we have to let go. We have to create and then stop. We have to work and then stop. We have to, because one of the parts of faith that's so paramount is realizing that I have done what I feel called to do and I can't do anything more than that. And it is God's from now on. 

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From this point, we push the boat out and we wave and we go back to our family. And I think it's really hard when we attach too much identity to what we create. We forget that there's a faith element at play that we do the best we can with our part of that creation, but it ends. It's a finite thing. 

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I quoted this last week, I should look this up, but one of the famous painters said, “No great art is finished. It's abandoned”. And I think that's true with a lot of kinds of work.

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We all kind of feel like, man, if you could give me 10 more minutes, I can get these numbers right. Or whatever, I don't think it's specific to creation or creative careers. But, I think it's easier to understand where you feel like, God, let me fix that part right there, the bridge, we could get that a little more…and at some point it's like, it doesn't matter.

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You really have to trust that I've done my best, I'm abandoning. It's probably a better metaphor, honestly. It's like, I'm abandoning this work to God so he can finish it and fulfill it. And some of that stuff never gets finished and you get really sad. You realize like, man, that didn't achieve what I wanted it to.

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And then some does. But I mean, I think the eternal perspective, if you can have that perspective and lay over our current experiences, it's game changing because you reprioritize everything. You realize that kids are the real work. Our family's the real work. Our church is the real work. Our relationships are the real work. The work is wonderful. 

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Like our jobs are wonderful, but they're going to burn. Like it's all going to burn. It's not going to heaven with us. Now what God can use it for in our lives to shape us and mold us to become better people is very valuable.

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And some of it has really profound work in the world. I mean, I believe Jon, our music, and your books. These things do matter. They have eternal weight, but not near what we think they do. 

And I think the sadness I see, and one of the things that I think compels me so much with Dadville is to sit with other men and hear them going, “I think that too. I love my work. I want to do well, but gosh, the real work for me is with my kids”.

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Jon and I laugh all the time. One of our great qualifiers as dads is like, we want our kids to want to come home when they're 25 and hang out with us for a weekend. Like that's a win. Like we have done it. And to me, if you're not careful, you're going to have a lot of awards on your wall and kids who don't want to come home. 

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Is that really what you want? So I think when you lay the eternal perspective on top of that, and you go backwards to forwards, you realize like, oh man, to get there, I need to make some different decisions.

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Because that means probably less awards on my wall, but kids who are like, man, we're coming home next week, dad. And you're like, “Yes!”. And so they can end up staying in that room that was going to have the awards anyway. So it all works out.

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ALISON: I love that. Tell me a little bit about parenting. Tell me about, first of all, the ages of your kids roughly.

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JON: So Dave and I, our kids are exactly stair stepped. Dave has three and I have two in the middle. Mine are 10 and almost eight. And Dave, yours are 11, seven and…

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DAVE: They're 11, nine, and six about to be seven

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ALISON: How has becoming a parent, becoming a dad, brought out some of your own growth and your own healing? ‘Cause that's a pretty deep thing, what you said, like I realized, “here's what I actually want. I've now got to reverse engineer my life to get there”. So how did that bring up stuff inside of you then to ensure that happens?

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DAVE: Can we end here and just, it's been a great podcast. I've really enjoyed it. I've really, really enjoyed it.

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JON: You know, one of the first episodes we did was with this guy named Steven James and he was our first expert that we had on the podcast and I have quoted that episode so many times. I mean, it was years ago and it was such a pivotal moment for me as a parent.

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Because there was this one scenario that I was talking about, I've said it a million times, but where I was worried about Luca, my oldest, it was like she was going to school for the first time, kindergarten starting, the parents are having a meeting, the kids are all outside playing, and I could not focus on anything that was happening in the meeting. I was looking out the window, looking at things like, is she playing with other kids, is anybody being mean to her, is she being left out.

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And she was kind of playing by herself the whole time and I'm like, I really want her to make a friend. Like these kids are playing together. Why isn't Luca over there? You know? And he's like, dude, that, this is 1000% your problem. Luca is fine. She was playing with a leaf. She was fine.

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So that was kind of my first lesson in that. I mean, it was one of those moments where like, he sort of pointed this one thing out to me and it's like when you see an ant on the ground and then all of a sudden you see like another ant and then a thousand ants it was like, oh I can see how I'm doing this ten times a day with the things that I'm worried about it really sort of like trimmed away a lot of what I thought were my legitimate concerns with my daughters and really made me see like, okay, some of these are actually them and let's keep those all these other ones, you really need to work on those for yourself. 

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And it made me realize how important it is to operate, and this goes for anything, but as a parent, as a husband, as a friend, as a coworker, I mean, how important it is to, as much as we can, operate out of security and health. 

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Start there. As a parent, how much of my behavior during the day, like at the end of the day when I lay my head on the pillow, how much of the way I handled any given situations was because of me and what I was going through and the baggage in my head and what I was bringing into the room, versus what the situation actually called for. It's made me, it's kind of forced me to realize those elements that are at play. 

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DAVE: Which I'd been telling him for years!

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JON: Years, years in song, and I never listened.

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DAVE: Yeah, I mean, I'll say two things quickly. I think one, it's given me a lot of grace for my parents. One of the things that I think is really easy as you grow up and mature is to get to that age where you suddenly see that your parents didn't do everything right. 

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And for some people that's 15. For me it was kind of like late, late teens into twenties. And it's easy to kind of go scorched earth with that, kind of come home and be like, let me tell you everything you didn't do right.

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And boy, when you get engaged and married, that quadruples because you have somebody else going, “Hey, so fun fact about your mom or your dad…”. But I think when you have kids, you suddenly realize, “Oh man, this is hard. This is really hard”. 

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There's a guide in that we have the Bible, there's a guide in great books, but there's not a guide guide. There's no definitive answer to every problem you're gonna have. And I think for me, that was a huge moment to realize like, man, everybody's kind of doing the best they can, whatever that looks like. And that's going to change according to what they were given as kids and their parents. But that was helpful.

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And then I think the other thing, kind of what Jon and I talk a lot about, it's like this idea that you can only take your kids as far as you've gone yourself spiritually and emotionally. And so it's compelling to continue to do your own work so that you can keep trying to lead your kids that way, as opposed to truncating that. 

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And then when they're 25, past your maturity, and they come home and go like, man, dad's like a 10 year old when he gets mad, or he can't talk about this one thing cause he just? I think we've seen on Dadville so much where really wise people say like, “Hey, I gotta keep keep doing my work.”

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JON: Mm hmm.

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ALISON: Yeah. We talked a little bit about when I came onto your podcast, and you guys have said it so well, the goal of parenting isn't perfection. It's what you're saying. It's to keep that connection ongoing and that's where the rubber hits the road is really when your kids are adults.

Do they want to still come to you? Is there a safe place for them to come to you and say, “Actually when you did that, that wasn't great”?

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And you can take that because that's what keeps connection alive. That's what keeps connection alive. It's not that your goal is that your kids won't ever have a problem with you or ever come to you and say, hey. It's that you will be safe enough so that when they do, you've done enough work and all humility to say, you know what, you might have a point there.

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JON: Right.

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DAVE: And so we say it again, I almost wish people would hit the 15 seconds back and hear what you said twice, Alison, because what kind of deluded people do we think we are, that we are going to parent in a way that our kids at 30 sit down with us at Outback Steakhouse over at Bloomin Inn and go, “You know what guys? You stuck it. You stuck the landing. I have come out unscathed. I have only amazing things”.

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And I think we all laugh at that, but I think if we're really, really honest, I can dysfunctionally operate in a way like I'm trying to have the perfect card here. Jon does such a good job talking about this, but this idea that it’s not what we're shooting for. We're really trying to keep communication lines open and to be real and authentic and the rupture and repair idea that for what we do to rupture, we come back to repair.

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If I'm not careful, I'm in my sinful fallen brain going, man, I want to ace this, I'll take an A-”. it's a terrible way to go about life because it assumes way too much control. And the sense that there is such a thing as sort of doing it right.

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JON: Right. Yeah, and I get terrified when I'm in this headspace. I have to let go of the myth that I'm gonna nail this, that I'm gonna hit some sort of parenting bullseye. It doesn't exist. But, when that day comes and they do come back home and they sit down with Amy and I and they're like, “Okay, here are some of the things that were hard”, I want to know what they are. I want to be one step ahead. Because they're going to come in and they're going to say the thing that I'm going to be like, “No, no, I nailed that”! 

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DAVE: I was at every single game, ask your mom!

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ALISON: I love that.

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DAVE: I say this every now and then, especially when you meet your spouse, that there's this analogy I always use. There's a tableau in your house that you've seen a hundred times walking out the door.

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You know that tableau. It's the Barnes tableau. Then you bring your spouse and they look up at it and they're like, “Is that a woman eating that bear?” And you're like, “That's the woman that eats a bear. That's Deborah”. And they're like, “That's disturbing”.

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You're like, “When I say it out loud, that is really disturbing”. And then you sort of work your way through this tableau and you have this part and it's like, that's some weird family stuff. And you're like, now that you are here, it does feel weird. 

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And to Jon's point, I don't want to be like, “Honey, that's the bear eating woman. Why are you mad about this”? But I can go, “We do have a bear-eating woman on our table”. We need to be okay with that.

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ALISON: Yeah. It's like the shame that comes from being caught at something we didn't have a chance to pre-condition ourselves to acclimate to. It's vulnerable.

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DAVE: That is it. So then the question is how do you not get surprised in the community? It's people that can be in your life that look at you and go, “Hey Dave, like you have this quirk and I love you and we love you and we're committed to this relationship, but you kind of do this when this happens”. And you're like, “Oh shoot”. And they're like, “It's okay, we're here”. 

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But when you've had that conversation 15 years before your daughter sits down and has that conversation with you, you're able to go like, “You're right, honey. Like that's actually one of my blind spots. And I know that because I'm in a group of people that love me enough to go like, Hey, you kind of have this blind spot”.

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‘Cause if you don't have that community, that is going to be a really hard conversation, a really hard conversation. And I think if you look at the history of mankind, especially America over the last 75 years, you think about the greatest generation and the generations that follow, they're coming back from World War I and II and rightfully so, they want to be left alone with all the trauma that's happened.

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But what that hands down generation to generation is this mentality of “Hey, we are individuals. We take care of ourselves. That's none of your business”. We have seen, and our parents' generation has seen when you try to sit and have this conversation with your parents, it does not go well. Because “Who are you to tell me how I failed? Do you know who failed me? My dad, who left when I was five”. 

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And all that is fair, but I think it doesn't invite this communal learning. That is absolutely part of our faith. I mean, there's nothing to me that's as compelling about Christianity as the idea that we are a body. And that God is always pushing us toward each other. Always, always, always. 

Without it, you have these conversations, again, like Jon said, where they come home at 30 and they go, “Dad, you get really, you get really mean when this happens”. And you want to go, “No, no”. 

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But if you've had someone sit with you 15 years before and go, “Hey bro, you get really mean with this” you're like, oh shoot. So it becomes a common vernacular and you know, and again, that's your work. That's the work. 

‍

You're sort of spelunking the end of yourself to it and hopefully in a healthy way to kind of go like, oh, I may have some blind spots after all.

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ALISON: It's a muscle you have to exercise. And if you've never exercised that muscle to be able to see your own blind spots, to be able to see what's hard about yourself, shame hardens you. I have a friend who says “shame doesn't age well”. 

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And so because of all that shame. If you've never had a little bit of exposure to the little bit of, “oh, ouch, that hurts that you're seeing my family in this way”, or “you're seeing this side of me”, but “oh, I can survive it”.

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And actually, it draws us closer. And actually, you still love me. If you haven't been working on that incrementally, it builds and builds and builds to the point where you become that older person that can't take any real feedback. That can't be seen. 

‍

Part of why I wanted to have you guys on is what you're doing on your podcast–creating a space for dads, for men, to have these conversations as only guys can, with a lot of humor. And it's fun, but there's a lot of depth in it–you bring so much of the depth and the fun to it.

I know a lot of my listeners are going, “I don't know how to get my husband to engage in community in the way you guys are talking about, where he's open to some of these hard conversations, where he's doing this work of seeing some of his own stuff”. And so talk to me a little bit about that.

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How do we encourage men to do exactly what you're describing, which is be in community, be talking about what's hard, be talking about what's scary about being a dad. This is really vulnerable stuff. How do we encourage that?

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DAVE: Well, I was looking at your questions, and I loved this one because I think it's a wonderful question, but I actually thought about this for a while and I think that the two things that I thought about and you're right, I don't know that there's a definitive answer, but the two things I found myself thinking about is one, I think there has to be an agreement that everyone is struggling with something. There's no such place where every man is good. Like, I'm good. I'm good. It's like that in the Christian space, especially.

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That is antithetical. Like that's not a reality. Like God didn't create perfect guys who roam the earth for 80 years and then die. So it's some degree we, as men, are all struggling with really a myriad of things, but I would say especially a few things, whatever they are.

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So I think there has to be an understanding, moms, if you're thinking about your husband, it's in there, it is in there. If we believe anything about humans, it's in there. And then it's about, my favorite quote, Jon has heard me say this quote many times, but I think it's especially potent in this conversation, which is, I heard someone say, “Anytime we come together sharing our strengths, it breeds competition. Anytime we come together sharing our weaknesses, it breeds community”. 

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And so the thing that I always encourage my friends who are struggling in this space is like, start being really honest. And that sounds crazy. Cause guys like, no, no, no. But I think two things, I think that, and this, I think Alison, you may have said this, but men do a better job looking in the same direction than they do at each other.

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So that's a fishing trip, a drive, a trip together, watching sports. That usually helps a little bit cause it's not quite as intense as really seeing somebody and being like, I'm really struggling with lust. And they're like, do you mean with me or why are you staring at me like that? 

So I think, one, try to think of ways that we can be together as men that don't maybe feel quite as imposing. 

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But two, I did this when I heard that quote. It changed my life because I realized that I had these friends who I had a really hard time connecting with. I love them dearly, but like we couldn't and so literally it became sort of like a joke like I would sit and be vulnerable and it would it nine times out of 10 elicit amazing conversations and relationships that were so helpful to me because I would go, “Hey, can I, can I just, I'm having a really hard time with this right now and I don't know what to do”.

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And nine times out of 10, they go, “Dude, do you know how hard that is for me”? And all of a sudden you're like, here we go. We're in. Let's go. Yeah. Oh yeah. And it would take the bravery of going like, Hey, and it doesn't mean you have to be like, like the most bear you've ever been, but I think sometimes go like, “Hey, my kids…” And not like they're hard or I don't like, they're being punks, but say like, like let's use emotion words and say “they're, they really make me sad sometimes”. Like, or “I'm really struggling with feeling like I'm not being a good dad”. It is rare that I've ever had that conversation. So I'd be like, man, that sucks.

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And you're like, okay, that was good. High five. And we're out of here. But you usually find somebody goes, “Dude, me too. Like last week”. And then you're off, you're off to the races. And so for me, it's become a test pattern that I love doing, which is like, in those moments of friendships where I'm like, why is this not working? It's probably because nobody's being vulnerable. 

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It's probably because we're not being honest because the minute we are, it creates this crazy bond, and it gets easier the more you do it. Because everybody is, again, it goes back to point one, like some everybody's struggling with something.

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You're not gonna find somebody who's like, I don't have problems, and if you do then they're probably not gonna be a great friend anyway. I wouldn't advise hanging out with whoever that is. But I've found that for me that has been wildly helpful for me and my friendships.

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JON: Yeah, I don't know that I have anything to add to that. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I mean, it, it, it really is, I guess, about who's gonna take the first step. Who's gonna, in a group of guys, I mean, we always laugh about this, Amy and I, Dave and I, you can have a group of guys do a guy's night and the night after the girls do a girl's night and like I'll come home from a guy's night and Amy will be like, Oh, was Matt there? Yeah, he was there. Oh my gosh. How's his mom doing? She's in the hospital. I'm like, Oh, I actually didn't know that. You didn't talk about that? You hung out for four hours? What'd you guys talk about? We were joking the whole time, which is great, which is great. 

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But I do a thousand percent agree with Dave in that I've never been in a situation where or somebody in the room makes some one little baby step toward out of like jokey land toward vulnerability and is left hanging. It doesn't happen. And I think that like Dave said, the more you do it, the easier it is, and the longer it's been since you've done it, the bigger that lie of “you're the only one, they don't want to talk about how they yell at their kids because they don't yell at their kids. You yell at your kids, no one else does'' grow.

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You said you're not sure if there's an answer to this question. I don't know that there's an easy answer to the question other than: 

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Somebody's got to take that little baby step toward vulnerability and believe that they're not going to be left hanging because like Dave said, everybody has something that they want to talk to somebody about and it's not as socially acceptable for a myriad of reasons in our society for men to do that. And I think the older you get, the harder it is.

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ALISON: And how do your wives encourage you toward male friendships? 

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DAVE: I'm not saying that we do this well cause I think this takes a lot of time and wisdom, but the older I get, the more I realize there are times I look at it and you go, “I don't know that I can help you with this. I think this is better with your girlfriends”.

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And I think the same for her to look at me and go like “This sounds like stuff I'm a little under qualified to answer” or “It's not appropriate for me to be a part of”. And I don't even mean lust, I mean because I can't relate to you. I'm not gonna be able to look at you and go like I know that life.

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Or you can give terrible advice because you go “Well then stop doing it” because it's easy for you not to do it as a man, or a woman.

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And so I think a lot of wisdom comes from knowing what are the things that are not for me to navigate with you. Because I can't relate to it, and there'll be a woman that, for my wife, that she could sit down, and that woman goes, I know exactly what you're saying, where I could be like, let me think about that.

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I mean, I could get that. I don't really feel that way. So I think some of it is knowing hey, when is it not my turn to do that,

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ALISON: It's, it's so interesting. The whole thread through all this, we talked about art, creativity, work. We talked about being a dad. We talked about friendship, this whole friendship thing. The whole theme is really about letting go of control. And I think of that metaphor where you were saying you push the boat out, you do your best and you push the boat out with your art.

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But in a way, Jon, when you were talking about your little girl, being at school in a way, you did your best, you equipped her and then you had to kind of let her go that day and not micromanage, her, and obsess over is she making friends, you kind of let it go and trust her to God.

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There's this constant kind of, it reminds me of these attachments that we talk about where. healthy attachment isn't grabbing on. It's this back and forth. It's this flow of pouring in and then letting go. And it's really the same with our spouses. If we see our husbands hurting, and I hear this a lot as a woman. We see them feeling lonely or we want to go get them their friends.

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You might instead say, “I wonder if there's some guys that you might want to check in about that”, and then you gotta let it go. They might not. You can't orchestrate it. There's sort of this theme of you say what you can, you might name something even, even when you guys are talking about with a group of guys, you're like, well, I can try to be vulnerable here, and then I let it go. And typically guys take the bait. Sometimes they don't,

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DAVE: Well, and you know what's hard? I think that you're saying too, and this is, I don't know that there's harder work, personally, maybe in life and relationships than marriages where you're trying to respect, where you're, one, trying not to be too codependent, because I think we are all that way, even in the sneakiest levels, because it feels great when your spouse comes to you and goes, hey, I need help, and you're like, “You've come to the right person”!

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But to have enough wherewithal and wisdom and maturity to go, I want to answer this so badly because it would make me feel so good and it'd make me feel good with you looking at me that way. It's, “I don't know that I can help you here”. 

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The healthiest marriages I know have so much of that, that they really are two people that are married to each other. They're not one person. They are in some ways, but that is a hard discipline to have. But the thing that comes from it, and here's a full circle to your point. When I say, “I don't know if I can help you”, it actually pushes my spouse back into community. And I think there's nothing more dangerous to me than seeing older couples who are their best friends and they have drank the Kool Aid until they're both green.

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And you're like, you guys have lost the plot because you're mirrors. You're echo chambers of each other, agreeing with each other into oblivion to where you're irrelevant as people anymore because you sort of agree with each other and live in your little mountain and you're not coming back down to earth with the rest of us.

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And then the healthiest couples are the ones that are absolutely the opposite. They're in community. They're going, “Hey, my husband has these guys that he talks to that stuff about. And some of it I don't even know about. And some of it we talk about together. And then I have my women”, and I think that is really counterintuitive in some ways.

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You think, well, we're married. We're the safe place for each other. And yes, you are. But again, this is a communal experience. Like this is meant to be shared. And some of the most dysfunction I've had to deal with in my marriage is believing that thing that I think the church really has to be careful with, that “you are one in front of the Lord”.

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And so husbands, you stand before your wives and you answer for them. And some of that is true, some of it is true, but you have a relationship. Your husband has a relationship with God and with people. And I think we have to hold that space carefully because it can really compound that struggle already.

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Because he doesn't need friends when he's got you. Like he's gonna tell you everything and then you listen and he's like I'm good. We're instead of having the discipline to be like, “It's gonna be hard, but I don't know honey, why don't you talk to Fred about that?”

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“Oh, okay. Well, usually you want to talk about it.”

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“Well, maybe I shouldn't do it anymore”. 

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It's hard to do. God bless Fred.

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ALISON: Yeah. The image that I use is the overlapping circles of the Venn diagram. We don't become one as one unit. We have a steadfast overlapping portion of our two circles that is the bedrock, but we also each have circles off of that and some of them don't overlap, and so I really appreciate what you're saying there.

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You know, marriage is... it's autonomy and connection. But that's this whole tension of holding things loosely where you can name some things and you know sometimes our partners don't do the things that we want them to do, but that doesn't mean we can't name a couple things and then be really healthy in our own circles.

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It does take a community. Again, for our listeners. I would encourage you to check out the Dadville podcast and encourage your husbands and your significant others and the guys in your life as well.

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I think a lot of folks would benefit from it, but especially the guys because you are having these kinds of conversations in a way that's so relatable as guys. And so I appreciate that you're doing that. And I hope you'll keep having these conversations as a place for men, for dads.

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To hear guys talking about exactly what you guys were talking about. “Oh yeah, me too. Cause I'm hearing that on a podcast now. It's one level removed from vulnerability”. And I think it's. So great that you're doing that.

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JON: We have a ton of fun on the podcast and thank you for bringing our credibility up by coming on the podcast. Hopefully there are guys all around hearing stuff that probably their wives have said 10 times. But they hear it someplace else and then they're like–

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DAVE: They hear in a deeper octave. They're like, actually that resonates with me.

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ALISON: So tell me a little bit about what went into, what was your decision to start it out of your friendship? I think it's really neat.

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JON: Well, so, as I said before, Dave is my neighbor. Literally, we could share Wi-Fi. And sometimes we do. We've known each other for 20 plus years. And our kids play together all the time. 

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We're often sitting in our backyards on our porch, like talking about our kids and talking about our lives and our kids are our lives right now, to a great extent. And so one day Dave was like, “Hey, would you want to do a podcast called Dadville?” And I was like, “Yeah”. And that was it.

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DAVE: Yeah. It's what you said, Alison. Ultimately some of the subterfuge afoot is that we're trying to create a venue for dads to talk about what they actually really love to talk about that they don't always get the venue to do. And that's their kids and their family.

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I don't know many dads that if you really cue them up to talk about their kids they that they’re like “I'm good”. I think and I'm not gonna go on like a society bender about why the world doesn't do that, but it's not great at doing that.

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There's not a lot of great venues. Guys at business meetings aren't going, “Can we pause? How's Carla doing”? That's not happening and so it's fun to kind of feel like hey, this is a place we can do that. Let's talk about that. What are you scared of? What are you excited about? What, what are you learning? What do you want to do better. 

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We've been so encouraged because people really enjoy it. And I think people enjoy hearing that because there is a communal sense to it.

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ALISON: I love that you've created that space where it's normalizing guys talking about what matters. In closing, I want to ask you two questions. You guys asked the question of me.

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JON: What do you want your kids to say at your funeral? 

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ALISON: I would like to hear your guys' answers to that.

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JON: It's tough and at this moment I sympathize with all the guests.

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DAVE: Yeah, all of a sudden I'm like, why do we make people do this?

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JON: No, it's hard because obviously there's so much. It's overwhelming whenever you distill it all down to a moment like that. There's too much in there. How do I sum it up?

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This gets to what we talked about a little bit before. If I heard them say, “We could tell him anything. He would always listen. And we knew that he loved us unconditionally”. That would be, I would be elated. 

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What more could you want if we had that relationship and they knew that they could always tell me anything, knowing that because part of the frustration of becoming a parent and one of the best parts about becoming a parent for me was this feeling and it has affected my faith.

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It has affected my relationship with my parents. It's this feeling of like it's a different love than you've ever felt before. It is this Unconditional love that exists in no other relationship. It's in a different category, you know and part of the frustration day to day when I'm talking to my kids sometimes is I'm like, ah, there's no way I can really get across to you how much I love you.

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You can't get it across. And hopefully one day if they have kids, then they'll, they'll feel it. And then it will inform their relationship with me and with God. This unconditional love. And so if at the end of my life they say in some sense, “We knew that and we knew that we could always go to him”, that would be amazing.

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ALISON: That's beautiful.

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DAVE: I think mine would be that they could always go to Jon. “Dad's gone, but gosh, we can still go to Jon.”

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JON: Jon's still here

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DAVE: kidding, no, I think two things. There's a million answers, but I think the main two that I think of right now, are one that “I will miss him”, because I think it'd be powerful to think that you ended well, that it wasn't sort of like we were kind of waiting for this a little bit. And “We love him, but like, boy, it got weird there at the end”. 

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But I feel like I see that a lot with parents where it's like, as they get older, it gets trickier. I pray that I can end that well, that they still feel that they do miss me. 

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And then I think exactly what Jon said–I think some version of them knew that I loved them, which is really simple. But it's true, that they'd say we never doubted that.

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ALISON: what would you want that younger you to know about being a dad that you know now?

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DAVE: Jon?

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JON: I think whenever we have guests on Dadville who are further down the road, if their kids are older or they're out of the house or whatever, I do feel like Dave and I we laugh about this, but we always have a string of questions that have the theme us asking them to tell us everything's gonna be okay. Please tell us it's all gonna be okay. And I feel like that would be what I would want to say, because that's what I wanted to hear.

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And that's what I still want to hear. But I would want to say to my younger self, “I know it's hard. relax and enjoy it. And because it's all going to be okay”.

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ALISON: I love that. That's great.

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JON: And also Dave's going to want you to do a podcast in a couple years. And try to get 75 25 if you can

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DAVE: Also, bet on the Patriots. Every Super Bowl they're in, bet on them.

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JON: And then, “Go Buccaneers”!

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DAVE: I agree, except for that one. My biggest struggle, and I actually feel like I've done this pretty well, but I can't say it enough to myself, it's to be present. 

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I have this app called Time Hop and it's my favorite app. Every morning it is one of the first things I look at and it takes pictures from whatever day for every year and you've got pictures on that day and it's such a sobering reminder of the speed of time.

‍

You know here's what you're doing a year ago today, two years ago today, three years ago. And there's so many times I see my kids and they're tiny, and I'm like, I would give a million dollars to have an hour with three year old Ben, or two year old Zanna. But at the same time, I'm like, I feel like I did a pretty good job of being still, but I think that's something I would really double down on. It's like, as much as you can think to be present, be present. 

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JON: I do love that app because Dave will send us + our wives, we have a text thread, and Dave will often send us that day's picture because oftentimes it's like our kids together. And so I do feel like that is a sort of a hack that we have that our parents didn't have that helps us stay in that mindset. 

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Be present and also know it's never going to be enough. It's always going to go by too fast. 

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DAVE: I remember with Ben vividly putting him down to naps and taking my hand and feeling his legs and his arms and his little head and thinking, remember the weight of him, how he feels on your neck. It's going to go away. And I couldn't be more present. 

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I was like Neo in the matrix and I was like, Oh, that's the way it was. Look at his little folds

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JON: I love how you do that with all of our guests, too, that we interview.

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DAVE: Yeah, yeah, I do. And I hold them tightly. And I feel they're their shaved faces

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JON: Their stubble.

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ALISON: You guys are great. So, to close out, what is bringing out the best in you right now? 

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JON: I mean, to answer on a lighter side, I feel like this summer has been great. The summer has always been, for me, it's always tricky because it's like the kids get out of school, and I am guilty of always having like, rosy colored glasses for the future. Like, this summer is going to be the best! The girls are never going to fight! We're going to eat healthy all the time! 

‍

And then it's too busy. It's too busy. We have too many trips and the next thing it's like what? We're buying backpacks already? 

‍

This summer has been really great. I feel like this summer taking my girls to the pool, I'm kind of doing some of the things that selfishly I did as a kid and liked. And I want to do those things with my girls and I feel like the summer has so far been really great. We've had our tough times because we have kids and we're humans, but it's been great.

‍

ALISON: That's cool.

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DAVE: You know what I love during the summer is dusk. Right as the sun is setting, we were playing baseball in the backyard last night at like, whatever that is, 7:30. And that little time of the day, it's so sweet. It's like right before everybody's going to bed, but I was running around the backyard and I was like, man, this is wonderful. That little magic hour in the summer to me, it's so great. So I think that's been really fun.

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JON: I love those moments where you can appreciate quietly with yourself. It can be random moments. This is one of those moments.This would make the montage of my life. This little innocuous moment right here.

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ALISON: That's beautiful. I love that. Well, thank you guys for coming on and sharing with us a little glimpse into your world and a little glimpse into the Dadville podcast. Tell everybody how they can find you and connect with your work.

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DAVE: It's www.dadvillemindspring.net17227. Look at Alison's face, haha 

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JON: This is where Dave and I are terrible. We are comical. We're always like, do we have a website? Where do people get Dadville? (Here’s their podcast link: https://pod.link/1517698133)

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ALISON: It's great. You have great conversations. I think if you're listening and you're like, “Oh, I'm worried about my husband” or “I'm worried about my boyfriend. I'm worried about my son”, it's a great place to start—to listen to some guys who have got a lot of depth and are super relatable talking about real things. Really appreciate you both.

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JON: You have been very kind. Thank you for having us on.

‍

DAVE: Yeah.

This episode is an absolute must-listen! If you're a woman journeying through your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, or if you're parenting a daughter, you don't want to miss this conversation. We dive into women's health, including menopause, perimenopause, hormone shifts, reproductive health, and ways to empower young women and girls. Dr. Leslie Appiah is a nationally-acclaimed OB/GYN who has helped women and girls for decades. Her practical and insightful approach is such a needed voice for all women.

‍

Here's what we cover:

1. The impact of hormones on mental health

2. How to get relief for perimenopause and menopause symptoms

3. When to consider an anti-depressant

4. Why your physician might not have a clue

5. How to find one who will!

6. How to empower your daughters to live free of body shame

Do you have questions about friendship for Dr. Alison or Dr. Appiah?⁠ Leave them here.

‍

Resources

• ‍Seek Dr. Leslie's services through the University of Colorado
• ‍Called To Medicine website
• ‍The Menopause Talk with Oprah, Drew Barrymore, and Maria Shriver
• ‍Find a Certified Menopause Provider
• ‍Submit your questions related to women's health here!
• ‍Resources for support

‍

‍Related Podcast Episode

• ‍Episode 63: Spiritual Direction, the Power of Listening, & How to Attune to Yourself and to Others

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

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Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.

‍

Transcript

‍

Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week’s episode of The Best of You Podcast, where we are diving into some of these “therapy adjacent” ways of tending to your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. And in today’s episode, we’re going to dive into the physical health side of things, because especially if you’re a woman, you know that your hormonal health, especially during some of these key seasons of life, really has a tremendous impact on your mental, emotional, and even your spiritual health.

‍

I’m so excited in today’s episode to introduce you to my friend and colleague, Dr. Leslie Appiah. She is here to talk to us all about women’s health, including hormones, menopause, perio-menopause, reproductive health, and some of the practical things you can do to make sure you’re trending to your hormonal health especially as it impacts your mental and emotional health. This is a fantastic episode. We get so practical. And, Dr. Appiah has agreed to come back on a future episode of the podcast to dive into our questions. As you're listening, please go to the show notes or to my website dralisoncook.com/podcast and look for The Best of You Question Doc. You can enter your questions into that Doc, and we will address those questions with Dr. Appiah in a future episode of the show. 

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Dr. Leslie Appiah is a nationally acclaimed Ob/Gyn-Gyn physician who specializes in the reproductive health of girls and women. She is also a Professor and the Division Chief of Academic Specialists in Ob/Gyn at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She is the founder of Called to Medicine, where she coaches female physicians to create and sustain satisfying careers in academic medicine as well as provides resources to help women advocate for their reproductive health care. We’ll talk a lot more about that in this episode.

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She is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters and given over 100 national and international lectures and workshops on women’s and children’s reproductive health. She serves as chair of several national and international committees on reproductive health and is the recipient of numerous awards including:

• The 2022 American Medical Association Women Physicians Inspiration Award,
• The 2022 American Medical Women’s Association Exceptional Mentor Award, and 
•  The 2020 Baylor University Distinguished Alumni Award

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She is also a 2022 inductee into the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society (AGOS) and an alumna of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program.

‍

She lives in Denver, CO with her husband and 2 middle-school aged children. I’m so excited to bring you this conversation all about women’s health with Dr. Leslie Appiah.

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Alison: I am so delighted to have my friend and colleague on today to talk to us about women's health and the overlap between our medical health and our psychological and emotional and even our spiritual health that so often is divided into these silos where you go see a medical doctor and then you go see a therapist when in fact a lot of these things overlap.

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I'm so thrilled you're here, Leslie, to talk to us today about all of these things.

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Leslie: Thank you so much for having me, Alison. It's my pleasure. And I'm excited to talk about these things. As you've stated, it has a big impact on women, their mental health, their physical health, and their ability to care for themselves and their families. And so it's super important.

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Alison: Yeah. So I want to start just asking you a little bit about your journey. Tell us about yourself. You're our first medical professional on the podcast. Tell us a little bit about how you got interested in medicine and women's health in particular, and what fueled your passion.

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Leslie: Absolutely. Well, I'm one of the lucky ones where I was able to really figure out what I wanted to do very early in life. So at age nine, I became interested in pregnancy. My friend got pregnant and I was able to go along her journey with her. And I was just fascinated by the idea of helping a woman to bring this healthy, beautiful baby into the world.

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And so I knew at age nine, I wanted to become an OBGYN. And so really just stayed on that course, college, med school, the whole time never deviated for at one moment. I thought I would become a literature professor because I love literature. And so that was a moment in college. But really my heart was with caring for women.

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Alison: From age nine.

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Leslie: from age nine. I knew at age nine. So I entered college medical school and never really deviated from that.

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And in medical school, I had the opportunity to shadow a reproductive endocrinologist. So a physician that specializes in infertility and reproductive tract. And in that experience, I was able to see her perform surgery on an adolescent who was experiencing reproductive health difficulty. And I just fell in love with it.

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This young girl, it had impacted her ability to function at school and just her happiness and mental well being and to see the condition corrected. And to see her just so thankful, I knew I wanted to do that. So I decided to pursue a fellowship in pediatric and adolescent gynecology after completing residency in obstetrics and gynecology.

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So specialty training in adults and kids and helping them to have their best reproductive health. 

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Alison: That's amazing. It's so interesting because I was actually just talking to my daughter about this, who's now a young adult, around how thinking about women's reproductive health starts very young. Now. I mean, when I was young, we weren't talking about it, but now they're really talking about it starting much younger.

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Is that right?

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Leslie: Right. And you know, the age of development is about the same. It hasn't changed much. So the average age of menses or having a menstrual cycle is age 12. And that's only slightly different from, you know, several decades ago. And when you compare it to the pre-industrial age, women started much later.

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With better nutrition, we started a little bit earlier. But for the most part, you know, menses is around age 12 and breast development is around age 10. But we are discussing it more because now we know we can help young girls with the difficulties that they have.

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Whereas in the past, it was one of those “grin and bear it” type things.

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Alison: And when you say difficulties, what do you mean, Leslie?

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Leslie: Menstrual cramps, right? And we see endometriosis in adolescence. We see ovarian cysts in adolescence. Women suffered. And so we told girls, this is what it's like to be a woman. And, and we all just kind of suffer, but it's a problem, right?

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Because it affects the ability to go to school. Some girls can miss up to five days of school a month if we don't intervene or try to address their difficulties, can't participate in sports, can't spend time with friends, girls become anemic, right? So there's so much that can negatively impact their quality of life that we can now intervene.

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Alison: I love what you're saying–for so long it's just been like this is what it means to be a woman.

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You suffer. And only recently, you know, is there more and more research, more people like you coming alongside saying, no, we can alleviate some of this suffering. Being a woman doesn't just mean you have to suffer. And I just, I'm so grateful for people like you who have devoted your lives to alleviating some of that suffering.

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Leslie: Thank you. No, I completely agree. I think about the annual exam, right? So we start having annual exams, you know, really as adolescents, the well child exam and then in our 20s. And I don't think that, unfortunately, we do a good enough job of preparing women for what to expect as we enter perimenopause. We spent a lot of time discussing contraception and pregnancy, but we don't discuss the hormonal changes that women are going to experience and the fact that they're going to experience this in their thirties.

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We discuss perimenopause in our forties, menopause in the fifties, but just as fertility is declining in our thirties, so are our hormones. And so really we need to be discussing this with women very early on. Too often I hear women say, “No one prepared me for this. I don't know what's happening to my body. I'm now having hot flashes, joint pain, I can't sleep at night, I'm crying all the time…” and we should be prepared for that right? This is not a surprise.

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Alison: It's so true. I have so many friends who've said to me, “I turned 40 and I kept going to my doctor, like, ‘What is wrong with me?’ and the doctor was like, well, your body is changing, but nobody tells you.” 

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You kind of get prepared for adolescence, right? Like there's this sense of, I mean, hopefully there's this sense of your body's going to go through changes. You might have growing pains, you know, these things are going to happen. And so when it happens, it's hard, but at least, you’re prepared.

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Leslie: Can I add another thought on that? I think even in adolescence, we make that experience aberrant, right? We say, well, you know, teens go through these things and they're going to be terrible. And all of that is normal. Right. They're going through these huge hormonal changes, and we should normalize that, and we should embrace that, and we shouldn't make adolescents feel as though something is wrong with them, and they're just a burden to have around, and you know, oh, if they could just behave.

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It's normal, and so if we can normalize that experience, we can then also normalize what women are going to go through in their thirties and forties and prepare them and then how to manage it. Right? It doesn't feel good. It's not great, but we know it's going to happen. So we should prepare women for it.

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Alison: I love what you're saying. There's almost a stigma or women feel some shame. I just watched the movie that's out right now–”Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.” Have you seen that?

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Leslie: I haven't seen it. 

Alison: It's all about, you know, coming of age. And I just, it just took me right back to those feelings as a young girl. There's shame involved and then as an older woman, right, there's shame and all this stigma and I love what you're saying to normalize.

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This is just what our bodies do. This is actually amazing that our bodies do these things and just talk about them.

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Leslie: Right. And then how can we help women go through these changes, right? So that it does not have a negative impact on their quality of life and they're able to function. I mean, you know, that's the age that many women are able to really take on their careers full force, right?

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Because they've been raising children in their thirties and early forties, and then to be encumbered by, you know, sleepless nights and be worried about how you're going to present in the boardroom and the office because you're sweating. It's just not fair that we don't help women be ready for this.

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Alison: So let's talk about this because you're, you're exactly nailing it. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on was because there's so much overlap between mental health and our physical health and this whole menopause thing, whenever I see women or talk to women who are in their forties, fifties, I'm hearing now it should be even earlier. And there's any of these symptoms, right? That we're talking about fatigue, irritability, sleeplessness, brain fog, joint pain… 

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We can be so quick as therapists to go down the road of depression, anxiety, not that that may not be the case. A lot of this is in the context of changing hormones, right? So what should women who are experiencing some of these things that we're talking about, what would you recommend they do to attend to this hormonal side of things?

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Leslie: Absolutely. And to your point, you know, there are several times in our lives that we experience these hormonal changes, right? So premenstrual women have that dip in estrogen and they become symptomatic postpartum, right? Wide swings in hormones and then the perimenopause.

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So these are times that women are going to be particularly vulnerable to mood disturbances. And, studies show that as women enter the perimenopause, they're 45 to 70% more at risk of experiencing depression than they ever did in their premenopause. So women on average–let's say 25% would experience depressive symptoms in the perimenopause two years before the menopause–we're talking 45 to 70% increased risk of experiencing that.

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For women who are feeling sad and very tearful, it is important to first check in with your mental health provider because the first line for treatment is going to be, you know, antidepressants, right? After you've dealt with the behavioral things, right? There are things sometimes in our environment that we can change and we need to address.

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But after looking at antidepressant therapy or discussions around it, cognitive behavioral therapy, all of those things that we use to address depression, we know that estrogen replacement improves depressive symptoms for women in the perimenopause. We don't see that same benefit in the menopause. So once women are in their fifties, we don't see that. 

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And it makes sense because the mood disturbance is as a result of the fluctuation in the hormones. Once the hormone levels fall and they're steady, we aren't going to see such depressive symptoms. It's the fluctuation, the up and the down.

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Alison: I want to pause there. This is all very interesting to me because I talk to my friends about this all the time. So what you're saying is the fluctuations that start late thirties, early forties, there's fluctuations in the hormones that lead to the increase in propensity to depression. 

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Once you cycle through it and you come out the other side, when everything balances out, even though that estrogen is lower, are you saying you kind of hit a new baseline? 

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So here's my question. Do you hit a new baseline that is just more depressed in general, or does your body sort of catch up and it's kind of like going through puberty, you even out, and then you feel more like yourself.

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Leslie: Right, right. It's not that you're going to hit a baseline of depression. It's that you're going to kind of go back to who you were, how you felt before going through that transition. And so again, we see that during those times premenstrually, postpartum, and then in the perimenopause.

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And the studies really do show randomized controlled trials have shown that adding estrogen replacement therapy to patients who are on SSRIs, SNRIs, or who don't use that therapy, does improve their symptoms. And then you can reassess as they're going through the menopause, whether or not they need the antidepressant therapy or even the estrogen replacement.

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Now, you know, estrogen we use for hot flushes primarily in the perimenopause, but there are many, many benefits to estrogen as we are in the perimenopause.

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Alison: Leslie, let's, I want to back up. I could just dive in. Let's make sure all our listeners know, because again, so many of us haven't even scratched the surface of what this all means. Technically, how do you know you're in menopause?

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Leslie: Absolutely. So the definition of menopause is 12 months of a cessation of menses. So when women have had no menstrual cycles for 12 months, they are by definition in the menopause. The years preceding that are the perimenopause. When menstrual cycles become irregular. Sometimes they start to shorten, so they become more frequent.

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Some patients have heavier menses, or some women have heavier menstrual cycles, some women have lighter menstrual cycles, but they'll ultimately start missing menstrual cycles. And that's the perimenopause. And usually that's between ages 45 to 51. So the average age of menopause is 51 to 52.

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Alison: Okay.

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Leslie: But again, even before women start to experience the irregular menses, they start to feel some of those vasomotor symptoms, the hot flashes, the night sweats, the mood changes.

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And it's interesting, even as an OBGYN, I experienced that in my thirties and I did not know what was going on, right? It never occurred to me that I was experiencing hormonal changes. I changed my mattress. I changed my clothing. I changed all these things. 

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I thought, what in the world is wrong with me? Like, why is this happening to me? 

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And then they just stopped after several years and I just sort of ignored it. And now I'm in the menopause. And so it's back. But, so yes, we start to experience those symptoms even before our menstrual cycles become irregular.

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Alison: So that whole period, it could be 10 years, it could be eight years, you know, anywhere before you have that full year of cessation of your period, your hormones are going to be fluctuating. And that's that whole period when you're going to be more disposed toward depression, toward irritability, in addition to a lot of those physiological symptoms, which is just good for women to know if you're in that, you know, late thirties, forties, and you're experiencing some of this, a lot of it. That potentially could be a result of these fluctuating hormones. 

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Again, I love what you're saying, Leslie. Check it out with a mental health provider and also check it out with your, would it be your OBGYN?

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Leslie: Yes, it would be OB GYN. There are some internal medicine providers and some primary care providers who specialize in women's health, but it would have to be someone specialized in women's health. Not all primary care providers, not all internists feel comfortable with women's health. And so if a woman were going to rely on that, that would be the recommendation to look for someone with expertise in women's health. 

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And I will even say not all OBGYNs are well versed in menopause. And I think women know that, right? Because we've been seeing our OBGYNs for our entire lives. And yet we are not prepared for this because not all physicians have that experience. And I will say this.

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The Women's Health Initiative that came out 15, 20 years ago did many good things, but one of the downsides was that a lot of women were pulled off of their hormone therapy. But even worse than that, education around menopause and hormone replacement therapy was discontinued in our medical education.

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So there is a generation of physicians who don't understand hormone replacement therapy, don't understand the menopause because hormone replacement with therapy is not for everyone, right? 

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But you need to understand the menopause, you need to understand perimenopause and what women are going through because it's really harmful to dismiss these symptoms for women.

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Alison: I love what you're saying. I mean, I love how you said that. Again, just, just for listeners to hear that there's suffering involved in the sense that your body is not functioning right. You don't feel well. And you're, like you said, oftentimes your kids are older, you've been looking forward to maybe having more capacity, more bandwidth.

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And then suddenly your body doesn't feel well. And you don't know if it's depression or if it's your body, either way, even if HRT isn't an option for you, there are still other things to try.

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Leslie: Yes.

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Alison: And I just want to add, Leslie, I mean, my experience with, you know, the medical community is, I've had very few people who know what to do. I've had very few doctors. So that's so interesting what you're saying, that a lot of doctors just haven't even been trained. It's like this whole missing piece in their training to help a woman in her forties who has these vague symptoms to understand what she's going through.

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Leslie: Yes, I remember as a resident, a patient would walk in with these symptoms and you would almost go into a catatonic state yourself because you would not be prepared to have this discussion. 

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And this could be a 45 minute discussion, right? So there's nothing worse than a woman feeling gaslighted for going in and saying she's having these symptoms and someone say, well, yep, it's that age or, you know, go get your thyroid checked.

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And yes, we should check all of these things, but for the vast majority of women, it's the perimenopause, it's the menopause and we need to know how to help them. Period.

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Alison: Yeah. So just to recap here, you should definitely see a mental health provider, but look for a physician that somehow specifies that they've been trained in women's health too–physicians trained in perimenopause, that they've got some knowledge, or you're probably going to walk away frustrated.

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Leslie: Absolutely. And the North American Menopause Society certifies providers in menopause. So one could Google “certified menopause provider” and find one in their area. And that would be my recommendation because those providers are going to give evidence-based care. They're going to discuss the full range of options, right?

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Non-hormonal to hormonal, behavioral, dietary, exercise, the entire gamut to make sure that women choose the option that is best for them. And what I find, Alison, is some women just want to understand. It's not every woman who even wants an intervention, right? 

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Some women just want to understand, “What am I going through? What is this? How long is it going to last? And what kind of things can I do, support wise, to get through this?”

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And we honor that. We honor that.

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Alison: I love that. You use the word gaslighting. Nobody wants to feel crazy. You know, this is normal, right? There's a name for this. It's going to last. 

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Now I want to ask you, Leslie, you did mention once you get through the 12 months where you are now full on in menopause, what happens after that? 

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Do you suddenly just feel fine? Does it take a little while? Are your hormones still, you know, when, when can you anticipate? Because I'm thinking of women who are like, okay, I've got a name for it. This is what I'm going through. You know, at least now I know I've got these options.

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And then the question is, when will I feel better? When will I feel more myself? And, and I know it's different for every woman, but give me a sense of what happens to the body after you're officially in menopause.

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Leslie: Sure. So unfortunately, Alison, it gets worse before it gets better, to be honest. and part of me, I struggle with the definition of menopause, right? Because it kind of gives the impression that this is a finite period, right? The 12 months you stop having periods, you're in the menopause. That's really when symptoms tend to get a little bit exacerbated and women can experience the hot flashes, night sweats, mood disturbances, brain fog, lack of focus, joint pain for seven to 10 years.

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Yes, after you're officially diagnosed with the menopause, you’ll experience that for seven years on average,

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Alison: Wow.

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Leslie: I have women who are on hormone therapy in their late 60s, early 70s, and, you know, trying to discontinue it, they're very symptomatic. So some women just have those symptoms for a really long time.

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We know that there are some ethnic variations, some ethnic groups, Hispanic women, Asian women, African American women tend to sometimes experience menopause differently. Part of that is cultural, how menopause is discussed in the culture, right? For some cultures it is discussed for many, many years and decades.

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So people are prepared and they plan to go through it and they're better prepared. And in some cultures where these things are taboo, women may experience more difficulty because they're not as prepared or aware of what to experience.

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Alison: Interesting. So as you prepare, when you use that word, I know you've kind of gone through the gamut of, but is that what you mean by where you prepare, you adjust your diet, maybe you adjust your exercise, maybe you even create more margin? 

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What, what do you mean by prepare? Do you adjust your expectations to some degree so that you're not stressed all the time because you can't figure out what's going on with you?

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Leslie: Right. I think that's primarily adjusting expectations, understanding what you're going to experience and that there are options for you. And then what those options might be. I think knowing is a good thing. It decreases part of the anxiety and stress around it. The studies show that the Mediterranean type diet is supportive of menopause in terms of severity of symptoms, the cognitive challenges that women experience, you know, decreasing the amount of alcohol we take in, and being as healthy as we can be.

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Alison: Mm hmm.

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Leslie: It's going to be particularly helpful during that time. Smoking cessation is going to be helpful during the perimenopause. So those sorts of things are things that women can do to help mitigate some of the symptoms that they experience. I think just a lot of self care and understanding, “I'm not feeling well today, so I'm going to dial back a little bit if I can”, right? Not everybody can, but “I'm going to dial back a little bit on the intensity of what I'm doing”, to try to mitigate the symptoms. 

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But you know, hot flashes might happen seven, 10, 12 times a day, you know, so you can't always avoid that. But those are some of the things that women can do.

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Alison: Yeah, it's a chunk of time. If you think about the perimenopause all the way out the other side, which is what you're saying, it can have a long tail out the other side too, until you really come to baseline. And I know it's different for every woman, but I'm also thinking as I'm listening to you, that you've got all of the different options that you've laid out medically. 

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And then I can imagine that getting mental health support, maybe even an antidepressant, could also be part of your treatment. Even if the bulk of the symptoms are a result of the hormone fluctuations, there's no shame in that, and it certainly could be helpful, even if you're someone who hasn't gone that route before, that might be a route that could help. 

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I could imagine that it could be a way to just care for yourself. Just give yourself a little extra help to deal with some of the irritability and that kind of thing, especially if you're still parenting or you're working full time or you've got serious demands. That could be a way to get yourself some relief.

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Leslie: Absolutely. Absolutely. Many women are just going to need an antidepressant. We could do cognitive behavioral therapy, but some of us are going to need an antidepressant. Even women who have never experienced depression ever in their lives before, have an increased chance to experience it. 

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We know that having had depression and anxiety before, you're going to be at an increased rate of experiencing it again. I think that the study for women's health across the nation showed a two to four fold increased risk of depression. And that four fold part is for women who have had depression in the past and women who have experienced adverse life events. And what we are seeing is that that plays a big role in the mood disturbances around the menopause, a history of adverse life events,

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Alison: Are you talking about trauma essentially?

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Leslie: Trauma, exactly trauma, yes, that is going to increase it. 

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And so those women will need antidepressant therapy. And I think what women sometimes misunderstand about it is that it doesn't have to be forever, right? There are adjustment type disorders that we can use antidepressants for 6 months, 12 months, a year, 2 years. And then wean women off and they do fine, right? 

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This is a period of time where we're experiencing an adjustment to a new phase. And it is okay to use these therapies. Many times they're just really low dose, uh, therapies that women need, um, around this time.

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Alison: I just love what you're saying because, again, there's just no stigma and I think about a lot of conversations right now are happening in the mental health field around trauma and around healing, CBT, some of these other modalities, IFS, EMDR, and a lot of it's amazing and a lot of it gets at let's heal the the childhood memories, let's heal the wounds and we don't want to just necessarily treat the symptoms. We want to get to the root. 

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But when it comes to something like what we're describing–perimenopause, menopause–where there's this huge hormonal change, you could CBT yourself all you want and you're not going to fix the fact that– correct me if I'm wrong–that your serotonin and your dopamine levels are changing and that's just a physiological thing and an SSRI can provide some relief. We have to function. 

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Leslie: Right. And CBT, you know, and talk therapy, and those other therapies, they're going to take a while to work. If you're getting down to those adverse life events, it's going to take some uncovering of layers. And women have to go to work tomorrow, right? 

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Not that antidepressants work immediately. They also take time, but people have to function sooner than later. And so it's going to be a combination of those things. 

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You know, one of the things, to your point, I think networks are really, really important for women. I think it's important for adolescent girls, right? To have these positive support groups, systems in place that they can talk through things and women who are in the perimenopause and menopause are going to need the same thing, right? We're going to need that because it takes a stigma away.

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Alison: So good. It's so true. You've got to find your person or your people with whom to go through it together. Don't go through it alone.

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Leslie: Right. And that and that's for all kinds of mental health things and just life in general. I think about how to build resilience and how to have an overall sense of wellbeing. I think those networks are important in teaching girls how to find healthy networks as adolescents.

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That's part of what we do as a pediatric and adolescent gynecology provider. I talk to all of my girls, all of my patients about their friends and their peer groups, because all of that plays a role in their mental health. All of that helps them to manage these fluctuations in their hormones. Who are the people that you spend time with and how are they supporting you, right?

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And I think that's really important for women. And thankfully we're talking about this more, you know, Oprah has her series out. And so this is what women need to have these conversations and these networks and these dialogues to help us get through this.

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Alison: I was so glad when I saw her put it out in the public conversation in a destigmatizing way. I want to talk a little bit about–we kind of did this in reverse order–I also want to touch on, while we have a little bit of time left, how you also help women advocate for their reproductive health, starting with young girls. 

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I'm curious, what would you say to our listeners? How would you want them to be promoting reproductive health in their daughters?

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Leslie: Right. Yes, absolutely. So I think first, we as adults are going to have to become educated in what is fact and what's fiction, right? There are a lot of myths around all sorts of reproductive health issues around fertility, abortion, menopausal health–there's just a lot of myths. 

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And I think women, we need to educate ourselves about these things so that we can have honest, open dialogue with our girls, because our girls are going to get the information from somebody, right?

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And we want that information to come from trusted sources. And so part of teaching girls to advocate for themselves is to help them understand what is factual about their health. And that is why we encourage parents to bring their young girls to see a gynecologist. It's between the ages of 12 to 13. And that freaks some people out because they think, “Oh my gosh, I'm not going to bring my daughter to a gynecologist at that age. I don't want her to have a pelvic exam and we're not doing that.” 

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But we are having a conversation about what is normal and what is abnormal in your development–breast development, discharge, pubic hair, body odor, what emotions you might feel as an adolescent. We have discussions that are age appropriate.

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At age 12, we're going to talk about your body changing. As they become older, we'll talk about the hormones and the emotions that they're feeling and how to manage those emotions. But I think the more the girls can have these conversations with physicians who know the truth, the better they can be prepared to advocate for themselves as they get older.

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And part of what we do is we talk about advocacy, right? When a girl comes in, we make sure that the appointment is very centered on her. What do you feel comfortable with? What do you feel comfortable not talking about? So we begin to empower them in that visit. So that when they walk outside of our office, they can be empowered in their relationships with other people.

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Alison: That's amazing. I love what you're saying. So as a parent, you can rely on (and I would assume) these gynecologists who've been certified in a specific way. It's like a parent has a wingman, right? 

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These are hard conversations and there you've got a doctor, a trained physician who can help your daughter normalize and understand what's happening with her body. I love that, which equips her to not feel shame about it, to not feel stigma about it, to have someone to talk to about it, to be more likely to talk to her mom about it, or her dad about it, or her friends about it in a healthy way.

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Leslie: That's absolutely right. And you know, I think many parents also think that we're going to talk about sex and how to have sex, but that's not what we're here for, right? That is a parent's role to have those discussions. We will probe as appropriate and provide appropriate information because we want girls to be safe.

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But that is not the primary focus of that visit, right? The primary focus of these visits is to help girls understand their changing bodies–what's normal, abnormal and how to advocate for themselves. And we start that by giving them power and autonomy in that visit.

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Alison: That's amazing.

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Leslie: Right. And so women start having those conversations with their children and then women also need to begin to advocate for themselves.

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I think, I mean, we know women are intimidated by physicians. Even as adults, women go into the doctor's office and they present their complaints, and if they're not heard, they sort of leave it at that, right? Because they don't want to push back against their physician or alienate their physician.

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But really then you should just find another physician, right? If the physician that you see is not hearing you, then you need to find another physician, because you need to feel totally empowered. It has to be with your reproductive health provider. And so I just encourage women to do their research, interview different physicians and to see who they can truly partner with in their care.

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And so that's my goal in terms of helping women to advocate for themselves. What is the knowledge that you should have? Right? What is fact? And then what are your options for care? And then hopefully women can take that with them to their physicians and find someone who really wants to partner with them in their journey in their reproductive health journey.

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Alison: Gosh, that's such a great approach. And it's so interesting listening to you, because it's the same thing I say to people about therapy. I always say to people, you should interview a therapist–you should interview a couple. And so many people have this idea of, “I go to my medical doctor and they're the expert and I just have to take, you know”, as opposed to this idea of partnership.

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And I would say the same thing to people about therapists, but it's so fascinating to hear you say that. Similarly, about a gynecologist or an internal medicine doctor that go to a couple, see where you feel comfortable, see where you feel like someone's inviting you, you know, where you're going to partner together around your health.

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Especially as women, when it comes to your reproductive health, you need to have some agency in that.

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Leslie: That's right. That's right. And, you know, it's intimidating because there's all these co-pays and you have to pay a copay for this doctor and then will insurance cover that doctor? 

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Women can really start online looking at the physician bios. What do they say about how they view health care? Are they there just to do things correctly and pick the right diagnosis, or are they there to really support you through your journey and do shared decision making? And the biggest honor for me is when a patient comes to me and says, I researched you. I researched everything about you online and I decided that I wanted you to be my physician.

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And unfortunately, some women wait six, eight months, a year even to see me. They refuse to see anyone else because they've decided that they want to see me based on what they've read and the reviews. And I take that seriously, right? So when I see that patient, that patient has set the bar, right? They have told me what they expect and I am going to live up to that.

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And so I partner with them and help them to make the best decisions by giving them the evidence and then seeing what's comfortable for them. That's what we should do.

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Alison: I love that, Leslie. I want to have you back on at some point, if you're open for it, to take some of our listener questions for you, because this is just such an important part of our holistic health, our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health is especially as women, and I just so appreciate all that you do, all that you pour out for so many people. 

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I want to ask you this because I ask all my guests and I'm curious, what do you wish your younger self knew? I would imagine your younger self would have been in medical school studying a lot of this stuff. What do you wish you knew about your hormonal and medical health as a woman, when you were in your twenties that you know now?

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Leslie: Yeah. You know, that's a great question. I think that fortunately I was an athlete, and I'll start there because I think physical health is really, really important to an adolescent girl's mental health. And it's important to our health as we get older, partly because we learn how to engage with others when we're doing competitive sports and those sorts of things, and our bodies are the best that they can be. 

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So thankfully I was an athlete. And so I felt very confident in that part of who I was in terms of physical wellness. I would say that networking and identifying people who were the best people for me is something that I didn't know how to do and I didn't know how to do when I was younger in my twenties. I developed that a little bit better as I entered college and formed a really great network of women in college, but I would say, and this is not medically related, but I would say figuring out what you're good at and just doing that. 

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Like don't try to be someone you aren't. Don't try to strive for other things because people do them. Really identifying what I am good at, and doing that. I think that builds your self-esteem and that helps you to make better decisions in your relationships, and it helps you, I think, to advocate for yourself because your esteem is developed. 

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That's what I would say to my younger self. Health-wise, I would say there were no concerns there, but I would say in terms of developing that confidence, self-esteem, I think doing the things that I was best at is the advice I would give my younger self.

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Alison: I love that you've, well, you've certainly found a niche.

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Leslie: I love what I do. I feel fortunate to be able to do it. I love hearing women's stories and, and really just being present for those visits. And so I wouldn't be doing anything else. I love this.

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Alison: I love it. How can our listeners find you? I know you primarily work with other female physicians, but how can folks who are listening find you and learn more about what your services are?

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Leslie: Absolutely. So as you know, I am the division chief of General OB GYN at the University of Colorado. And so I am fortunate enough to be able to provide consultative services under that role as a faculty member. Individuals can seek services from me through the University of Colorado. 

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And then you spoke about the coaching. So my company, Called to Medicine, allows me to coach and support young female physicians to continue to build their career in academic medicine, cuz I think it's so important that women remain in medicine and that we remain in academic medicine so we can train future leaders so that we can make sure that women are involved in research and in research studies and push the initiative forward for women's health research.

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One of the things we didn't get to talk about was kind of where the research is going with perimenopause and menopause, but we need more research and we're going to need women and women from diverse backgrounds, geographically, ethnically, socioeconomic status wise, to be able to push this research forward.

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And so that is partly achieved through Called to Medicine. And then the last part of that, as you stated, was to help women to advocate for themselves and, and would love to just share knowledge and education so women feel empowered.

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Alison: Well, we will link to your company website in the show notes. You're amazing. Leslie, I've just loved getting to know you as a person and I love getting to know more about your professional passion and all that you're doing for women and girls and just so grateful for you and other female physicians.

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If you're listening and you're in the field or you have friends who are in the field or you have daughters who are in the field, please send them to Leslie's website, Called to Medicine. We need you. There's just been, for too long, unnecessary suffering for women, so thank you. Thank you so much for what you do. And thanks for being with us today.

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Leslie: Thank you, Alison. Thank you for having me on. And I'm so thankful to have been able to get to know you over the last few years and that you're doing this podcast and really just shining a light on all of the things that women and humans experience. And so I appreciate you. And I would love to come back and answer questions from your audience.

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Alison: I'm thinking we need to do that. That would be really cool. Thank you. All right. So everybody check out The Best of You Question form if you've got your questions for Leslie and we'll plan another Q and A in the future.

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Imagine if someone sat with you and listened to you attentively for as long as you needed. That's what I experienced through a series of spiritual listening retreats. And today, I invited the Rev. Dr. Stephen Macchia and a spiritual director in training, Rowena Day, to talk with us about the practice of spiritual direction and deep listening as one component of your mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

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This episode is so rich, so soothing, and so deeply nourishing. As a therapist, I have found spiritual direction to be a powerful part of my own mental health practices. It's also taught me so much about how to become a better listener in my relationships with others.

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Here's what we discuss:

1. The deepest need we all have

2. How to attune to your own soul

3. The neurobiology of presence

4. What to do if quiet is hard for you

5. The links between spiritual and mental health

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

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Resources

• More about the Emmaus Certificate in Formational Leadership
• The Spiritual Journey 3-book series by David G. Benner
• "God shows up disguised as your life."-Paula D'Arcey
• Visit leadershiptransformations.org
• ‍Seeking God Together by Alice Freiling
• ‍Crafting a Rule of Life by Steve Macchia
• ‍Ephesians 3:16-19
• ‍Psalm 62:1-8
• ‍Romans 12:1
• ‍stevemacchia.com
• ‍Email Dr. Alison to be connected with Rowena
• Resources for support

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‍Related Podcast Episodes:

• ‍‍Episode 31 and Episode 44 with Rowena
• Episode 47: Spiritual Bypassing vs. Embodied Faith & How Not to Harm Those Who Are Hurting, Including Yourself

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

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

If you've been searching for a better alternative to traditional healthcare and want to take your health to new heights, visit www.WildHealth.com/Premium to apply for membership.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.

Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code BESTOFYOU to receive UP TO 39%!

Visit hiyahealth.com/BESTOFYOU and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.

Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone. And welcome back to this week's episode of the best of you podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you keep coming back this summer. We finished up a series on friendship last week, but I felt like there was still more to mine in that well. There are just so many questions I get about how to increase support, whether it's through therapy or through some of these other ways that we're going to talk about in these next few weeks.

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So this is a little mini series. I'm not even sure it's a series. I'm going to do a few episodes just on other ways to increase your support, other ways to make sure that you are flourishing in as many ways that are in your control, that are in your capacity to control.

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We can't control everything. Sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes we're struggling, but there are things we can do to pull in support. And again, I think about that MEPS, that mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual and Each of those dimensions, we need to be checking in and thinking about where do I need a little bit of support?

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Where do I maybe need a little bit of input? Where do I need somebody checking in on me? And so in these next few episodes, I'm going to talk about some of what I call these therapy adjacent ways that you might want to consider.

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Now, I'm also going to talk about therapy in one of these episodes and really walk you through different types of therapy, what kind of therapy, how you find a therapist, all those kind of brass tacks questions. So there's a lot we're going to cover in these next few weeks. Stay tuned. You're going to find some practical ways to continue to increase your support network. 

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So today I want to talk about spiritual direction. I've mentioned spiritual direction frequently on the podcast. It's something I use. I have a monthly spiritual director, and I have for years. I was part of a spiritual listening community, which I've also talked about in prior episodes.

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It's a really unique way of getting support. It's not therapy. It's also different from what many of you know as discipleship. And we're going to talk about that, but it is someone checking in on your soul, checking in on how you're doing in your relationship with God, in your spiritual life, which actually bleeds out into all your relationships, right? Because when you're connected to yourself and to God, there's a way in which you show up more effectively in all of your relationships. So these all overlap, but spiritual direction is a very unique way to get support. I've invited two of my dear friends on to talk to us today about what spiritual direction is, about what you might expect from it and how you might find one.

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We'll talk to the Reverend Dr. Stephen Macchia, he's the founder and president of Leadership Transformations Inc., also known as LTI. LTI is a ministry that focuses on spiritual formation and the spiritual discernment processes.Steve is an ordained minister. He's a speaker. He's a retreat facilitator, a ministry mentor and coach, and he's a spiritual director himself.

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He's also the author of 16 books, including his latest, The Discerning Life, Broken and Whole. Crafting a rule of life. We talk about that in this episode. It's a wonderful book that I've used many times and the Baker bestseller, Becoming a Healthy Church. These are great resources for anyone who's interested in thinking about how to make our churches healthier spaces.

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We talk so much about what's hard about church and Steve is someone who's really coming in and saying, let's figure out how to make churches healthier, how to really make churches a place where we're growing. Deeply, and I really respect him for that. And then I also asked Rowena Day back on the podcast, you know, Rowena, she's been on the podcast before in episodes 31 and episode 44.

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She's a writer, an artist, and she's a spiritual director in training. She's going through the process of becoming a spiritual director. She's also the mom of four children between the ages of one and eight. And she and her husband live in Washington. DC. She and I met over a decade ago in one of those spiritual listening communities put on by LTI and led by Dr.

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Steven Macchia. So please enjoy this conversation about spiritual direction, spiritual discernment, and how to grow spiritually as one component of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health.

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*Music*

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Alison: So to get started, Steve, I would love to hear a little bit about how you got interested in spiritual formation, spiritual listening, spiritual direction. I know you were a pastor for many years and then you started this organization that's more centered on these spiritual formation practices. So tell us a little bit about how that evolved in your life.

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Steve Macchia: Well, I was on the pastoral staff at Grace Chapel in Lexington, Mass. for 11 years in four different pastoral positions. And then I went to a group called Vision New England, where I was for 14 years. And in the middle of that time, I said to a friend of mine, it seems like everybody in my life has an agenda for me, has something they want from me. And I need someone objective to listen to me. and help me sift and sort my way through my spiritual journey. 

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And this good friend of mine said, you need to meet David Freihoff, who is an Episcopal monk with the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I had the audacity at that time because I was, you know, a professional ministry person. I had my sport coat and tie on every day, and I went to my office and I led my organization. And I had the audacity to invite him when he was in my area to stop by because I wanted to interview him and see if what my friend had to say was really true. 

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When he walked into my office and he graciously said yes to that invitation, which is amazing to me, he had blue jean overalls and a t-shirt and open toe sandals on. And he sat down across from me in my professional desk setting. And as soon as he opened his mouth, I knew he had something that I desperately needed and wanted. And it was a real heart for God, a real genuine, simple, yet beautiful way of relating to Jesus. 

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To make a long story short, he has been my spiritual director for more than 30 years. And every month or so I go to see him and I tell him my tale of woes or my questions about God or my issues or my joys, my delights. You know, it's a relationship founded on attentiveness, listening and teaching me how to be more attentive to the work of God in my life and to the biblical text as it comes alive in my spiritual or prayer closet journey, and in my daily life experience. And he came alongside me, he was willing to take this on, take me on, and a role that has become a life-changing role, the role of a spiritual director. 

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I learned from him how to be a spiritual director, and then our organization, Leadership Transformations, almost immediately when we founded the organization 20 years ago, we started a program called SELAH in training people in spiritual direction that Ro is going to be joining. And I guess the rest is history, but for me, Alison, it all began with a single relationship of a very godly, Christ-centered, humble, gentle, holy man, who I knew I wanted to spend time with, and he's listened to my soul ever since.

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Alison: Steve, tell me a little bit about what you mean by agenda. I thought that was interesting. You said prior to just sitting with this humble person who asked questions, you felt like everyone had an agenda. What do you mean by that?

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Steve Macchia: Well, you know, if we're not prayerful and contemplative and reflective, we are actually quite manipulative in life. We have agendas for people. We have a way that we want them to live or to act or react to us, to the people around us. You know, we're in a marketing culture where we're constantly trying to present a message that others will... absorb or receive or buy or whatever. And same with others coming at us. I just felt like I was surrounded by people that needed something or wanted something.

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Alison: And this is even in the church community.

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Steve Macchia: Oh, gosh, yes. We’re a bunch of human beings that are within the Christian community with needs and wants and desires. And so they may have wanted my attention for financial resources from our organization, or they may have wanted my attention to promote their program or their particular ministry. 

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I worked with a regional ministry with about 80 different denominations and 6000 congregations, and there was always just a need that I needed to fix or take care of. And I just was looking for someone that didn't have that need and had instead a real desire to companion me as a brother. No other pretense attached to it. No other agenda attached to it.

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Alison: That's so powerful. Rowena, how about you? What led you to participate in this spiritual listening community that you and I both partook of? It's called Emmaus. Steve, it's part of your organization. You guys set it up. And it's a series of, I would say, would you call it group spiritual direction in a way, Steve?

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Steve Macchia: Exactly, that is what it is. We didn't always call it that, but that's what it was.

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Alison: So it's a little bit of what you're describing where there are small groups of people where we are simply listening to each other in a structured way. Rowena, what led you to feel the need to take part in that in your life?

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Rowena: I think I've always been fairly introspective, just the nature of how I'm wired. But I think there was a desire to find some companions on the journey and I'd never heard of spiritual direction, but I experienced it through a one-day women's retreat that LTI offered and I signed up for an hour slot. And I just remember feeling, wow, this is... very nourishing. 

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I think our souls are looking for satisfaction and you know, we can spend a lifetime looking for it in anything and everything. And God is our creator and he made us and he made us to be satisfied in knowing him and finding kind of the grounding of our being in him. And so I think just the work of the spirit in me kind of creating that desire to really seek, you know, what is going to really satisfy me? And that is knowing God deeply and within myself and knowing myself and just feeling like I can inhabit the world, just securely rooted in God and who He is and who He has made me to be. 

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I just found spiritual direction such a life-giving, nourishing way to pay attention to my own soul. And then to do that within a group, in a mass, and to kind of have the space held and certain structures in place to help us as human beings practice some holy restraint so we're not trying to fix and solve each other, but we're really able to set ourselves aside and listen to that person and be listened to was just, like, you don't experience that in life in very many places. And it just, I think it just created conditions to really begin to grow and thrive.

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Alison: Yeah, I think of the psychology term attunement as very much linked to what's happening in this idea of spiritual direction or spiritual listening. It's someone attuning to another soul. So it's me attuning to you. It's listening to your words without that agenda, as you said, Steve. It's hearing literally the words that you're saying. There's that attunement that we need to come alive. We are not designed to live alone in isolation. It's that embodied presence that we bring to each other. 

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Just here before we dive in too deeply to kind of differentiate between the work of therapy and the work of spiritual direction, I want to point out that there is an attunement component to both. When we go see a therapist, a therapist is attuning to us, hopefully without an agenda. How would you see the difference, Steve? I'll certainly weigh in as well, but I'm curious how you differentiate, because I know you're very clear to make that distinction. I've participated in both and there is a clear distinction. I'd love to hear from you how you see the distinction.

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Steve Macchia: I like that word attunement. It reminds me of a tuning fork, you know, where you're tuning to the particular sounds where there's some connection and unity to the sound. When I look at spiritual formation in general, I see spiritual formation generally, the attunement, if you will, to the true God, and the true self, or the true me. The more I get to know the true God, not all these false gods and false representations of God, but the true God, and if I get to know the true me, not these falsehoods or pretenses or things that we're trying to present to the wider world, but instead to just be the true person that God made us to be, made you and me to be, the more we get to know that true you and that true God, that's how we're being spiritually formed. And the closer in proximity and in parallel and attunement to both, the healthier, the stronger, the more vibrant, the more alive we become. 

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So when I consider all of the caring ministries or caring relationships, we do have counseling, we do have coaching, we do have mentoring, we do have discipling, pastoring, spiritual direction. I think all of those are healthy, vibrant, important roles and relationships, and I do think it's important for people who are serving in any one of them to know what they're distinctly offering. Because for me, I'm a pastor, I'm a coach. I'm a discipler. I'm a spiritual director. I need to figure out when I'm with a particular person, what do they need me to be in order to be the best I can be as one to continue that attunement. To help attune their heart to God's heart and their heart to the true nature of how God made them to be rather than listening to lies or listening to the falsehoods of others or listening to the pressure points of others or the stresses that others are bringing upon us. 

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Now, how do we listen to God? How do we listen to ourselves and to provide as pure of listening as I can so that what I'm doing is I'm giving voice back to the person I'm sitting with as a directee saying what I'm noticing. Here's what I'm hearing. Here's what I'm sensing. Here's maybe a way to get maybe closer in touch with God's purpose or plan in the midst of that story. 

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But the difference between that and counseling is I think a spiritual director is less directive, interestingly, even though the word director is there. It's far less directive. Whereas a counselor, you go to a counselor because you want feedback, you want help. you're in an issue, you're in a relationship that's not healthy, you're trying to make some decisions and you want feedback, you want the wisdom and the counsel of another and that's good and that's important but for me what I try to do as a spiritual director is I try to create space where there's pure listening, like you and Ro experienced at Emmaus, as pure as possible. 

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There's no such thing as completely pure listening but to get to it as purely as possible. All I want is to be there for you. I want to dive into your story that when I'm giving voice to, if I'm giving voice to anything, that you would say, absolutely, that is what I'm saying. As opposed to, “No, you know, you missed that point. No, I wasn't saying that.” or “I wasn't meaning that”. That means I missed the point. I wasn't a good listener. 

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If I'm a good listener, a good attentive attunement specialist, that person, if I say anything, that person's going to have maybe tears in their eyes and say, “That is exactly what I said”, because I think what–and I think you'd agree, Alison, as a counselor–people don't want to be fixed. They don't want to be corrected. Everyone does, however, want to be listened to. And if we can provide healthy, God-centered, them-centered, attentiveness, I think we're serving them well. 

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So there's crossover in these roles. They're not totally separated by a big fence. There's some permeable membrane that's attached to all of these caring roles. But I think when I'm in a spiritual director role, I really just want to spend as much, 80% of the time maybe, listening, 

and then 10% of the time, let's sit in silence, and 10% of the time, I'll give you some of my noticing.

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Alison: Yeah, yeah, I love that. So when I participated in the spiritual listening community–I did it for two years, it's quarterly retreats, so I did eight retreats–I was a therapist at the time. I was trained as a therapist, and it, to me, felt like it brought in a missing piece. They are different. And it brought in a missing piece during that experience. 

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I actually had a profound experience of feeling freed to go back into the work of being a therapist. As you well know, Steve, you were part of it. Because it brought in the piece of the listening without agenda, which freed me as a therapist to realize, “Oh, the Holy Spirit is right here”. And even if I'm doing a therapeutic intervention, the Holy Spirit is still right here with me. I'm not doing it alone. It's not on me to be the expert. 

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In my field, we can feel like we have to be the expert, not necessarily fixing a problem, but providing the right diagnostic intervention. And as I was part of that listening, I was astonished by the power of the structure. For the listener who isn't familiar with the structure–and I think it's a fantastic structure for folks to use in small groups, informally on your own, where we're so quick to pile in with our advice: “Here's what to do, have you thought about this? This is what you should do”, which just adds more noise to our souls–I was astonished by, you know, each person would get, I think, something like 15 minutes to share, uninterrupted with the timer. And then after that 15 minutes, sit in silence for a certain amount of time, and it's vulnerable. You've just shared. And then you're sitting and everybody's sitting with you in what you've shared. 

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Nobody's jumping in to fix, to offer advice, to analyze. And then the next round is people reflecting back to you verbatim words that you said. I heard you say this word five times and it is so powerful. I learned so much from that and I'm curious. 

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Rowena, for you, you know, what stood out to you? I would say for me, what stood out the most was that the vulnerability of simply being heard and then having people reflect back words that they heard me say. And it kind of spoiled me, to be honest. Because now if I go into a small group setting or a group of friends–and I do this sometimes and there's no shame–but when I'm in a setting and people just jump in, I'm like, “Oh, oh no, I just need to be heard”. You know, it really spoiled me. 

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So I'm curious, Rowena, for you, what stood out from that experience.

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Rowena: Yeah, I think it's the uniqueness of people holding space for you, and holding up a mirror to you of words that you said. You can say, “Oh, wow, I did say that several times”. And then you can kind of sit with that and ask God about it more. So it's really interesting. I feel like we are all sort of these acorns that are trying to germinate and bust out of the soil and grow. In spiritual direction, I think the distinction is that the Holy Spirit is the sun and the water helping the acorn grow and then maybe the director is like a fellow acorn over here, maybe adding some nutrients to the soil just by listening. 

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But it requires such trust that God is real–that he's here–that I don't need to be the one to fix. And it requires such a getting out of the way and holding ourselves back in like a holy restraint kind of way that is just so counter cultural and counter intuitive. I think David Benner says in his book about spiritual direction that “relationships are malnourished from a lack of attention”. And so spiritual direction is a way that we can give attention to our relationship with God. And that creates just such a nourishment for us when we actually take time and then we have someone companioning alongside us. It's so powerful and it helps all of our individual acorns and collectively to really germinate and grow.

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Steve Macchia: I was going to say that one of the elements here that both of you are mentioning is the gift of silence in community. I remember going early on, before LTI was even born, on silent retreats. I didn't know anybody in the room. But after a weekend, I was tearful to say goodbye to these people. Never had a conversation with them. Never never talked to them. Even over meals. The meals were silent meals. 

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But at the end of the weekend, we're like hugging each other saying goodbye. We don't know anything about each other except that we shared a weekend in silence And I remember praying at the time, “Lord, I want to do this with people I know, not just strangers”, and God answered my prayer through the ministry of LTI to be able to experience community without conversation. 

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Silence is a bonding mechanism. It's a way in which we're bonded together. So like in our Emmaus communities that both of you are part of, in those times together, they were blanketed with “Okay, let's just be let's just be together”. But let's not say anything, you know, because words are going to destroy the moment. 

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And think about it, the most intimate things that we do with the people we love the most are not about conversation. It's about presence. And the gift of real, authentic, genuine, deep presence is a healer. It's a restorer. It brings vibrancy and life. 

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And so I just want to say that what I love about spiritual direction and group direction is I love surprising individuals or groups with blocks of silence. Because what happens in the silence is that God through his spirit taps on the shoulder of our hearts in unique and marvelous and wonderful ways, surprising ways, mysterious ways. And if we're not creating that space, we can go through an entire life without experiencing the fullness and the richness of what we're describing today. 

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So, yes, Alison, I agree. I am spoiled by the community that I'm a part of and creating life for others. When I go into those other settings where people like talking over each other or fixing, it feels like fingers on a chalkboard and it bristles within me. But it's because my heart has been in touch with the longing of being known, being heard, being with. And I think that's what we're wanting. I want to put emphasis on that, you know, that quiet space together is actually amazingly healing and restorative and enlightening.

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Alison: That is a whole word. I don't want to put words on it. That's powerful. It's presence. 

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You know, my mind is going even to the neurobiology of that, that there is something powerful happening when two human beings are present with each other regardless of words. And perhaps, in an embodied way that transcends what the mind can do.

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Steve Macchia: Well, Alison, maybe you've done some research or study on eye contact. You know, it's through the eyes that we actually fall in love. It's through the eyes that we actually notice, when our eyes are fixed or locked on each other and we're in good space, it's the eyes that bring it about. So I'd love to know from your professional expertise, what is it about the eyes? What is it about eye contact? What is it about? Reading the story beneath the eyes.

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Alison: The gaze, right? The gaze of that loving mother. The gaze that takes in the child. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is the research on attachment that shows that secure attachment is presence. It's not words. 

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You know, a parent can say all the right words, but if they are not present, whole body present, calm nervous system present, where we're not in that fight flight, adrenalized state where we are so calm inside and we are with that child, right, through the gaze, through the calmness of the nervous system. That's what creates that attachment. 

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And if we think about God, it's so interesting, I've never thought about this. But of course, that's how we experience the withness of God. It's very rarely through a word.

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Steve Macchia: Yeah. And it's our withness that's our witness, you know. It's when we are with, that we actually have something to say about another. Rowena, you're an expert in this as a young mom, you've got all these kids at your feet and you're constantly giving them complete attention. I don't know how you do it.

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Rowena: Thankfully, being in God's presence is especially helpful. I often think of the imagery that he uses of him being a mother hen and gathering up all the chicks under the safety of his wings. That picture in my mind is so powerful and helpful to me when I feel like maybe there are different parts of myself that are running around little chicks, maybe some of them with their heads cut off or something, and God is like, come on, gather under here and let me put my wings over you.

All the parts of me can be heard and witnessed and attuned to and have the attention and the care that they need. And that kind of feeling of being held is really powerful, held under his wings. That sense of care for my own soul, then, is helping me in real time try to do the same with my kids. Not necessarily needing to fix their emotions, but just being with them and kind of gathering them and saying, I'm here with you, it's going to be alright. 

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And then the other sort of imagery that comes to mind with spiritual direction is this phrase, “being a physician of the soul”. There's this wonderful quote: “What does a physician do when someone comes with a bleeding wound? Three things; he or she cleanses the wound, aligns the sundered parts, and gives it rest”. 

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That's all the physician does. He or she provides an environment for the natural process of healing to occur. And so I think in spiritual direction and doing the training, it’s just such a helpful reminder that God made our bodies to heal. And he also made our souls to heal. If we can remove some of the obstacles and the barriers, the natural course of healing will occur. 

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And that has been so real in my own life. I find it incredibly powerful to witness other people in that way and know that I am not the physician who's actually doing the healing. But God designed us to heal if we just come into his presence and can attune to different parts of ourselves and then he can let the natural course of healing take its place.

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Alison: It reminds me of that acorn, right? So much of what you're both saying is the acorn, or any sort of seed, is designed to burst forth and become the beautiful thing that it's supposed to become. Our job is to provide the right soil, remove the weeds of distraction (which is so often the noise and the advice and the agendas), and cultivate that soil so that seed can grow. 

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Prior to my experience with this kind of thing, I would be in my prayer closet thinking, okay, I'll be with God. And somehow that needs to only be between me and God. And what spiritual direction or these spiritual listening communities do is bring it into relationships. You are with another person. 

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For the listener, typical spiritual direction is a monthly rhythm. You meet with someone typically, not always, but typically once a month. It is a practice. There's a rhythm to it. And that rhythm–there's a withness with that. It's saying, “I need another human body that is not trying to fix me, is not doing therapy on me per se, but is with me and bearing witness to me in my process of becoming”. So there is a witness, it's just a unique kind of witness.

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Steve Macchia: Exactly. And it is an important practice to be trained in. Not everyone is fit for this. So we need to understand that they may be more fit to be in more of an active discipling role or pastoral role. 

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All the old ancient monastic communities that were providing this for people that were coming to them–sort of like, “Brother, give us a word”, kind of thing–they were trained to be, as Row said, soul doctors. In fact, I will often ask my directees, “So how is it with your soul today?” as an opening question. Or we'll sit and just do Lexio for a few moments in a particular verse or a psalm or something that's just to quiet our hearts and minds. And it's generally where I see men one-on-one–I see men and women in groups–but when I'm sitting with another man and we're sitting in quiet, which they're not used to, you know, just quietness. 

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There's a little uncomfortableness to that. And then I'm reading the passage of Scripture, and then I'm saying you can break the silence however and whenever you want to. Generally, they're surprised what they say after the silence because they came in with a particular thought or concept or idea or relationship or question or issue that they're wrestling with. But in the silence, when we're together in the word and in prayer, they can often end up going in a different direction that may actually be more fruitful for their life, their walk with God. 

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Because we wanna always be pointing people back to the biblical text or their walk with God or the state of their soul, so that it becomes a prayerful, reflective space that both director and directee are engaged in. And as the director, you're not doing much direction, even though it's called that. It's really providing space for this person to give voice to their experiences, their experience of God or their experience with others. 

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So it's out of that experience, it's out of that place of need, where we're able to step in as active listeners, and hopefully have some spiritual maturity to us that we can actually be a voice in the wilderness for them that allows us to offer a word of hope or a word of comfort or a suggestion to sit in a particular passage of scripture or whatever. So it's a beautiful thing when it's fully embraced and not distorted, it is really a beautiful space to create for another.

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*Music*

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Steve Macchia: One of the questions that I've been wrestling with of late is all the issues of the day, not just of a particular person's story, but whether it's political or human sexuality and how that's really been front and center for so many racial, ethnic issues. One of the things that spiritual direction gives a person is a voice to how they're reacting or responding to those issues. 

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It's not just necessarily a personal issue that you're coming with, it may be a lament that you're coming with or a heart's concern for a loved one that's gone a wayward way in any one of particular areas. So what a person comes into a direction session with is all over the map.

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It's not just your prayer life. It can be a tough relationship, it can be a tough issue of the day. I like defining passion as that which exists somewhere between what brings a tear to your eye and an angry fist to the air. Somewhere in there, between the tearfulness and the angry fist, resides your passions. 

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So we can create space where people get in touch with what they're passionate about, what they're interested in, what they're concerned about, what they're carrying, it could be personal, but it could be more corporate or collective. 

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So I think that's what I just wanted to mention. It's not just that we're talking about, you know, a person's time in the Bible and praying. Spiritual direction can be misunderstood that way. No, it's actually pretty broad. It's like counseling, like therapy in that way. You can't predict what the issues are going to be that are gonna enter the space with the person who's gonna give voice to where they are or where they're at.

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Alison: You're reminding me of a quote that my spiritual director said to me recently, which I believe is attributed to either Richard Rohr or I want to say Paula DRC. “God shows up disguised as your life.”

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Whatever is happening in your life is where God is. When you go to someone for a spiritual direction, it's not just limited to your “spirit”. There's no bifurcation–whatever is happening in your life is where God has an invitation for you. It doesn't matter where that is. Your God shows up disguised as your life. 

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That's a really helpful word because sometimes I'll think, “I gotta think about my spiritual questions for my spiritual director, you know, what am I thinking about God”? As opposed to, “Whatever's happening in my life, in my soul, whatever I'm worried about, that's where God is. That's what God cares about. That's where there's an invitation for me”. 

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I'm curious, Rowena, you've now entered into training to become a spiritual director. What prompted that and how is that going for you? And I've noticed just being your friend, I'm not surprised when you told me that you were going to embark on a journey of becoming a spiritual director. I see those qualities in you, that ability to hold space so subtly, but so powerfully for other people. Tell me a little bit about that journey for you and what that decision was like.

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Rowena: Hmm. I think when I read the quote about being a physician of the soul around 10 years ago, something really resonated with what I felt called to do. That would just be a very powerful way to spend my life. I can't quite describe it, but it was a very deep feeling of being drawn to this.

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I think it's also because I experienced the power of it–of being attuned to and of being deeply listened to–that it's just such a needed thing in this world. And I want to grow in that ability to listen and hold space for others and help them attune to their own souls and to God. 

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So I don't think I chose it myself. I think somehow God put that desire and that longing in me, and in listening to my own soul, that became apparent. And it was just a matter of waiting for the right timing for my family. So it's really exciting to finally be beginning and to start meeting with directees and just to feel the “rightness”, like, “Oh yeah, this feels like this is something I'm meant to do”.

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Alison: How do you find, and Steve touched on this, but how do you find pockets of the kind of quiet that we're talking about, that we so desperately need? You are parenting four really young kids, so your life is probably far from a quiet, contemplative life. I think a lot of our listeners will think,
“Gosh, that would be nice, but where do I find that?” How do you find those rhythms in your own life?

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Rowena: Hmm. Yeah, I have a real need, I think, in my mind and my body. My mind is very active with lots of thoughts. And so it often feels like a snow globe shaken up. And it's like the silence is kind of what helps everything kind of settle and then there can be calm and clarity within. And I just know that about my inner being. 

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I need a babysitter at least twice a week for a couple of hours so I can have a little bit of time to attune to myself so that I can show up as kind of that more clear snow globe rather than being shaken up all the time. It's really easy to live in this world in that constant state and I just can't function there permanently so I need it and I have to carve it out. 

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So for me, that is during nap time or yeah, intentionally kind of carving out some hours with a babysitter just so I can go for a bike ride and read a book and journal. And yeah, it's just really vital for me in this season.

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Alison: I love that. Yeah, it is very much whatever the season, because it's true, even when you have more time, there is always something you can do to drown out the quiet. There's always something. We can turn the radios on in our car, we can have a podcast on all the time, we can be on social media. And it is a discipline. 

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One of the things I know I did when I was in that driving phase of parenting, where you're in the car all the time shuttling kids to and fro several hours a day sometimes, is I would start a practice (after this whole Emmaus experience where I began to realize that quiet is our friend) of not turning anything on while I was in the car. 

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It's not necessarily optimal, but it was an amazing difference in my life. No radio, no podcast. Just sitting in the quiet for at least as long as that car ride. It gave me that moment of just noticing what was in my own mind, what was in my own soul, just attuning to myself.

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Steve Macchia: And what I hear in that is the discipline of Sabbath. And Sabbath is really foundational to the deeper life. Without Sabbath, you won't go deep, period, end of story. 

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It is commanded and invited by God. It's not something that's just in the Old Testament. It's something that Jesus came to fulfill in the use of Sabbath because all of the religious leaders, the Pharisees, had really made rules and regulations around Sabbath and basically nearly destroyed Sabbath by over-regulating it. And Jesus came to set them free from that which was bringing them down and into bondage. 

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Even within the text and the Ten Commandments, you know, there's that reminder that we're to remember that we were once enslaved. but we are now set free. And being set free is to be in Sabbath practices on a weekly basis, but also Sabbath moments on a daily basis or a day by day basis. 

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So when you, Alison, say that you turned the radio off as you were driving kids around, that's a Sabbath, that's a choice towards Sabbath. Or Rowena, when you say you're gonna get a babysitter and just take a couple hours or take a bike ride. That's the craving within us that exists universally for some space. 

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And when we don't want it, it's because we've chosen distraction as our main drug of choice to drown out that which we need to wrestle with in the silence. And that's why silence and solitude has often been described as the crucible of transformation. It's the place where the deepest work occurs. And if we choose not to be in those Sabbath, quiet, restful moments in our life, we'll end up living the entirety of our life, inch deep and mile wide. 

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So Sabbath and Sabbath practices, it's one of the things I'm trying to awaken within the pastoral world that I connect with because pastors will tell me over and over again, Sabbath is impossible, or that Sabbath is only possible when it's not a work day. No, you need Sabbath. Every soul needs Sabbath. God knew what he was talking about.

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It's the only commandment that was applicable to him because he chose to do Sabbath himself. So we listen for that in spiritual direction. We listen for the soul that's troubled or the soul that's distracted or the soul that is constantly in need of noise or motion. 

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And when we create space as a spiritual director to just quiet ourselves, to be more attentive, more reflective, it's basically introducing a Sabbath-like experience for a person to say yes to that invitation within us, to get to know God at a deeper level, rather than running ourselves ragged, letting this world define who we are and what we're becoming.

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Alison: I love that. And I would add if you're someone who's listening who finds it very challenging to sit in quiet as a result of so much pain inside–trauma is something that can surface in silence. It's nothing to feel shame about. 

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And that's one of the areas where I would say therapy becomes that place of Sabbath where you're with someone who can help you begin to pace yourself as you work through a lot of the noise in your soul that has built up over time as a result of trauma, as a result of no one attuning to you. That's where a therapist can help you pace that so that you can arrive at this place where your nervous system understands, “Oh, I can be quiet with myself and that feels okay”. 

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So that's another way where those two areas I think can work together. I know for me early on, sitting quietly, before I even arrived at Emmaus, I tell the story of having a series of panic attacks at the end of graduate school, and being in the quiet during that time would have been too much. 

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I needed people, I needed bodies, to help me understand what was happening. And as I healed that, then I brought in spiritual direction as a much needed reminder of, “This is what it feels like. I can take deep breaths. I can be with myself”. 

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It's just such a valuable practice that I've kept in my life since meeting you, Steve and Rowena. I would love to close by asking both of you, what would you encourage our listeners to take as next steps if they're listening and going, “I long for that. I long for what they're describing”. What are some next steps people can take? I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear from both of you.

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Steve Macchia: Well, my obvious answer would be to connect with us at leadershiptransformations.org. There are resources, there are workshops, there are programs and opportunities for you to at least get a handle on what is spiritual direction and what does it look like and how do I find a spiritual director? 

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Because I would say, Alison, that anyone in Christian leadership needs to have a spiritual director. Now, I would say that across the board, because there's something about the objective voice in one's life, helping you listen and attend to the voice of God. And if you don't have that in a spiritual friendship or spiritual director role, you're missing out on something that will take you to a deeper place. 

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And I wanna say too, on the comment you just made, ethically for me as a spiritual director, if a person is sharing stuff that really belongs in the counselor's office, I must and will refer that person because I don't want to take on things that I can't handle. 

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And if it's an issue that you can handle as a therapist better, it is incumbent upon me to make sure that person that's come to see me gets better care by a trained therapist or trained counselor. So if we can work cooperatively between the areas of people care, the better off we'll always be. 

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It's sort of like an ethical commitment that we as spiritual directors need to make. If they need a counselor, we find the best counselor for them to deal with their issues in a more therapeutic way. But I think steps to take would be to invite a friend to be a spiritual friend. Invite a person into your life that you know and love and trust. And just say, Can we get together and just kind of talk soul stuff together? It's like, what are we noticing about God or not God? You know, is there an absence of God or a presence of God? And let's just start having conversations. And maybe we could practice healthy listening to each other and not fix or correct or change or one up each other. And just through a simple relationship, let's see where that grows. So that would be one way to just get it started.

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Rowena: I think Alice Freiling's book, Seeking God Together is an incredible resource if you're interested in doing this with a couple of friends. To gather those friends together and to read that book, it gives some extremely practical tips for how to set up group spiritual direction time and questions you can ask each other and it helps establish the boundaries for that group setting. So I have done that in the past and that has been really, really profound to practice with other friends. That was before beginning SELAH. So that's another step that people can take.

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Alison: I would make a plug for your book, Steve, Crafting a Rule of Life is a fantastic book I recommend to people. And we haven't talked too deeply about this, but this idea of a rule of life is very little about a rule and more about rhythms of these spiritual practices. It's a really deep and practical book on how to create these rhythms in your life, kind of like Rowena and I were talking about. 

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It could be as simple as “I don't listen to music in the car”. That's a rhythm for me that helps me. Or “I get a babysitter for my kids every two weeks” all the way to “I meet with a spiritual director once a month”. Or it's just a really great introduction to this idea of having these rhythms of quiet, having these rhythms of attuning to the contents of your soul.

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Steve Macchia: Thank you.

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Alison: Is there anything else that either of you would like to see? And then I want to give our listeners a chance to learn about where they can find you both. 

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Rowena: I just keep thinking of the verse from Ephesians where it says, “I pray out of his glorious riches, he will strengthen you through the spirit in your inner being with power, so that Christ can dwell in your hearts through faith.”

And I think that's kind of the essence of spiritual direction. What it can do is be a place where God can strengthen our inner beings with power through the Spirit and enable us to live in the world from a richer, fuller place where we can really inhabit our lives alive, present, awake, embodied, in the here and now, not stuck. 

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Or that's one place where we can work through places in life we are stuck, but it can be a place where God can bring a lot of freedom within ourselves. That's just what I feel like God keeps sharing with me is “I want you to be free within yourself”. 

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And I want all of my children to be free within themselves and to have everything stripped away that is entangling and enslaving and distracting and to find that rest inwardly and that freedom. And so that's, I think, the taste that I want listeners to get from what spiritual direction can offer. It’s the way to get free within yourself, unencumbered by things that are weighing you down and being able to emerge in life as your full self empowered by God. And that is a beautiful thing.

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Alison: I love the way you're both describing this rest that is so much deeper than taking a nap, which is also important, but just this inner rest, where no matter what's going on in your outer life, there's an inner ability to find that calm. Being at peace with yourself, being at peace with God–that is the freedom that I believe God wants all of us to have. I love that, Rowena.

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Steve Macchia: And I would add that Psalm 62 verse 1A could be a breath prayer for a person to just embrace, and it's very simply my soul finds rest in God alone. It doesn't come in any other place. It only comes in God. So learning how to rest in God is really learning how to trust God. Trust and rest go hand in glove. The more I rest in God, the deeper I trust Him. The more I trust God, the more I'm able to rest in Him. 

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We often use the word trust and rest rather flippantly, but to really take those words and have them be a part of our true identity as men and women of God, that we wanna learn how to trust, we wanna learn how to rest. And when we rest, we trust, when we trust, we rest. And it's out of that trust and rest that we find peace and joy in our relationships and in our service, in the communities that God has placed us in. 

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And finally, just to say, you know, by doing this, by finding a spiritual director, by taking care of your soul, it's not selfish to do so. It's actually good, solid self-care by which you become more fit to serve another. So when you're in a healthier place, when you're in a better space, when you have greater clarity about who God is and who you are, you can present yourself to the wider world with a far better way of serving another. 

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Otherwise we are going to be that manipulative presence that constantly is wanting to push or pull a person according to our interests or desires. And I have that problem. I'm a controller. I like to know, I like my family to know what I think about their decisions. I like to tell Ruth what she needs to do, and I got to stop constantly because that's not what they want. That's not what they need. They need my presence. They need my love. They need my affection. They need a more secure me to be present with them so that I can love them more impactfully out of a genuine heart for them. And I think that's with all of us. 

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We're all selfish, we're all kind of into our own ways. But if we really want to be a servant for another, it needs to come from that genuine, deep trust and rest in God that I'm not here to prove anything, I'm here to offer myself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God and to others. And that takes time to strip that false self away in order to mine the deeper places that really matter the most.

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Alison: Mm. I love that. I love being with you both. I feel the presence from both of you and have been so blessed and honored by your impact, both of you in my life, to help me learn what that means. And I'm just so grateful. 

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Thank you for your time today. I would love for our listeners to know where they can find you and where they can get a hold of you if they're interested in learning more.

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Steve Macchia: Very simply for me, it's leadershiptransformations.org for the organization and stevemacchia.com for the books and things that I've created over the years. So leadershiptransformations.org is the go-to place.

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Alison: And I can't recommend more the different workshops and different options that you provide for people to learn about this way of being with yourself, with God, and with other people. And what about you, Rowena? Are you going to be taking new directee clients?

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Rowena: I am open to it. Right now, I can't really be found anywhere on social media. I just sort of realized that at this time in my life, I can't invest much time in those platforms, but I am interested in taking some directees, just a few. And so, yeah, if there's anyone who lives in the Washington DC area and would like to do it in person or I am also available over Zoom. We could connect.

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Alison: Email me, how about that, if you're interested. I first of all love, I think both Steve and I are nodding our heads here, like, and wanting to honor and validate your choices to keep certain clutter out of your life. I mean, that right there is evidence of your own rhythms, right? This isn't a rhythm that I can have right now as to be available publicly.

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And I know I've gone through seasons like that myself and want to honor that, I can also attest to the fact that you'd be a wonderful person for anyone who would like to get started with spiritual direction. 

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You can email me on my website, dralisoncook.com, and we'll get you hooked up. I also believe through SELAH, Steve, your spiritual direction training program, there are, is there a search engine where people can find spiritual directors through the Leadership Transformation website?

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Steve Macchia: Yes, it's just it's SELAH, S-E-L-A-H, which is the word that's used in the Psalms for pausing between various verses. So it's got a great meaning, the word SELAH itself. So when you go to LeadershipTransformations.org, you just do /SELAH or go into the search icon and put SELAH in our spiritual direction. And there's also a listing there of spiritual directors that have been trained by us that are all over the country, different parts of the world.

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Our SELAH program continues to multiply. We've got SELAH East on the East Coast, SELAH West in Arizona, SELAH Europe in Scotland and SELAH Anglican in North Carolina for the North American Anglican church. So it continues to grow, God continues to bless. If you're at all interested in that program, you should apply early and just make your interest known.

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Alison: Beautiful. I love it. Well, thank you both for all the goodness you are bringing into this world full of noise. Just the beautiful presence that speaks so powerfully. I'm so grateful for both of you.

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Steve Macchia: We're grateful for you too, Alison.

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Rowena: Yeah same.

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Steve Macchia: Kudos to you for all the wonderful writing and speaking and podcasts and blogs and all the rest. Keep up the good work, okay?

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Alison: Thank you. Likewise.

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*Outro*

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

Today we're trying something new! We've gathered up your most-asked questions about friendship and discuss them on the podcast. These are such thoughtful and real questions, and I love thinking through them with you.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The mother wound and female friendships

2. Managing expectations through your own healing season

3. Assessing trust in a new friend

4. Navigating a terminal diagnosis with friends

5. What about helping others who can't reciprocate friendship

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

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Go to www.simplemodern.com/bestofyou and by sharing your email, you'll get a unique discount code just for you.
• Get 35% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com/BESTOFYOU or use code BESTOFYOU at checkout.

Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

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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Resources

• Learn scripts and tips for testing new friendships in The Best of You, by Dr. Alison Cook
• Resources for support

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‍Related Podcast Episodes:

• Episode 58: How to Find Friends Who Bring out the Best of You, Why it Matters, and How a Good Friend Can Transform Your Life with Dr. Curt Thompson, Amy Cella, and Pepper Sweeney
• Episode 59: Finding Your People, Overcoming Past Hurt, & Deepening Friendships Through Intentional Community with Jennie Allen
• Episode 60: How to Make New Friends, Overcome People Pleasing, Identify Red and Green Flags, & Extract Yourself From an Unhealthy Situation with Aundi Kolber and Dr. Monique Gadson
• Episode 61: Reconnecting With Old Friends—Healing the Past, Naming Regret & Bringing Your Whole Self into the Future

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You podcast. I am so excited for this last episode, in this series we've been doing called Friends on Friendship. And today I wanted to take this last episode to respond to your questions. You all have been writing in, with so many great questions, and I really wanted to use this time to respond to some of your practical questions. How you're applying some of what we've been talking about in your real lives. 

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And, so, to help me with this, I've asked my media coordinator, Cindy Gao. Who has been assisting me with this podcast these last few months, to come on and join me as we address some of your questions about friendship. Cindy has been such a gift. She's a recent graduate of Harvard College. She reached out to me last fall with an amazing story. Which she's going to come back on the podcast to share with us in a few weeks, so stay tuned for that. 

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But in the meantime, she's been coming alongside me. Helping me out in many ways as we put this podcast together. It's been a huge godsend for me. As I've talked about on the podcast before, it's hard for me to ask for help and having her help has been just a gift. And, so, today she's going to be a conversation partner with me. Queuing up some of your questions and joining me in this conversation, as we talk about how to create healthy friendships in our lives.

So, Cindy, thank you for joining me today on the podcast. I'm so glad you're here, and I've so enjoyed having you as a conversation partner behind the scenes, and now here on the podcast.

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Cindy: Yes, I'm so glad to be here. I've followed your podcast since the very beginning, and now it's so exciting for me to come on with you.

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Alison: Yes. So in January, I hosted a book club for The Best of You, and Cindy would come on and help me do these weekly Facebook lives. Where you would queue up questions for me, and I would answer them, and we'd have a little back and forth. And I realized, "Oh, gosh, what a great way to respond to questions." Just makes it a little bit more structured for me. And Cindy's also got some great thoughts coming from a really different perspective, a different generation, different view of some of these questions. 

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So, with that in mind, I hope you will enjoy this special and final episode, Friends on Friendship, where we answer your questions.

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< Music >

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Cindy: The first question that we can dive into, today, is from Amy. She asks, "How do I heal this deep wound from my relationship with my mother. So I can have a healthy friendship with women? How do I spot the signs sooner and avoid getting tangled in narcissistic relationships?"

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Alison: Oh, that's a good question. Yes, the mother wound is what I hear in that. So how do our wounds from our parents and, particularly, when we're talking about female friendships. How do our mother wounds influence our friendships with other women? 

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So, Amy, what I would say is, first of all, your awareness, that the fact that your relationship with your mom is influencing your female friendships is really astute and just such good awareness. So, of course, always, that awareness is the first step to begin to ask yourself. If you're struggling in your friendships, what's going on here? "What am I bringing?"

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"What baggage am I bringing into these relationships?"

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"What messages are floating or lurking in the back of my mind, as I engage my female friends?" And that awareness is so important. And I would say the next step is to begin to pay attention to what are some of those messages? What are some of those beliefs or thoughts that linger in the back of your mind, as you're approaching a female friendship? 

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So, for example, let's say you've got a friend, and you love this friend, and you enjoy this friend. But maybe you're aware that in the back of your mind, you're always wondering, "When are they going to leave me?"

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"When are they going to disappoint me?"

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"Are they really trustworthy? Can I really trust that they're there for me?" Whatever it is, begin to notice what is that static in the airwaves, a little bit? You got to get specific about it, and it gets back to that parts work that we talked about. Back in that whole series on boundaries for your soul. Where we talked about we have parts of us. 

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There are parts of us that we bring from our past and, especially, from those past relationships with those primary caregivers that have picked up burdens. Often those burdens from those childhood wounds have messages such as, "I've got to be hyper vigilant. I've got to make sure this person is okay." 

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It makes it hard for us to receive care from other people, if you didn't receive care from a primary caregiver. So that would manifest as hyper vigilance. It's hard for you to relax into the possibility that a friend could truly show up for you. Or that part of you might carry a burden such as "This person could never really accept the real me."

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"I've got to always keep a guard up."

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"I've got to always be performing, producing, pleasing, perfecting for them."

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 Because that part of you learned, at a young age, through the conditioning you received from a parent, maybe, from your mom, that you could never really be yourself. You could never really be seen as you are. And, so, that part of you learned to always be showing up in that perfecting, performing, pleasing way, and you've carried that into these adult friendships.

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So begin, first of all, to do this process, that we've talked about so many times on this podcast, called differentiating. As you begin to notice that part of you and the messages or the beliefs it holds. See if you can get a little distance from it. And, maybe, even when you're with a friend you're noticing. You're with that friend, but you're present to the part of you that is wanting to keep you hyper vigilant, keep you performing, keep you on your toes, and it doesn't allow you to really sink into the fullness of a reciprocal relationship with that person. 

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How old is that part of you?

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What are the messages it picked up? 

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What is it telling you? 

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You first got to differentiate that part of you to begin to understand what is coming from the past and what is actually coming from this current friend, oftentimes, they're very different. Cindy, as I talk about that, what comes to mind for you and your experience?

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Cindy: Yes, that was really helpful. The first thing that I think about from this question is, also, that this is a pretty deep question. And that connection from how we related in our families growing up, and how that affects the way we move out into the world and our relationships with friends and everyone is so real. 

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And I would just add that part of the healing process is being willing to take a little bit of risk. For me, in my relationship with my mom, I guess, I never felt safe bringing up things that I was upset about because that would just escalate into so much conflict. 

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And, so, that's the way that I approached all my relationships, including with friends. And after a while I realized that I was feeling really disconnected from them. And I had to take a risk, eventually, and bring something up that I was afraid of. Because I had to experience something different in order to actually move forward. 

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I can hear all the time. You can talk to your friends and they'll be there for you, if they're good friends, and I can know that as a fact. But until I actually take a risk and experience it, I don't know. The experiences with my mom were more impactful on my moving out into the world, than any facts I might know about what a good friend looks like.

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Alison: Exactly, yes, that conditioning. That subconscious conditioning. I love what you're describing, it's a corrective experience. You have to take the risk to say to a friend, and here's the thing there's a couple of ways you can do it. 

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You can even name to someone you actually think you can trust, but you notice it's hard. You can even name, "Hey, this is hard for me, but I want to share with you something I'm struggling with. This is new for me, it's something I'm trying." And then notice how they respond and, then, simultaneously, let the part of you know, that had this other experience with your mom, "See what's happening here this is different. 

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This is what it feels like when someone just witnesses you. When someone just listens, and is there for you, and shows up for you, and it doesn't escalate, and it feels good." And you really notice what does that feel like in your nervous system to receive that, and it becomes a corrective experience. You're training yourself that this is what it can feel like. When you take that risk and someone really shows up for you, and you've had some of those. Is that right?

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Cindy: Yes, and it is really scary, so being patient with yourself, too. I love what Aundi Kolber always says of pacing yourself and being gentle with yourself. Because all of these corrective experiences can feel really activating and scary.

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Alison: Yes. I love that you say that because you're out of your comfort zone. You're trying something new and, sometimes, you'll take a risk, you'll be vulnerable. You'll give a friend a shot to show up for you. And even when it goes well afterward, it can feel really upside down to your system. Really uncomfortable, like "I did something wrong."

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And, so, just to sit with that for a minute. I like to think about it as putting little breadcrumbs out. Okay, "I put that breadcrumb out, someone picked it up, it felt pretty good." And then maybe try it again, and just give your system time to adjust to this different way of receiving care. I love that.

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Cindy: Yes.

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< Music >

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Cindy: So, moving on to the next question, this one's from T. T says, "I find myself struggling to maintain friendships because I'm so tired, busy, and overwhelmed with every other area of my life. That I don't have the energy to put into friendships. 

Making and keeping friends takes a lot of energy out of me, and I feel like I just don't have what it takes to keep meaningful relationships. But, then, I also feel let down when I stop putting in the effort. What would you say to situations like this?"

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Alison: Yes, that's real, and I bet a lot of people relate to that. I do, too. Yes, it's time consuming. Different friends have different capacities. I might have a certain capacity. Someone else might have a certain capacity. So you're always trying to balance that out. You're trying to figure out the rhythm of a friendship. And I would say, Cindy, I can see you nodding, tell me a little bit about your experience with that.

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Cindy: Yes, well, I guess the first thing that I think about is how frustrating it is to have limitations, just our desires have no limitations. But our ability actually to do things, we are very limited and it's very frustrating. 

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I mean, I can feel really guilty and struggle with self-criticism if I'm just really tired and can't do things that I want to do. Especially with friendships and relationships that, kind of, I just dropped the ball on. Because I'm in a period of life where I just feel like there's so much going on, and I feel like just getting through the day is taking everything out of me. I've been there before and I can relate to this question a lot.

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Alison: Yes, a couple of thoughts that I have. I feel this, too, I think it's true for all of us, different seasons of life. Sometimes we go through seasons where we have a lot of bandwidth for investing in friendship, and sometimes we have less. 

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A couple of things I would say is, number one, you've got your trusted friends, people who are already safe. I think naming is really helpful and I've had to do a lot of that, and say, "Man, this is a season for me where I'm not as available on the day to day, but I would love quality." And, so, for me, structure has been so helpful during busy seasons to just set those expectations. 

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So, for me, what can be helpful is, "Let's do a monthly check in where we're going to go deep. But I may not be so great at the day to day, just back and forth because that's hard for me." So that's one way I've learned to balance during busy seasons. Is just to name that with folks; "Here's what I can do. Here's what I can't. I'm not going to be that daily text buddy because I just don't have the bandwidth for that. But I'd love a monthly walk and talk on the phone." So that's one way. It's just to structure it, name it, and talk it through with a friend, maybe a friend. 

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And number two is you've got to figure out how to coordinate it with friends who might want more or who might want less. And if it's a healthy friendship, you can have that conversation. You can do it. You can say, "Hey, listen this is what I can do. What do you want?" And then you negotiate it, "Here's where we can keep in touch." I'm a big fan of structure and just naming. Just because someone else wants a certain way of interacting. 

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Someone else wants to be able to be on the phone every day or be texting all the time, doesn't mean you have to be that way. And it also doesn't mean it has to be the end of the friendship. It means you have to have a conversation. 

The other thing is that research I mentioned last week, that I think is so interesting. That talks about we do have limited capacity for friendships. We have the capacity to sustain around five intimate friends. That's not that many, if you think about it. 

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And, so, you have to really be intentional and think about who are those people that even when I have a lot on my plate, I'm going to invest in. And if I know, in my mind, who they are and I've pre-committed to those people. I'll do the work to make sure that those ones stay intact, and the other folks I can care about.

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When you get out to that outer layer of the 15 to the 20. Where you really care about them but you don't have as much to invest, you really have to let your actions speak. You may not respond to every email or every text. It doesn't mean you don't care about them. What I do with folks is I may not respond to every text but I know, in my mind, I'm going to respond about once a week.

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Cindy: Part of it is there's a fear of disappointing people or disappointing friends. And that research you mentioned of, "Hey, we're not built to have 100 close friends." And, yet, many of us might feel the pressure to have these really huge best friend groups.

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Alison: And I think social media has contributed to that. Where there's this illusion of in-touchiness, where we can be in touch with a whole lot of people. But as we've discussed in this podcast, that's not really what I'm encouraging you toward, which are these deep intentional friendships. And I don't know that all people understand that. Different people have different ideas about what a friend is.

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I just want to acknowledge that it's okay if you are someone who says I need a couple of deep friendships. Where we have a few conversations, maybe, one or two deep conversations a week, and I don't do a lot of that extra stuff, that's okay. You don't need to feel guilty about that. I do agree. I think there's pressure in our world to be constantly in touch with people, and if that works for you. 

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Again, some people are more extroverted than others, there's a way in which that's fine. But if that's not you to really go into your own self with God and determine, "What do I need? What kind of friendship do I need and how do I thrive in friendship?" Name that for yourself, define that for yourself. Get really clear about that and it gets back to what I talked about in The Best of You. It's, "What am I saying yes to?" 

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So don't think so much about all the things you're saying no to because that's where the guilt comes in. Start with "What am I saying yes to?" I am saying yes to these couple of folks during this season. Where I meet with them once a week, maybe, it's a small group. Or I take a walk once a week with this person, or I have a phone call, once a month, with this group of folks. Whatever it is, get really clear about what you're saying yes to. 

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And, then, those nos, the things you don't have bandwidth for. You'll feel a little bit of guilt at first, but remind yourself, "This is what I'm saying yes to." This is how I become a better human, a better parent if you have kids. 

A better wife, if you're married, a better friend, a better worker, a better colleague. And it doesn't mean I don't care about these other people. I can care about them. I can lift them in prayer. I can check in as I am able, but I only have so much capacity. This is just science. This is just psychology, "I only have so much capacity. I am not God."

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Sometimes you can remind yourself, "I am a limited human with finite capacity. I can invest in this many folks and I am not God, and I have to let the rest go." And people who are healthy will understand that and they will be there for you, on the other side. People who get angry about that, people who are mad at you about that. Is it really your job to keep those people happy so they're not mad at you? No, it's not. You got to let that go and it's hard. 

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But this is a muscle you have to develop, this no muscle. I only have this much capacity and everything else is not my responsibility, and I got to let it go. And I'm not responsible for all of those folks, who want more of me than I can give. And this gets back, again, into those childhood wounds. Where we've been conditioned, we got to be all things to all people and that is just a lie. It is just not true. It is not your job. 

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So take that time, get really clear about the yeses, "These are the folks I'm going to invest in."

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"These are the folks I will give time to."

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"This is how much time I have to give."

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"This is my optimal capacity." And then you got to let the rest go, and you got to hold your hands open and give those folks up to God. You are not being mean. You are not being cruel. You are releasing other people to live out their best lives with other folks. That's what you can do before God.

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Cindy: Yes, that's so good. One more thing I would add is, I really like what you said about in different seasons we have different capacities. And, so, if you're finding yourself in a period of time where you're just really exhausted and tired. And I would say that, I mean, for me, when I really started doing a lot of therapy, and self-reflection, and this deep work of getting to know myself, and revisiting past wounds. 

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That work is really tiring and it takes a lot out of you. And, at the same time, it's so healing and good. But it's also extremely tiring, and it can be really hard to then have energy to socialize in the way that you used to. And your lifestyle might change and you might find yourself more lonely at times. 

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But, I think, clinging on to the hope that it's not always going to be like that. You're not always going to feel completely drained. And, yes, the metaphor of a cocoon is pretty good. In this period of time, I'm growing so much, but I'm in my own little, healing, bubble, I don't know. But, eventually, I'm going to grow out of my cocoon and move out into the world, in a new way. In a way that is going to be so much more life-giving to me. 

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But being patient with the process, and trying to release that guilt and self-criticism maybe about, "Oh, I'm not socializing as much as I used to."

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"I'm not being everything to everyone like I used to because I'm saying yes to myself now." And that's so good, but it can induce a lot of guilt.

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Alison: And I would take it one step further. You're becoming a good friend to yourself, and that should be at the top of everybody's list. It's, "How do I be a good friend to myself first because I'm not going to be a good friend to anybody else if I'm not, first, being a good friend to myself. I need time with myself. I need time to discern. We're undoing. We're unlearning some of this old conditioning." And it's very countercultural. 

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There's so much pressure both from the secular culture, from the Christian culture, from the social media culture. More and more is always better from all different angles. And I would say very much, I agree with you, Cindy, both in my own life and in my practice, I see it with my clients. Drawing inward, slowing things down, getting smaller, it can feel foreign. It can feel lonely. 

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But you learn how to be a good friend to yourself, and it is the best place from which to pull in those deep, meaningful, reciprocal, life-giving, life-changing friendships with other people. I want to add to that these seasons of life, it can happen when you first get married. When you first have children. 

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I've seen this throughout, at every season of life where you're adding in relationships takes more bandwidth, takes more capacity. We need these pauses. And, again, we don't do this in our culture. We don't take the pause to go, "Oh, this is a new season, I've just changed my responsibility."

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Even taking on a new job, "I need to take a minute to pull back, to pay attention to my capacity, to realign, where I'm giving out, where I'm taking in." So it's so important with each season of life. It can happen at empty nest. Where suddenly you find you have more capacity to take a minute. Allow yourself time to adjust in every season of life.

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Cindy: So, moving on to the third question. This one we got various people asking it's about new friendships and initiating new friendships, meeting new people, and navigating that whole process. So the question is, "How do you assess for safety and trust when you're meeting new potential friends?"

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Alison: Yes, this is such a great question. And we're not taught this, which is so fascinating to me. We're taught so many things about, "Be a good friend."

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"Show up for others."

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But we're not taught how to test a new relationship. In fact, oftentimes, we feel bad about that. I think, especially, as Christians, we feel like we're supposed to be loving. 

We're always supposed to show up for others. But it's so important to discern trustworthiness, to discern safety. Especially as an adult and, especially, if you've been hurt. 

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So the first thing I would say is to insert this idea that it's wise to move slowly. It's wise to test a new relationship, to discern safety. We would do this in our dating relationships, that's why we date. You're dating to discern not just fit but health, and safety, and you can do that very strategically.

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Testing doesn't mean you're putting the other person on trial. It's not sitting back and going, "Are you going to be good enough for me?" It's not that. It's a process of discernment. And it's a process, again, of being a good friend to yourself. You're going to show yourself that you are worthy of a healthy friendship. And, so, you're going to take your time to discern trust.

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And, so, the first thing I would do is consider your past patterns. Are you somebody who rushes into a friendship and becomes that listening ear for everybody else. But quickly find that nobody's doing that same for you, these one-way relationships. Are you somebody who constantly feels disappointed by other people? 

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Are you somebody who struggles with setting boundaries in your friendships?

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Are you somebody who struggles with stating your own needs, with being vulnerable?

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As you spoke to a little bit, Cindy, in friendship. So think about your patterns, and then that's what you want to test early on. Very early on, you want to challenge yourself to do something a little bit differently before the stakes are so high, and see what happens. 

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So, for example, if it's really hard for you to share in a friendship, practice early on, challenge yourself. And don't start with your deepest, darkest secret. But I tell the story in The Best of You. Early on, when I was making a new friend; just inviting somebody into my space, that was very vulnerable for me. I was pretty good at going into somebody else's space, and making them feel like a million bucks, and being super affirming and positive for them. 

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But I had to challenge myself, "What would it be like if I invited somebody into my space." Whether it's into my home, oh, that's so vulnerable. For me, that was vulnerable. Or whether it's into a story, maybe, something that's true about my past that's just a little bit vulnerable, and doing it intentionally to notice how do they respond to that?

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Can they meet you there?

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Can they provide that same encouragement for you? Or do they just blow past it, and not notice, and not really care? So you're putting out, again, a little bit of a breadcrumb. Can they take that? 

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Can they see you?

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Cindy: Yes, that's good. I think a lot of what we're trying to find in other people. This ability to trust them and feel safe with them. I think being someone who you can trust, for yourself. Being someone you can trust and feel safe with, is so important. 

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Alison: Yes.

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Cindy: I know that I struggled a lot with trust, previously, and I still do now. But it's gotten a lot better, and it's because I committed to being honest and I really committed to living a life of integrity. And ever since I had that as a value that I knew I wanted to say yes to, I began to notice in other people. In new people that I met, signs of trustworthiness. And I don't really know how to explain it really, specifically, but I just could just feel that.

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I guess one specific scenario, I was in a friend group and people were beginning to hit that slightly gossipy conversation territory. And one of the people in the group just said, pretty casually, "hey, I'm not really comfortable talking about this person behind their back. Can we move on to something else?" And that was like, "Oh, green flag, I love that they just did that."

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But before I knew that I really valued honesty, and integrity, and had that value, I don't think I would have been as drawn to that.

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Alison: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. As we become trustworthy for ourselves, we become attuned to what matters to us, and suddenly we notice, "Oh, I like that. I like what that person did." And, so, we're going to move toward, more seamlessly, folks who will be safe for us.

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Cindy: Yes, and another part of that is, I think, what happens, subconsciously, is if I told white lies or if someone asked me to do something that I didn't want to do, but I still did it and made it seem like I wanted to do it. I would assume that everyone else is treating me like that, too. So if I asked someone to do something for me and they willingly did it. I would still fear that they were just pretending to willingly do it because that's what I was doing to all my friends.

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Alison: That's so good.

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Cindy: But when I started living with integrity, and saying no if I didn't want to and saying yes when I did want to. It really helped me trust that other people were doing that, too.

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Alison: Yes, and you start to discern the more you're aware of your own propensity to do things like that. You do have a little bit more of an accurate radar for where it's happening. I always say that to people, the more health you bring in, the less tolerance you have for unhealthy and toxicity in others. You just notice it much more.

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Cindy: That's so true much more. It just comes so much more quickly. So our inner work, dramatically, impacts our ability to pull in these people. Cindy, when we first connected and we were talking about the possibility of working together. 

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I remember, and it's a little bit different because this is more of a work situation. But this applies to friendships and it applies to any relationship, really. And I remember it felt very important to me that I named that I'm not very good at delegating all the things that I am not very confident in. As someone who has a hard time asking for help, not only from friends, but in my work life. 

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And, for me, it was so helpful to say, "Listen, this is what I'll be good at. This is what I'm going to be struggling with and what I've got a learning curve on, and I just want you to know that." And I want you to know that as you see that you can tell me. You can say, "I just want you to know this." So that you feel free we've named it. There's no surprises. And that, to me, is very freeing, and I'll do that with new friends, too. I'll be like, "Here's what's good, here's what might be hard." And it's on the table and then there's no surprises. 

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And, so, when I find myself doing things that I still do, that can be confusing to people, or if I find myself doing some of those things it's out there. And there's so much freedom inside of me, then, because I know there are no secrets. 

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I'm not trying to pretend that I've got it all together. I'm not trying to pretend I've arrived. I still have a learning curve, here's what it is. If you can accept that about me, if you can embrace that about me, and if I can, likewise, embrace your learning curve, whoever that may be. Whether it's you or someone else, we're going to do pretty well together because it's all on the table. There's nothing hidden, and that is such a freeing way to relate to people.

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Cindy: Yes, I do remember us having that conversation. And it was so helpful for me that you were the first one to name these things, and I felt really nervous. I mean, I really wanted you to like me, but I felt anxious about interacting with you. But when you named that I was able to name it, and once I did, freeing is the word. I just felt a lot calmer after that.

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Alison: It's fascinating just that naming can dissipate. Neither of us had to fix anything for each other. It was just, "Here's what I'm coming in with that makes me feel nervous." And, then, you, "Here is what I'm coming in." And I was like, "Okay, good, it's all out now. It's out on the table." So that is just another great way when you're testing a new relationship, a new friendship. That's another example where you can say to somebody, early on, and you think about dating, there's actually much better templates for dating than there are for friendship. 

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But it's not that dissimilar where you can practice saying, "Listen, I'm new to making friends. Here is what makes me nervous. Here is what I'm anxious about. Here's what I'm good at, here is what I'm not good at. I just want to put this on the table. And if that person cannot meet you there, good to know. You don't want to invest in them and if they can meet you there, wow, that's such a great feeling.

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< Music >

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Cindy: So moving on to our next question from Kim. Kim asks, "One of my close friends was just diagnosed with terminal cancer. How does our friend group help each other with the pain of this hard road?"

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Alison: That's such a tough one, Kim, thank you for writing in. And our hearts and prayers are with you and your friend group, as you go through this together. There's nothing more profound than going through something like that with a group of friends, and it brings out the best of what friendship is all about. And I guess what I would say, number one, is this is something that affects all of you. It's, primarily, affecting your friend, and you're going to be rallying around her. And, also, you are dealing with your own grief as you process the loss of a friend with that friend. 

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So be really gentle with yourselves. I would say a lot of naming, just naming, less fixing, more naming. In the sense of just being very present to whatever it is that you feel. You'll feel there's so many emotions, the whole range of emotions. There can be a lot of joy and a lot of laughter as you reminisce, as you remember, as you name what's been beautiful, and, then, there's a lot of sadness. And those emotions flip very organically and back and forth, and just to be present to all of it.

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It's okay to, at moments, be laughing together and then to just feel the grief together. You'll feel grief at different times, so to just be very flexible. There's this psychological flexibility that is needed in these times that are so poignant. Where they're precious times together. Where you are going to be present to the whole range of human emotions together with this other human.

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The other thing I would say is safeguard it. There's going to be a lot of vulnerability. And, so, this may not be the time to be expanding your friendship network or taking on new challenges. This may be a season to really be present to this process, to this grieving process with this friend and with this friend group. To allow yourself to step into that place. 

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Which means you will have reduced capacity in other areas and to let other people know that, whoever you need to let know that. That "This is where I'm at. This is what I'm giving my attention to. I need to be present to this all of the full range of emotions that it requires." And to really just let yourself be in that process with your friends. 

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It's precious time, it's sacred, it's holy, it's hard, it's also beautiful. And to not deny yourself any of that process on this journey, with your friend. I would also say to not make assumptions about what your friend needs to ask. What do you need? 

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What can we do? And to not project and to not have any expectations or assumptions about what she might need. She may need you to laugh with her. She may need you to be normal with her. She may need you to just do the normal things that she's always done. She may want you to really help her in ways that you haven't anticipated. So just be really open to what she needs and honor that as best you can. 

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The other thing I would say, from my experience in my own family, if there are children involved, is I would as much as possible normalize. We don't really normalize grief in our society and the ups and downs of it. Children are amazing. Sometimes they will be laughing and having fun and just enjoying themselves, and that's normal and great, too. And sometimes they'll get really sad and it'll start to hit them. 

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So there's, again, that psychological flexibility to just be present, especially, if there are kids involved, especially to the immediate family that's grieving. The emotions come out in all sorts of ways. Sometimes there's anger and to be present to that, it takes that agility to support a family that is grieving, that is going through a loss. So, again, just prepare for that as much as possible by reducing your capacity. Because you will be surprised at all the things that will come out and at the flexibility that is required. 

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Cindy: All right, so I think the last question we'll hit on, today, is from Meg. "How do we be friends with someone who is draining but needs friends? Is it unbiblical to leave the social outcast because they're awkward and or don't have the social skills to be a deep friend?"

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Alison: I love this question, and it's so important because we talk a lot about friendships being two-way streets. We need those folks who are pouring into us just as we are pouring into them. You have to have those friends. Again, that research that you need about five, three to five of those two-way friendships. You don't need a lot, but you need a few of those two-way reciprocal friendships. 

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That being said, we all need to have some capacity to love the folks who are hard to love. That is part of following Jesus. And, in my experience, those folks bring me joy in ways that are unparalleled. It's a different kind of thing, and I don't know that I would even call it friendship. I'm also not really comfortable calling it ministry. 

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Because, in my experience, some folks just showing kindness to folks, reaching out to folks who maybe don't know how to engage a deeper conversation or, for whatever reason, stand a little bit more on the edges of our social groups. 

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What I have found is those are some of my favorite people to interact with. And I make it a priority to have a conversation with those folks, and establish a relationship, and a rapport with people who may not have that capacity to invest in me or pour back into me, but I still get something. And I just see that in Jesus, He was always going to the folks on the margins, who didn't fit into mainstream society. And I love that you ask the question. 

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So what I want to say is this all of this gets back to healthy boundaries and capacity. If that's the only thing you're doing. If you're somebody who is compulsively reaching out to all the people who are hurting. All the people who are in need. All the people who are just desperate for your attention, and you take on that messiah complex and it's killing you, and it's draining you. 

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And I've seen people, in my therapy office, who just have that beautiful heart. And I talk about this a lot, the empathy trap where they just are pouring out and then they are just nothing coming in, that is not healthy. That will not work. 

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You have to have those two-way, reciprocal, deep, friendships. And, also, as you are nourishing yourself, as you are filling your own cup, you have more to give to folks. You have more kindness to give to people. And you will find, in that proper balance, that you get something back from those folks, too. You get something back. It's different. It's not the same as that mirroring that withness, but it's just the joy of seeing the image of God in all people. 

And, so, I would say these two things go hand in hand. As you fill up your tank, as you have those deep, life-giving friendships. You have more capacity to show up for folks who maybe don't have the skills to relate socially in those same ways. But who also will just be delighted by those different kinds of interactions.

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Cindy: Yes. I would say, to this question, I think, it's important to look inwards and see where you're at. I don't know if this is the case. But if the question is coming from a place of, "I'm really drained by this person, and I really don't feel like I have the capacity to hang out with this person anymore. Is it unbiblical to leave them?" I mean, I would say that if you're running on empty. It's good to do things that fill you back up before you keep trying to give when you have nothing left to give. 

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We might feel guilty for doing that. We're expecting ourselves to always be pouring out, even if we have nothing left in the tank. And I think it's so good, what you said about we can't just be these people here to help everyone else and lose ourselves in the process.

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Alison: Yes, I would say, actually, the litmus test, so if you are feeling drained because you are pouring so much out to help others, you're probably out of balance. And, so, in my experience, when my own tank is being filled. When I've got those deep friendships in place, I find joy in interacting with folks where there is more of a need on the other end. And, so, that's my litmus test. If it's bringing me joy and I'm delighting in it, then, I know I'm operating from a full tank. 

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But if it's dragging me down, and I'm exhausted, and I'm bitter, and I'm resentful, and I'm like, "I just can't deal with this." That's a cue that something is out of balance. And, so, you may need to step back, for a little while, to get things back into balance where you're getting nourished. Where you're getting those needs met. So there's more overflow for folks who need a little bit of extra from you.

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Cindy: Yes, that's so good. Just the litmus test of if you're feeling joyful versus if you're just building resentment.

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Alison: Yes, resentment-based, guilt-driven love, resentment-driven love is not love. So as we close, think about who are those three to five that you can pull in? Whether from your past. Whether you're going to really commit to making a new friend, to go deeper with, that takes work. That takes time. 

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So you may be listening going, "I need to devote the next six months to finding a friend like that." And, again, using that dating analogy, that will take time. There will be some trial and error, it may not happen overnight. It will happen if you put effort into it. And if that's the season you're in, focus on that, that overflow will come later. 

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And, then, if you've got those few people and you're getting more intentional, as we've talked through this series. About really ensuring you're spending the time needed to bearing witness to each other, to being with each other, then you might begin to notice. How is that overflowing? 

How does that change my capacity to show up for others outside of those friendships? So pay attention to where you are on your friendship journey. It's never too late. You can always begin to make new friends, to pull old friends in closer, and begin to look for the fruit. 

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Where is their joy? Where is their goodness? Where are you feeling life? What is bringing you life? What is bringing out the best of you in these relationships? Move toward those, and I promise you that overflow will come. 

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Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us. Thank you, Cindy, it was so delightful for me to have you here with me, as a conversation partner. Thank you so much for joining me and adding your wisdom. 

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Cindy: I enjoyed being on here with you a lot.

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Alison: We'll do it again. We look forward to hearing more about your story in just a few weeks.

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Cindy: I'm excited.

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< Outro >

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

This episode is so special to me. I sit down with my 3 childhood friends, including my older sister, as we describe what it was like to bring our past selves into our present. We were close all through high school, but life took us on different paths, to different cities, and through different experiences of faith, marriage, and family life.

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Over 2 decades later, we reconvened and replayed the tape of our lives-each one of us bearing witness to the other. Today, we share with you what we discovered about the power of reclaiming your past. I pray this episode sparks your imagination and ignites your desire as you consider pulling in old and new friends as companions on your journey toward wholeness.

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Here's what we cover:

1. Why 4 childhood friends reconnected to each other-and our past selves

2. How diverse perspectives strengthened, not divided, our rekindled friendships

3. Confronting & overcoming regret

4. How revisiting my sister's teen pregnancy became a catalyst for healing

5. What we'd each say to our younger selves now

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Resources

• ‍Research on friendship capacity
• ‍Song: Pass It On by Kurt Kaiser lyrics

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• 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 ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Visit hiyahealth.com/BESTOFYOU and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.

Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You podcast, where we are in a series all about friendship. And today is a really special episode, in part because we're celebrating a significant milestone. This past week, I found out that this podcast crossed 1 million downloads in just a little over a year. That's 60 episodes, over 1 million people have listened to The Best of You podcast. 

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This is a mind-blowing number to me, that so many of you each week are tuning in to listen. As we talk about how to break free from painful patterns, mend the past and become our true selves in God. 

When I started this podcast, a little over a year ago, a couple of things were really important to me. Number one, first and foremost, I wanted to bring the best of psychology together with faith to talk about how we become whole people now. How we become the people that God wants us to become this side of heaven. As a clinician, and as a person of faith. I see so many important ways in which both psychology and theology can inform us, in practical ways to become more whole, and that healing starts now. 

But, secondly, I wanted to bring my whole self to this podcast. I didn't want to pretend that I have it all figured out. I'm part of this journey with you. And it's really important to me, to not only bring the best of what I study, of what I research, of what I know to be good, solid science, and good, solid theology, but also to bring my whole self. Which means to bring what's good and what's also still very much in progress. 

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And, so, in today's episode, it felt apropos to bring on my three childhood friends, including my sister. To talk about how we've reconnected, these past few years. And how that reconnection has created such a foundation for health going forward. 

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And so today's episode is really about those old friendships. How you can pull in and reconnect to old friends from the past. These old friends who help you connect to your sense of self in such a unique way. These friends who can remind you of aspects of yourself you may well have lost touch with. Maybe your playfulness or your innocence. Maybe a dream that you had, or a gift, or a talent you had that somehow got buried along the way, as things got hard. 

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And these are the folks who've stood by as you've grown, and changed, and navigated different life stages. They might understand your past, the place from which you came. It's the place from which you came. The unique quirks or the unique values of that, that might have changed along the way. 

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They remind you that through all the seasons of life, you're still you. You're still that person you were before life, maybe beat, you down and got the best of you. You still have that precious younger you. That you that was full of dreams, that was full of optimism, that was full of hope, is still in you. 

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There's something so powerful and so grounding about coming together with a safe person. Who knew you in a different season of your life. Where you look together at the pieces. Maybe, about what's hard, about some of the things that happened, that maybe you didn't expect. That you didn't even know how to prepare yourself for, back then, but you've survived.

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You've come out the other side now, and together you remind each other. That you're still the same person in so many ways. Yes, you've grown wiser through some really hard things. Yes, there's a lot to grieve together. There's a lot that we didn't know how to anticipate, but here we are now. We've made it through some things. Let's take a minute to see where we are now. To see where we've been, what we've come through, where we are now. And even more, importantly, where we still have to get, where we still want to go, and what's still possible.

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These old friends can come alongside us and be such an ally, and be such a resource, such a gift. As you look at who you were in the past, what you've survived, and where you are now. And you formulate a hope that takes all of that into account. All of who you are, of what's changed, of what you've survived, of where you are now. 

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So that as you look forward, you are grounded in a fuller, more whole picture of all of it. Of the truth of what's been hard, of the wisdom you've now gained. You can find hope, in looking back, even over what's been hard. Not to dwell there, but to look back and scoop up the pieces and weave them together in a newer, more whole, more complete version of yourself. That is a compilation of the past, of the present, and of the hope of what is, yet, to come. 

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There is research that shows that very few friendships last seven years. Only 30%, in fact. But those that do last seven years, tend to have what it takes to last a lifetime. So if you've got friends out there that were dear friends of yours for seven years. Even if you've lost touch, that's a strong foundation upon which to build. 

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Research also shows that we can really only sustain about five intimate friends, and only about 15 trusted friends. That's not that many. Those 15 might be some of those friends with whom you've lost touch. Maybe you see them on social media. Maybe you see them at the YMCA, or at a church group, or wherever, and maybe you've grown a little distance, but the trust is there. 

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And research shows that it's not so much about quantity. It's not about having a massive amount of friends. It's about quality. It's about intentionality. It's about taking inventory. Who are those trusted people, whether from the past or from your current life, and how can you pull a few of them in closer. To go even deeper, and how being intentional about that is an incredibly important part of a healthy, whole life. 

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And, so, for today's episode, we're going to talk about these older friends. And I've invited three of my childhood friends onto the podcast. And we're going to share with you, some of what we've learned, as we become intentional about reconvening these last few years. Today's three guests are my oldest and dearest childhood friends. Courtney Cook Williamson who's also my older sister. Jennie Ann Kopser Becker, and Rebecca Kopser Goodman I still call her Becky. 

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The four of us grew up together, essentially, since birth. We were all born and raised in a small town in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. Our parents were friends, and we went to the same Bible church, from our earliest years. 

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We would play for hours while our parents talked.They'd throw all four of us in the back of a Pinto station wagon, before there were seatbelt laws, as we drove to church each week. We were all in different grades, so we had different friend groups apart from each other. But we stayed close throughout high school, and had a lot of overlapping friends and things in common. 

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But as adults, our lives diverged quite a bit. We moved away. We left our hometown. We went to colleges on opposite ends of the country. We pursued different careers, and different paths to marriage and family. We stayed in touch a little bit, but were not nearly as involved in each other's day-to-day lives. 

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But during the pandemic, we reconvened, just the four of us, to check in on who we are now, as middle-aged women. We got together, for the first time, in Vermont several years ago and then in Texas this past year, each time for a long weekend. And the results of those two weekends were amazing to all of us. 

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So much had changed and, yet, a lot had remained the same. And that's why I invited these friends and my sister on, to share about our experience of reconnecting to each other after several decades. And how powerful that's been in our own journeys toward wholeness. 

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I hope this episode will spark your imagination. As you consider some of your old friends, and some of your new ones, and how they've shaped your lives. Remember, you don't need a lot of friends. But you do need a few who know you deeply and intimately, and you can start at any time. So with that in mind, I am so delighted to bring you this episode with my dearest childhood friends and my sister Courtney Cook Williamson, Becky Kopser Goodman, and Jennie Ann Kopser Becker.

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I want to start, Courtney, with you because you were approaching your 50th birthday. And you said, to me, "What I want for my birthday, what I want for this milestone, is to get the four of us back together." So tell us a little bit about what was going on inside of you, that led you to reconvene this group of the four of us.

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Courtney: Yes, so there was a confluence of events around my 50th, that came together. And one of them was just a realization of I'm the outlier of the faith-based community of the four of us. I'm not as active in the church, and I have, I think, probably, I'm guessing, many more secular friends. I live a more secular lifestyle. And I'm also on the outside of the Wyoming diaspora. I've lived in New York City, and Sydney, and I'm in Vermont. 

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And as I was looking at 50, I was missing, honestly, both the church connection or the faith-based connection and the connection to the West. You guys are all out West, and I'm not. And kind of thinking about what does it mean to look back on the first half, or the first two thirds of my life. And the people who came up in my mind; as I want to connect with, and talk to, and be with is the three of you and our friend Michael Phillips. 

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So Michael passed in the late '90s, and so we couldn't have him. But you guys and Michael are the people who've known me best, and known me the longest. And I just really wanted to use that birthday as an occasion to bring that back into being, to be honest.

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Alison: I remember when you told me that. You'd been thinking a lot about, "Who are my people?"

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"Where do I find people who get me?"

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And, so, there was this backdrop of, "Oh, I want to be intentional about connecting to some of these people, from my past, that meant so much to me." That you hadn't been in as good of touch with. So I had been, to some degree, in touch, still, with Becky and Jenni Ann. Becky and I had lived in Denver. Whereas you, because you were in Vermont, for a variety of reasons, my sense is you had lost more touch. Is that accurate? And what was that about?

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Courtney: Yes, absolutely. I think that, in some ways, I have just relied upon you to tell me how the Kopsers were doing. Honestly, I think, I consciously just counted on you to give me that news, and I was busy. I was working. Again, I was traveling. I was living in New York. I had gone through a divorce. I was raising my own kids. My kids are a little older than you guys' kids. 

And, so, I had just, kind of, outsourced that to you, frankly. And it just stopped making sense to outsource it to you because that's not connection, that's not keeping up. And I knew both Jennie Ann and Becky to be women that I respected, and trusted, and loved. And I actually started to, honestly, long to know more about them and their lives. And, again, as I had an empty nest, I had more energy, and interest, and bandwidth to want to know what's going on with them.

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Alison: So, Jennie Ann and Becky, what was it like for you when Courtney said, "Let's get the four of us back together?" We hadn't seen each other in I don't know how long, all four of us together. What was that like for you guys?

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Jennie Ann: So I will just say that it was an email that Courtney wrote, an amazing email, always, and she just threw it out there to us. I think she had talked to you, Alison. But, then, she just sent an email and said, "This is what I want. This is what I am looking to get together, and are you in?" And I will say it wasn't anything that there were any hints that this would be coming. It was out of the blue, completely, out of the blue. And I was like, "Oh, my gosh, yes."

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So immediately I would say that it touched into a desire that had been long just sitting there and, maybe, waiting for this very moment. Not, necessarily, one that there was an expectation that it was actually going to get to be met. But, then, when the opportunity came along, and I'm just speaking for myself, I was just like, "I can't believe that we're going to do this and, absolutely, I can't even think of anything I want more."

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Alison: So how long had it been, Courtney and Jennie Ann? Because you guys were best friends all through high school. The two of you were tight. How long had it been since you'd really, meaningfully, connected as adults?

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Jennie Ann: I will say that, probably, we hadn't even, yet, fully connected as adults. Because, circumstantially, our lives peeled off in just fast, and opposite, and full trajectories that there was no overlap.

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Courtney: Jennie Ann and I, both, hit the rockiness of being an adult fast. When I was 19 and when Jennie Ann was 18, we didn't have a gentle glide into adulthood. We both hit adulthood fast and we started coping from our late teenage years. 

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And, so, yes, that's the last time that we got to be talking a lot, and playing whist on the wrestling bus, calling each other Rhoda and Juanita. And we had connected around when Jennie Ann had gotten married, and again around our friend's loss. But, really, we launched into adulthood and didn't get a chance to keep up with each other, and that was a rupture, honestly.

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Jennie Ann: And I would say there was one small, little foreshadowing, Alison, at your wedding. When the four of us, kind of, minus you because you were the one getting married. But the three of us had this tiny, little overlap that really did stir the pot, for me, in terms of growing that desire, even after the decades. Thinking, "Look, this would be so amazing."

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Alison: How about for you, Becky? So you and I both lived in Denver, into our adulthood. I even lived with you, in your basement, when you were pregnant with Jordan.

Becky: That was a definite time of just, like you said, reconnection, even for a bit. And you being able to come to know my oldest daughter. And then walk through some of the days with getting ready to have my second, and just having the unfiltered home life all around.

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Alison: Yes, it's true. I mean, the fact that you guys let me into your home and live with you. While you were, literally, seven months pregnant with your second child, it was just amazing because I was going through my own rocky season. So my recollection for us, Becky, is after that time when we weren't in Denver, together, we wouldn't talk a lot. 

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But I remember, distinctly, sometimes, you and I would overlap in our hometown. And if I could get half a day with you. I remember sitting at Kendrick Park, and you and I, we had enough foundation. We could go deep and really maximize that time, and it did keep us a little bit in touch with each other's lives, even though it wasn't quantity.

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Becky: I would agree, and that's when I started to just really resonate with you and with Jennie Ann, at that time. And now with all three of us, it's so much more the quality rather than the quantity. Just being able to have a little bit, and just going into deep waters, and feeling safe to do so.

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Courtney: That's the through line to this whole thing of what happened for 20 years. Is, honestly, the things that did happen were deep waters, intense, that quote "unfiltered home life". We even though we hadn't seen each other, each time we could connect. Whether Alison, you guys had a little more than I did. 

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We were immediately back into trust, realness, authenticity, support, resilience all the real things. And I don't know about you guys, but the older I get and the longer I live, the more rare and special it is to be able to go there with someone. And that's what just kept happening, even if it was five years apart, it still happened.

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Alison: What created that baseline of safety and trust? That even when we were swooping in and out, and getting glimpses. It allowed us then to prove it out after not, necessarily, seeing each other for 20 years

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Jennie Ann: Well, I think that the foundational thing, two things, when you said that we were maybe more familial than anything else, I really do. When I picture you guys, I don't have you in the same pot as my next level friends. It really is foundational and it does, it feels like extended family or something. There's a very different bond there than the people that, then, came into my life later as friends, even as good a friends as they are. 

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And we had all of the external common experiences. Even though we had other friends, and I think weren't even so much a foursome except for our early childhood years, it was super formative. And then when we swooped back, decades later, I think, that it was largely we had been growing in wholeness, separately. And we were all primed and ready to bring who we had become into our foundational, circumstantial friendships and, then, have them go forward into the future.

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Courtney: And to that I would add exactly that and the priming. And I think it's a little funny that I'm the one to say that, is that, honestly, that evangelical Christian upbringing we were raised. In that exegetical. We went to church together. We rode in the back of the Pinto to church every week. We understood, we were mentored from very young about how to be a good person. How to walk in Jesus's footsteps. All of that was just right in the mix from day one, and part of that family sense is like, who will we be? How will we grow?

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How will we develop?

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The other thing I don't want to miss saying is we had a just absolutely phenomenal Rocky Mountain upbringing. That it's just a beautiful setting that I find often that no one else understands what it's like to grow up in the Bighorn Mountains. So you put all that together, and then I would throw it to Becky and say, what else would you add to this extraordinary connection?

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Becky: Just adding to the whole time that we got together. The invite, from Courtney, for me being the youngest, it brought me back to my young self, a little bit, too. To be excited that I got invited. There was that bit of, "Ah, I get to play with the big girls or the older girls." 

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And at the same time, very quickly, understood because of the email and just as we were in correspondence, like Jennie Ann mentioned and Courtney, that there's been a lot of years that have passed and a lot of growth, and good things, hard things. More complete wholeness as a person, and I felt very much a part. 

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So being welcomed, invited, that was something literal. But also that I felt like was meaning that we're going to be coming and didn't know what it was going to look like, but the openness was there.

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Jennie Ann: I just want to add to that, that invite triggered all of those, the anticipation and the not knowing what we're getting into. We got there and, no kidding, it was 100% safe. It was 100% safe. There was grace extended for whatever was shared. And I think that everybody had grown to a place of being able to just fully hear and receive, what the others were wanting to just put on the table.

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Alison: Which is extraordinary because our lives had gone in very different directions. So, for example, Jennie Ann, you had six kids, pretty quickly. That was an intense experience going into full on parenting and, Courtney, your experience was very different from that. You had your two kids very young. You had gone through a divorce. Becky, you had gone through an adoption.

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In my family, my husband had been widowed. In many ways, we were each navigating very different lives. I was single for a long time. You guys all got married way before me. There was just a lot of differences. 

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So what was fascinating when we reconvened, from my perspective, was every single one of us, on these very different life trajectories. Including a different faith trajectory, in some ways, we were all becoming more whole, and we wouldn't have been able to know that. But we were all doing the work and that is what created the safety. 

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It wasn't that we got together and we're like, "Oh, our lives were exactly alike." It was this commitment to healing. This commitment to trying to grow in our own selves, in our parenting selves, in our marriages. In our understanding of other people. In our understanding of the world. In the understanding of what's true, and good, and worth pursuing. It's all of those ingredients that created the safety. Not so much that we overlapped in all the ways we'd been living our lives.

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Courtney: Well, and, Alison, just to add to that. That's the truth of the friendship in that time. And, then, let's just talk about this was the year 2020, which is a polarized political time, and we're in the middle of COVID. So we had all had very disparate experiences and all came out in different places.

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I'm sure we all voted differently, and I'm sure we all had different points of view on vaccine. But it didn't matter because that safety was absolutely durable. And everyone has said the word wholeness, so far, and that's it. It's, honestly, to do with doing that work toward wholeness. 

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I think that's the thing I want to hear more from you guys about, is what had we done that made it safe? Even though we hadn't seen each other. Even though the world was polarized. Even though we surely could have been polarized. There was a lot of reasons why we might have felt odd with each other, but we didn't. So what happened? What was new? I honestly think about this often.

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Jennie Ann: Well, I think that, for me, my journey had taken me far enough to get to know my own vulnerabilities, weaknesses, shortcomings, brokenness, all the words, enough, not that that's over ever, but enough. Where I think we had all become safe people for other people who had, similarly, discovered those things about themselves. 

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And, then, I would say that coming to Vermont and then our second gathering. I would say that, then, this coming together, not that the wholeness progression is over, it's, of course, going to continue. But it really was something big and milestone-ish in my own wholeness journey. 

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Because I think that it was a little bit of a tangible representation of how God knows us intimately, and every single little detail. And it got represented in these three very different people looking at you, across the table, who heard and filled out the picture. And just being known intimately like that, was the next stage on the wholeness journey.

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Alison: I like how you're saying that because we grow as individuals and in community. We're each in our own communities. But there was something about coming back to the source. The familial source and, sometimes, people don't have that in their family of origin. Sometimes people don't have that in their childhood friends. 

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But, for us, coming back to the source of contextualizing. So, for me, it's like, "This is how I take myself to be now. And now I'm with these people who knew me when I was five, when I was seven, when I was 12, when I was 15, and what are the congruencies? What hasn't changed? What has changed?" There's something incredibly grounding about that.

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I think about in therapy; we do this work of having you imagine your five-year-old self. And having you go back in the past and think of the ways that you interpreted events. And to be able to do that, literally, with the people who shared those events and those memories. We would go back to some of these childhood memories, and I could tell we were all putting pieces together about each other. But also putting pieces together about our own lives. As we, collectively, looked at the big puzzle of our lives together, and I agree that was formative.

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****

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Courtney: To give a concrete example of a moment when we were all together, at my house in Vermont. I think it was, probably, day two and a half or maybe three, I don't know. I think it was maybe Rebecca or Alison, and we started talking about what are our family traditions. 

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And looking on your guys' lives, any of these intact, I don't love that phrase, but these intact families. And Becky was talking about rafting in the mountains, and these ideas, and I was listening. And on the one hand, I feel so much joy about this, and, then, on the other hand, I feel sad because I had been divorced. 

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And, so, honestly, one of the things I said to you guys was, "I don't have traditions. Honestly, every Christmas, I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe I'll see my kids, maybe, I won't. Maybe I'll see my kids in Thanksgiving maybe I won't." 

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And that was, to talk about safety, I had never actually been able to articulate or even, honestly, be aware that was something that, I don't even know if I'd use the word suffer, but I feel it. And in my ordinary life, I might not say that because you're not going to say to people, "I don't have traditions. I just chill out and hope my kids come home." 

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But with you guys, it was like, "Yes, actually, unlike you, I don't really have traditions because divorce changes all that." And in that moment, I had both self-knowledge and also just a sense of being seen, and that made it easier. I want to say there's, probably, I bet there's a dozen of those for each of us, in that moment. Where you get to be who you are and then also feel seen in that moment.

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Alison: I love that. That rings very true for me. For me, that happened in our second gathering. So we did this first gathering and it blew all of our minds. It was intense. I think we all went home and had to sleep for the week afterward, but it was the good kind of intensity. So we thought, "We need to be doing this now regularly. We need to figure out how to stay in each other's lives because this is important." 

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And, so, we had a second gathering, and at this gathering, I had been invited to speak at a conference. And it was very representative of my quote-unquote, "New life" in a sense of doing some of this more public-facing speaking, some of this more public-facing writing. That can, sometimes, feel disjointed inside of me. 

And, so, to immediately go from that into the safety of our foursome, where you guys knew me when I was just pounding Dr. Peppers, and Tombstone pizza, whatever. Becky and I were cruising up and down main street. That was just the joy of our lives. 

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I was like, "I haven't changed. Nothing has changed, and there are nobody's opinions in the world." This is going to bring tears to my eyes, "There are nobody's opinions in the world that I value more than the three of yours, and if I'm good in this group, I'm good." And that was, for me, it brought this incongruence of what it felt like some of my life now and some of my life then into that wholeness. Into that, "Oh, no, I'm the same person." And just crystallized that for me, and that was really profound for me.

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Becky: When I returned home, following both weekends. I just shared with my family how I felt like it was just a retreat of sorts. And the retreat being that there was just so much good laughter, there was also sharing, and there was a lot of dancing. And it was a place I felt like I did as a child, I could just be myself. And I knew that, as a child, I could be myself around these three. And, then, it was so remarkable to be meeting up with you guys in Vermont, and later on in our next place, too. 

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Where I thought, "I just am not holding anything back." And that's really unique, and I knew that you guys were all a safe place, a trusted place, and continue to be. And this is the other thing that I've been thinking about is, as the youngest, I felt very protected and supported. And just in, once again, the tangible sense and stuff when you're little. 

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And, then, I got to thinking, "Well, I feel the same way as an adult." But I'm hoping that can get exchanged, too. That I can offer that to you guys, too. But I feel like that's still there, and that was groundwork that happened many years ago.

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Alison: To me that reminds me of when Curt Thompson shared about how we take our friends with us in our neural networks. There's something physiological, and it's remarkable, to me, Becky, I feel that way about you, when I'm with you. It's interesting listening to you talk about being the youngest because, for you guys who don't know, Becky, of probably all four of us, she was this incredible college athlete, formidable force. And, yet, because you were the youngest, you're excited that you got invited. When by all empirical measures you're, probably, by far the most-

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Jennie Ann: And we all looked up to Becky, actually.

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Courtney: And Becky, she's a trained nurse. You're the person that dispenses wisdom and calmness. So it is true how those roles kind of change.

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Alison: Yes, and I feel it with you, so you go into the little sister. But with you, Becky, I go into the "Oh, I'm okay because I have Becky." Because that's how I felt in high school. I'm like, "I've got Becky." And we did not, I want to reiterate, one of the things that's pretty cool about that foundation is we had different friend groups. You had your own best friends. I had my own best friends. But there was this feeling inside of me that, to this day, when I'm with you, I feel it is, "I've got Becky, so I'll be okay." And it's so fascinating that we take that with us. That lived experience of somebody with us.

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Becky: So shared.

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Courtney: Alison, I have a question, and maybe I, probably, shouldn't only address it to you, Alison, but I think of you as the expert in this. I feel like in some ways, we are lucky we have this and there's some volition around tapping back into it. But I guess my question is, how do you cultivate it if you don't have it? 

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Because I think that part of what we're talking about here is we all needed this connection in 2022, 2020. We felt like we needed that to get back to the grounding, the trust, the safety, the wholeness. And what does a person do if they don't just have their sister group? What is it about this that is something that we can take into our lives? Because I think we're hungry for it.

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Alison: I agree. I mean, I think our situation is an extreme version of safety, where it's, literally, from the womb. I will say I've had this experience with, I have another friend since we spent more time in the Bighorn Mountains I've reconnected with, from high school. And it's a very similar oh, we've each been on a growth path and, although, we lost touch, those growth paths collide. I think any glimmer, as they say, any glimmer. If you think, I'll say to my clients, I'll be like, "When did you feel seen?"

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"When did you feel loved?"

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"Who was it?"

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"Was it a pastor?"

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"When you were 25; was it a grandparent?" 

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"Was it an aunt?"

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"Was it someone when you moved to a town and they were just kind to you?"

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Just look for that glimmer, it'll stand out to you. You feel it in your whole nervous system when there's safety, and someone has seen you. And, usually, people have some answer to that. Just someone that showed that's what we're moving toward. And if you can reconnect with that person, great. If you can't reconnect with that person, hold on to that feeling. 

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What did that feel like? Let's identify what does it feel like when someone is really with you? And then we're going to work toward finding people who give you that feeling. Because, the good news is, you get it, you know what it is.

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And, so, now, we're going to help you find folks. And when you do find that because we just did an episode on new friends. I found it with a couple of people, very recently, where you can go deep pretty fast when you know, "Oh, that's what I want."

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Jennie Ann: Well, and also, in all this, I think that you then develop the ability to give that. And, so, you do tend to find each other. People who can offer that, you, very quickly, get this very definite response from people who are also able to connect at that level. I will say the childhood piece is just like we just got a special gift. Because, truly, just having somebody who gives you the permission to show your whole self to them. And to, then, also, allow that to evolve and grow. I don't know that there's a bigger gift on this earth and that can start now, with a new friendship. 

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The fact that we got to do that with people who could have stayed attached to who we were. Even as amazing and beautiful as all that was. I think the biggest gift in all this, for me, was that all of you were fully on board with wanting to know who we've become, 

and not keeping us in those spots as good as they were. But we've all grown and we wanted to know each other in our current state, and as we're moving forward, I think, that's the hugest gift of all this.

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Courtney: That's it. That's the gift, it's to be known from that core childhood self. But we have all changed and grown and to be able to be seen. Oh, my gosh, it's so nice, you're exactly right, Jennie Ann.

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Alison: And it doesn't always happen that way. We could have reconnected, I'm sure we all have stories of reconnecting to folks from our past, where there isn't that connection, paths have dispersed.

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Jennie Ann: And just there's something valuable about connecting over past commonalities. But, yes, the gift of being able to get current and move forward with people.

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Alison: That's a good point.

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Becky: So do you think that this really could have happened separate from meeting together face to face?

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Courtney: I was just going to say something similar, Becky. That there is a very real way, to me, that this feels like an IRL experience. Almost on the other side of 15 years of social media. So I'm sure I saw you guys on Facebook, and then later on Instagram or whatever, and that's fine. And it created a similar acronym of, "Oh, I'm in touch with Jennie Ann and Becky."

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But, of course, I was not. And who we are on social is just not who we are. And when you say that it was in real life, we sat around, for days, being with each other and, I think, there's got to be no substitute for that. I think it's got to be crucial. Don't you guys think?

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Becky: I think so.

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Alison: That's a good point because I was curious how, Courtney, I forgot about social media. How were we in touch those 20 years? Because we did have updates on each other. We kind of knew details, factoids, about each other's lives.

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Jennie Ann: I would even say they don't even overlap. Honestly, for me, I feel like what we got to start and now have continued since the face-to-face at Courtney's. And, so, now we are able to use Zoom and things because we went together and, literally, unstructured time. Unstructured time just being together.

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Courtney: That's so important, it wasn't a wedding, but it matches the hybrid thing. I think we spend together, it was 18 months, once, and then 18 months again later. And, then, we have these scheduled Zoom meetings, and it's the combination that's made it real. I think that's got to be a huge part of this. I know it is for me. 

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And even pulling ourselves out of our context a little bit. I mean, one of the things I'm in awe of is both Jennie Ann and Becky, in particular, are just, literally, always on call to their amazing, brilliant, children. 

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And, yet, you are removed a little bit from that context, and it lets us all be together. And I would just encourage people, too, you're still moms, you're still busy people. But we did travel to be together twice, and that created a space that we needed. To just be who we really are and let down our hair, metaphorically, for sure.

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Becky: Originally, when we met the first time. It was a miracle that everything was timed, and kids were taken care of, and everything worked out to get together. And, then, I believe, when we had the other opportunity. It was, "Let's do this. Let's just try one more time to see if this can work." And it did. And I think that because of the previous time, we all thought, "Okay, this is important." At least, for me, speaking for myself, I thought, "I'm going to clear things, whatever I can do to make this happen."

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Jennie Ann: Yes, so I think that one of the things I was thinking about, with that, Becky, is that, okay, so for me, the initial get-together opened a whole new door. And, so, it took courage to take the risk to go try this. But then once you do, then, it's just not something that we're going to be hesitant about. It's like, "Oh, I'm going to actually prioritize this now. I already know that the connection has been made, and this is life-giving, clear the deck for this." And I didn't say any of that well, but you know what I'm trying to say, guys.

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Courtney: Yes, you did say it well. But I also think that we should maybe dwell, for a moment, on the risk. Because I think we're speaking through this haze of, "Oh, my gosh, it was amazing for us." But it was scary both times. I know Jennie Ann when we met in Texas, you had some stuff going on, and you put yourself in that space. 

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And I know, for me, part of why it worked to have the original meeting in Vermont. Again, I describe myself as the outlier or the diaspora person. It helped that you guys came to me. That helped me as the divorced person or the person with, maybe, slightly, let's say, adjacent apostate tendencies. I think that we did all choose to be vulnerable and we met that challenge. And I don't want to underestimate that, that does take courage, and it was worth it.

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Alison: What was the risk with the second weekend? In my mind, it is along the lines of, "What if that was a one off?"

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"What if that was just special? Can we replicate it?" And my sense after the second weekend was we went even deeper a lot.

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Courtney: Yes, by a lot.

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Jennie Ann: It's like we went in another layer.

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Alison: Yes.

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Courtney: I had less for the second. What about you guys? Jennie Ann and Becky, for you, what was the risk in the second one?

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Becky: I think in the second one, I feel like I went a layer deeper. The first time that we met up, I felt really the safety and the trust. But that might have been more communicating and sharing about the years and my life, and a little bit more of ruts around me. And I think that the second time was more of it's just me, and the change, and the growth that happened with me, personally, and that was, definitely, more vulnerable place.

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Alison: I agree with you, Becky, I think, we really went deeper into some of our own stuff and shared pretty vulnerably. One of the things that was remarkable about that second gathering, for me, was to really be a witness to, especially, you Courtney and Jennie Ann. Talking about that season of life when you were 19 and 20 and your awareness of what the other one was going through. Your pain that you couldn't be there for the other one. And, really, that is where your guys' paths began to diverge. Not because there was any animosity, not because there was any anger. 

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One of you used the word rupture, that there was just this inability. There was so much going on in each of your individual lives that didn't overlap, and also that reduced your capacity to be there for each other. And there was this moment where you both were processing, and I sensed, I'm not sure the exact words you used. But you were both circling back to that and repairing, and naming, and I don't think either of you were holding anything against the other. 

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But you were both naming, regret, you were naming, "This was hard." And it was powerful, in that room when you guys were circling back. And I'd love for you to talk about that, because I think for people listening this happens. We go through seasons in life where we can't be there for somebody and we lose touch. I've had this happen with numerous friends. 

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I remember, there was a season where I had a friend just disappear on me, for years, and it was painful. And I thought, "Well, there's nothing I..." And then we circle back later and she tells me what was going on and I'm like, "I get it." And I never held animosity at all, but, sure, it hurt. I think this happens. And, so, to watch you guys enter back into that was really beautiful to me. Can you guys talk about that a little bit?

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Jennie Ann: I will say that it's one of those things in my life where I feel such a need to be able to just say the thing that I wish that I could have done differently, with different people. And, specifically, the privilege of getting to just say that to you, Courtney, and have the opportunity to express the sadness that still lingered. Even though we've both grown and moved on, and that was a real gift.

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Courtney: I think that's, definitely, one of the outcomes, it's very seldom in our lives do we actually get to go back and maybe have a little bit of a do over. And I think there was a way in which, I think all four of us, because what ended up happening was this thing that, nominally, had happened both in Jennie Ann's life and my life. But Becky and Alison were also witness to it. So we ended up all, you got that four mini bystander view. That's just a blessing, and it doesn't happen very much.

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Where you can actually have a cathexis around, maybe, to make it slightly less abstract. I'm, maybe, the most comfortable talking about the little, there were several different things that happened all around coming of age. But I got unexpectedly pregnant. I had an unplanned pregnancy when I was 19, I guess, and there were lots of events cascading from that. 

And we all tried to help each other, and wanted to help each other, and it was quite a challenging time in the two Christian homes-

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Alison: Small town.

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Courtney: Yes.

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Alison: You were offered an Ivy League college, let's say, I mean, it was a bizarre set of circumstances.

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Courtney: And the thing that I know now, which I didn't know then, was I have this public event. Again coming home from Dartmouth pregnant, which is certainly quite newsworthy. But, of course, anytime something like that happens, in a small community or in a friend group, everyone else has things going on, too. And maybe they're a little more quiet, and maybe they're hidden, and maybe they've remained hidden. 

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And, so, what this time allowed us to do was both recast what I had gone through, honestly, much more integrated with what we were all going through. Because, of course, we were all teenagers and we were all going through a learning process around our sexual selves, and our Christian selves, and our moral selves, and our ethical selves, and our relational selves. 

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And when do you ever get to go back and reanalyze that stuff? It was really beautiful. And I would, again, if you don't have your Kopser girls to do that with, and your sister to do that with. I think finding someone to do that with is the essence of friendship. 

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It can't happen on social media. It's something that we can intentionally do with each other, and it just gave me so much peace and strength. And, then, I also just want to say, the combined wisdom from the three of you, in this event, was just so fun for me. Because now I have these powerful, midlife, women who know all kinds of things and have learned so much to draw from. And now I know that because we went through this thing where we talked about all these things we had learned. I mean, what a resource, it's game-changing for me.

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Alison: Yes, I also want to add, I really do think that is what a good therapist does. A good therapist helps you. I'm thinking of folks, if you're listening to this, going, "I don't have that friend." But that's what you're doing in the therapy room. You're retelling your story with someone else. There's a withness, there's a presence. There's somebody asking you questions. Helping you see it from all these different angles. Helping you untie the knots of the narratives you've told yourself. That's what therapy does. 

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Friendship and therapy, they're not the same thing. They're not a substitute for each other. But there is overlap, and there's a way in which you get some of that benefit. That healing benefit with really good friends. You can go back to a really painful memory with some really safe people, and you also get some of that release, that nervous system calming. That, "Oh, my gosh, I'm known." And I'm seeing this from all these different angles.

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Jennie Ann: Definitely, it's just an extra, over the top, gift that we've been given to be able to actually go through this growth together. But not recognizing that most people don't have those relationships in place in their lives, it's not something to give up on pursuing.

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< Music >

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Courtney: Another thing, Ali, that I wanted to bring out about this event that happened at our Texas meetup. Which is our second meetup, and this goes out to all the parents out there. Is that I think the precipitating conversation, I think it was even before you got there. 

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Jennie Ann and Becky were talking about their kids. And I was actually very interested in hearing what it's like to be raising kids. My kids are out of college now, but your kids are still in high school. And I found this to be true over and over again, that when we seek to parent our kids, we actually have to re-parent ourselves from our past. 

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And when we struggle with how to protect and nurture our kids, we actually have to learn new things that have to do with our own past. And anyone can take that as an opportunity, but it's delicate work. It is work that a good therapist, a good friend, you need a little help because it's complex. Because it's your kid, but it's also you, and it's the fears you have, but it's also the fears you have for your kids.

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Alison: It's sacred ground. You want to proceed cautiously, especially, as you're bearing witness. We're bearing witness to each other. We're bearing witness to each other parenting. We're bearing witness to each other in some of our best and in some of our most complicated moments, and it is delicate. And that's where that safety comes in. And the thing to remember is when we're coming together, especially, that first weekend, where it's really vulnerable. Each of us is coming into it with our own stuff, from our own lives, and lots of complicated stuff. 

I mean, between the four of us, we've covered the gamut of anything that could happen to a family, to a kid, to a marriage, to a person; mentally, emotionally, physically. It's probably happened. Becky, if it's okay, if you're comfortable, I just remember you were coming in with your eldest daughter, having a really serious medical concern. You came, but you were surfing that literally the whole time.

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Becky: Yes, my oldest had just been recently diagnosed with what looked like Type One diabetes. So she had a blood sugar monitor on her, and she would struggle with actually low blood sugars. And, so, as we were meeting for breakfast and then proceeding to go and look in a really cool bookstore, together, and have some conversation. 

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The alarm on my phone that's connected to her Dexcom blood sugar monitor was going off, and I was having to have some conversations with her from clear across the country. And, man, though, did I feel, also, with you guys, just I was getting support. I was getting a couple of eyeballs looking at me and just saying, "Is everything okay?" 

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And, truly, it brought about, again, some stuff that probably, for me, personally, needed to be talked about. And that was with some of these new health concerns or things in our kids' lives, you can't control everything, there's just hard things.

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Courtney: It was so interesting to me because on the one hand, I was watching it, and I was just like, "Women are so strong." I mean, moms can do anything. I mean, you're in Vermont, you're multitasking. We're actually having fun, we're bonding, and you're, literally, managing with your daughter her health. And then at the same time, we're all surfing that existential horror. And I use the word horror on purpose, as a mom, where you actually can't fix it, you cannot. And she's old enough that you're having to figure out, "What's my boundary?"

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"What do I have to let her do versus what can I do as a mom?"

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And it was just such a moment of, "Oh, my gosh, this is life. This is what it means to be a woman, and a mom, and a modern person."

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Alison: I think what was striking to me is, again, this modern life of we parent so much in isolation.

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Becky: Yes.

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Alison: Do you guys feel that? There's so much of what we're doing, and it's not that we don't have friends. But that weekend where we're really, literally, witnessing each other in the moment. Especially with you, Becky, because it was such an immediate need. There was that vulnerability of we're watching you be in the immediate need with your daughter, in that moment. And that takes a lot of safety, again. But also, I would imagine there's also a sense of not feeling alone in that.

Becky: Right. Again, it wasn't like I could pretend that everything was okay. When I'm in certain settings, I feel like I have to put myself together and act like I've got everything under control with that, and it's false. It's an illusion. So with that, with everyone, I was able to just say, "This is really hard." And it was just going to be hard, and you saw it.

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Alison: And we saw it. 

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Becky: You saw it. I'm like, "All my cool, calm, collectiveness, you're gone." It's just my watch, my phone. So it takes another layer off.

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Jennie Ann: But I think that that's one of the things about this kind of friendship. That's so valuable, is that it is a place that you can be weak and that's actually super needed. We just really need a place to be weak, and honest, and not, necessarily, agreed with. But because it's safe and we're unconditionally accepted, we can disagree, and it can be even life-giving. 

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I don't know, those two things; being able to be disagreed with in a safe place and then also to be fully weak. Both of those things are present in these current relationships, and a huge gift, and something a person should not rest until they find somewhere with somebody. 

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Becky: Well, because I believe you guys will tell me the truth.

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Alison: We'll tell you the truth while loving, while exactly being there with you. While you're with the phone in the middle of the night going, "This is awful, and she's this old, and how do we figure this out together?"

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Courtney: And if I could tell my 40-year-old self about this. I would say to my 40-year-old self, "When you're about to go through divorce, you need to get your friends on the phone and talk to them about it, and not be ashamed, and not try to keep off a friend. And not just be all tough and strong but go ahead and show people your weakness and your fear."

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I mean, I found a couple of ways to do that during that time. But if I had had what we have now with you guys, it would have been so much better. I would have gotten, truthfully, you guys, I would have gotten support from you guys. But that was before I knew that this vulnerability and authenticity could exist. And that's my advice to anyone, especially, to I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that.

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Jennie Ann: I think that it not only is something I would tell to my younger self. But it's where I communicate from when I am encouraging my kids to seek after, to embody, and look for this kind of connection and transparency. Because I've seen that it's possible. It's not just a desire that's going to remain unmet, physically, in this world. I've started pushing hard on them to hope and not give up on finding that. And to put the work in to become a safe place for other people, and look for it. Wait for it, patiently, but also really prioritize looking for that in people and in their lives.

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Courtney: And I would add to that, and I want to be a little careful because I want to make sure we honor one of your children's privacy. But I have watched you, clearly, having success. Because one of your fabulously, brilliant daughters took an opportunity when you and I were with her having breakfast, recently, to ask quite interesting, and vulnerable, and really important questions for a teenage kid. And it was very clear that she knew that she had her mom. 

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But she also had kind of a safe friend who might have a different point of view and that they were going to be coherent. But she was going to get good information. Again, it reminds me of, oh, my gosh, it's so much better to not have to parent in isolation because this kid got two women talking to her, not just one. You got to enjoy your child being able to interact with someone else. I think she was fine, you tell me. 

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But it's like we're paying it forward now to our kids. And you used the word hope. I hope I get to do that with somebody, maybe with Becky's kids or Alison's kids. It was just such a neat thing to start to see us build it for the next generation.

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Becky: Yes, absolutely. So it kind of compounds, is that the word? So what we've been given, we can just build on and pass.

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Alison: Love multiplies. It bleeds. Compounds is a good word, and I think that's a benchmark of a really safe, healthy set of friendships. Which, again, we've always had. We all have our own independent friends. We have all of our own lives. It multiplies out into the rest of the world. 

It becomes that foundation from which more goodness, more love, overflows into the rest of our relationships, into the rest of the world. That's the beauty of friendship, it multiplies out. Healthy friendships are not confining. They're not clicky. They're ones that create more goodness for others.

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Becky: And I would say this has also given me, I'm much quicker to take those risks with others as well. Not with an expectation of, necessarily, making this level of foundational connection. But just as a way of operating with people. 

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I feel my being seen and known, by you guys, has given me courage to just be even more transparent with the people that I have different levels of friendships with. And I think it does, it keeps on spreading. And, again, it's not me, it's just being able to live more holy, which is what this friendship does. Makes me a better friend to even just the casual friendships.

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Courtney: It's exponential.

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Alison: It's reminding me of that old song we would sing at Camp Bethel, "It only takes a spark to get the fire going, and soon so many others will warm up in its glow."

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Becky: Oh, my goodness. 

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Alison: Which, by the way, I learned recently that Becky did unseat you as the Scripture memory champion.

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Courtney: What? Becky? No. That was my one claim to championship. What are you saying? You took my record.

Becky: I memorized some of the shortest verses ever, and I think that you probably had, like, "Jesus wept." I mean, I feel like-

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Courtney: You're just being nice. 

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Becky: No, I really am not. I think that was my goal for one of my entire camp. I did nothing else that week but memorize Scripture verses.

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Courtney: It's because you're a competitor.

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Becky: Yes.

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Courtney: Wow.

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Becky: Your name was renowned, Courtney, at Camp Bethel. It still is.

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Courtney: And this is unfair, though, because you have trophies Sheridan High School for athletics, and then you took my Camp Bethel Scripture Memory Verse trophy. It's just unjust, I think. Honestly joking on the Scripture memory verse.  I do want to also acknowledge that because I do think it's important in this great time of national divide or discord, that you guys are a little closer inside the church than I am. And it has been enormously healing to me to have. 

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It's not even an awkward, you just give me the light of love of Jesus Christ as a part of the way you talk to me. And we never even really even had to talk about some of the differences of faith and it's because the core ones are shared, and we actually don't have these big differences that people might think we have.

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But I think the three of you have done a really beautiful job at that. And I just want to thank you for that because it makes it easier for me to go back to church when I need to or to reach out to other Christians when I need to. Because you guys have made that safe for me.

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Alison: We've definitely discovered there's more commonalities than differences, and that is a little bit of a symbolic gesture for the country. If people actually got together face to face, in person, they would probably find that there are a lot more similarities than what everyone wants to say. 

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All right, so as we close. I want to ask this question, but we might have already covered it, and we've covered a lot, but I like the question. So what would you want your younger self to know about friendships? Let's say your 20, 25-year-old self. Courtney, you already answered it for your 40-year-old self. What would you want your younger self to know about friendships, then, that you know now?

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Courtney: Oh, that you can trust it? By the time I was mid-20s, I was jaded and felt betrayed by lot of people. And you got to trust your friends, and it's okay to do it, and you'll be glad you did.

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Becky: I think to my 20-year-old self, I would like to say it's so important to be yourself, and the people who are okay with who you are going to be there for you. 

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Jennie Ann: I'm not sure exactly how to say this. But I felt like I needed to trust myself. Figuring out exactly who I was, so I could be a good friend to others and, then, also, receive friendship. I think all those things were going on at the same time. 

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So, I guess, I would say get after it because it's hard and scary. It's hard, but it was hard, anyway, so hard and productive is what I would say, and that you can be purposeful.  I really so appreciate, Alison, your devotion to getting tools to your listeners. Because it's not necessarily the bottom line truth piece that we're unaware of, but how to implement that into my life. And I have gained so much from listening. And, so, the tools are out there, start implementing them, and get after the growth.

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Becky: Mm, that's so good.

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Courtney: I'd agree. It takes tools, and it's okay to practice and try it.

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Alison: I would say, for me, I haven't answered this question, but want to. I was just thinking, for me, and I've written about this. But I so took on this idea that my job was to be everybody else's best friend. Be that safe person for everybody else. And I'm noticing as I'm with you guys, there's a part of me that is wondering what it would have been like for my 25-year-old self to think, "What if you just get to be you, and get to work on yourself, and your job in life isn't to make sure everybody else is okay." Because I don't think she knew that. I think she thought that was a little bit of her role in life.

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Courtney: You know, Ali, it's funny that you say this, and you can cut it out if you want. But it was really fun in Texas, and I think I speak for all of us, to get to see you looking sharp, and being really smart, and being out there in the world of your podcast, and then getting to giggle, and be with Allie. And how you and Becky always walk about three steps behind Jennie Ann and I when we go places. 

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I just want to endorse you being able to move between the vulnerable self and the person who is an expert, a bona fide expert, is a great example of what we're talking about. Is being able to have both, we all need to be both. We need to give and to receive.

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Alison: When I'm with the four of you, I'm like, "We're all experts." I mean, it's in part because of this group that I don't ever have this fancy idea of what it means to be wise. Wisdom comes in many shapes and forms. And, yes, I'm just so grateful for you guys, and all the wisdom that you've shared, and all the goodness you're putting into the world. And thank you so much for coming on and talking with me.

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Becky: Thanks, Alison, you, too.

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Jennie Ann: Thank you for having us.

Courtney: Thank you, Alison.

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Becky: Love you.

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Courtney: We love you. I love you guys.

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Jennie Ann: I love you.

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< Outro >

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

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Making new friends is hard as an adult! We've been hurt. We've changed and outgrown old ways. So how do we find new friends? And how do we learn to trust after trust has been broken?

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Today, I'm joined by 2 of my new friends, Aundi Kolber and Dr. Monique Gadson, as we discuss how to overcome past hurts and brave the work of finding new friends. This episode is packed with practical tips, and I was so touched by the raw emotion that surfaced at the end as we each reflect on our own experiences.

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Here's what we cover:

1. Friendship red flags

2. Green flags that indicate safety

3. The impact of trauma on friendships

4. Breaking free from people pleasing

5. How to "break up" with a potential friend

6. Is friendship about quality or quantity?

Connect with Aundi Kolber and Dr. Monique Gadson.

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Resources

• ‍Try Softer by Aundi Kolber
• ‍Strong Like Water by Aundi Kolber
• ‍Finding Hope in a Dark Place by Clarence Schuler and Dr. Monique Gadson

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Go to AquaTru.com and enter code BESTOFYOU at checkout to get 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier!
• Get 35% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com/BESTOFYOU or use code BESTOFYOU at checkout.

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You podcast, where we are in a series on friendship. We're talking with friends about friendship, and this week's episode is really special to me. I've invited two new friends, that I've made within the last couple of years onto the episode to talk about what it's like to make a new friend later in life, as an adult. And there are a couple of things that are hard about making new friends as an adult. 

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Number one, it can be challenging because if you've had a lot of old friends. If you've enjoyed longevity in your friendships. Let's say you move to a new location, and you're starting over, and it can feel hard at first. Like "I've left friends behind who knew me so well. How am I going to establish that level of depth, that level of intimacy with a new friend?" And that can feel overwhelming to people. I hear that from people all the time. 

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And, then, secondly, another thing that's hard is many of us have been hurt in friendships, frankly. By the time you've lived a few decades on this planet, you've experienced hurt, no doubt by a friend. And, so, it can be hard to learn how to trust again, as an adult. When we've all had a few wounds from prior friendships. 

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So, today, I asked two of my new friends on. So that we could talk about these two things. How do we go deep with new friends? How do we establish new rhythms with them? 

And how do we determine trustworthiness in someone? When we're a little bit older, we're, maybe, a little bit wiser. We're maybe not quite as ready to trust as quickly. So how do we establish trustworthiness? How do we discern it in a new friend? 

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I'm super excited for this episode with my friends Aundi Kolber and Monique Gadson. You know both of them. They've both been on the podcast before. Aundi Kolber is a therapist and the author of two books, Try Softer and Strong Like Water. She's a trauma-informed therapist, and writes from the lens of helping people who've experienced trauma to discover deep healing. 

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And the other friend of mine is Dr. Monique Gadson. She is also a therapist who has worked primarily in church settings, throughout her career. She's the co-author of a book, Finding Hope in a Dark Place with Clarence Shuler, and she's a professor at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I'm so excited for you to join me for this conversation with my friends Aundi and Monique.

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< Music >

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Hi, friends. It is good to see your faces. I feel like I have to take that in for a second because I talk to you, both, but I don't see your faces that often. So I'm so excited to have you both here today. I asked both of you because I've known each of you just a few years. You really qualify as these sort of new friends and that's really what we're talking about.

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You're both therapists. I love that you both have that background, all three of us do. You're both people who I have found a way to overcome those obstacles to making a new friend. Monique, you were conducting a prayer, a live prayer, via your IG Stories when you first caught my attention. 

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A couple of years ago, I think it was a year and a half ago, but I stopped to pray with you a few nights online. I was feeling a little jaded doing my scrolling, and there you were just so sincerely praying, and that meant a lot to me. And then through that, we connected offline, I just sensed a real Holy Spirit connection with you. You are so real, and you've just shared with me just so sincerely. 

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We come from really different contexts. You're a Black woman from the Deep South, from Atlanta. I grew up in a very White context in rural Wyoming. We come from very different backgrounds. And, yet, there was something, it meant so much to me that you sensed safety in me. That you invested trust in me. I know that takes a lot to do, and I've so appreciated getting to know you. Learning so much from you, and just so grateful for you and the ways we've gotten to know each other. 

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Aundi, you caught my eye online. Again, you're two friends I made online, which is not the moral of this story. That we go on social media to make new friends. But in my case, I'm so grateful for both of you that that's how this happened. You and I were, both, you had just published Try Softer. I had published Boundaries for Your Soul, we were both new to this. We're therapists, now, all of a sudden, we're authors. We have a growing platform. 

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We began to connect offline and just developed an incredible rhythm and depth, very quickly, to our friendship that has lasted now a couple of years. So that's why I invited you both on. I'm so grateful that you're here to have this conversation with me. I would love to hear from both of you, just your perspective on what I've shared, on making new friends. How that's been hard for you as an adult? What potentially you've had to overcome in order to do that in your lives.

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Monique: Oh, yes, it's been a little bit disorienting and in some ways liberating. I do believe being an adult and being an older adult, now, wisdom has taught a lot. And aging process, if you will, teaches us how to recognize and cut around some things a little bit quicker, process, if you will. And I think that that's what's been liberating, for me, that I have not had to go through the, "Oh, I've done all of this." And get to the end of the rainbow, and it's not the healthiness or whatever the case may be. 

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But it is disorienting in that, as you say, we're all therapists, and we all have done therapy as well, our own personal therapy. And through that process of becoming more self-aware and growing, it is disorienting when you do learn that maybe a lot of those attachments you made were made from those more unhealthy places. 

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So it is a little bit disorienting to think, "Oh, wow, maybe this is why this has drifted apart." Or "This is why now that I have shifted and things seem awkward, maybe that's why." So it's a little bit of disorientation that has taken place in terms of just thinking like, "Wow, it's not as it used to be." But there is this liberation that I feel that I don't, necessarily, have to go through some of the bumps and the bruises to land on a more healthy relationship.

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Alison: I love that, both, disorienting and liberating. I want to hear about how you learn to discern more quickly those potential pitfalls, those red flags. So let's circle back to that. Aundi, how about you? What's it been like for you to establish newer friendships as an adult?

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Aundi: Yes, well, first I just want to say it's fun to hear how you two connected, a little bit more. Just because I think I had known you, Dr. Monique, in a different context. But I love hearing how that developed also between two women that I really respect and I love to hear that because we don't always hear those stories. So I just wanted to say that. 

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But, yes, it has been quite an adventure to make friends as an adult. I mean, part of my story is that I am a trauma survivor, and I would say I'm a survivor of complex PTSD. And that has impacted so many parts of my life and that includes friendships. And I would say, probably, similar to you, Dr. Monique, like seeing some of the choices I made, the connections that I made, when I was young. I can see some of the dynamics of how my trauma impacted those connections.

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  And, for me, particularly, it's really interesting as I've done a lot more of my own attachment work. I've noticed that my dad, my relationship with him, there was a lot of fear. There was a lot of panic. There was a lot of fawning. And what I have noticed is that I would say, oftentimes, my friendships were rooted more in not so much like, overtly, feeling afraid. But really having to live from a place where it's like, "If I can just keep them happy." And that was very much rooted in that trauma history. 

Like, "I just need to keep you happy." But the cost of that was that it was really hard for it to connect to deep places in my own self. And I would say that because of that, a lot of those friendships, what I ended up finding, not all, and I certainly will say that, not all. 

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But there were some experiences that I had where I was, unfortunately, put in some really vulnerable situations because of that dynamic in myself, and it's taken years. It's taken years and lots of self-compassion and lots of repair to be able to turn towards those dynamics, in myself, and to, lovingly, reparent the dynamics. 

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So that the friendships that I'm picking, I'm able to, I would say, similarly, again, to you, Dr. Monique, notice more quickly, oh, that's a no go for me. God bless you, but we're not going to probably go much deeper here and I'm going to just put my energy somewhere else. And, then, alternately, those places that there is nourishment, there is goodness, I feel a lot more capacity to follow through on that. And to believe myself, believe my own body, when my body is like, "Yes, that person is a yes." And it's been quite the journey.

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Alison: I just want to say I love what you're saying. I've had conversations with both of you offline and on the podcast about this fawn response. And I still, to this day, have to do so much work, inside of myself, to discern, "Am I doing this out of a fear response, because I cannot disappoint anybody? I cannot make somebody mad? Or am I doing this because I, genuinely, want to invest in this friendship or in this person?" That still takes me a lot of work, internally.

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And, so, I just want to name that. These are hard responses to shift out of. They're so conditioned in us, I think, especially, as women. I want to ask you, both, because you've touched on this. How do you discern? What are some of those concrete, I hate to use the word red flags because it's so cliché. But how do you begin to discern? You're beginning to walk into a friendship, and you begin to go, "Oh, this isn't feeling quite right. It just means I'm not going to invest my energy here."

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What are some of the things that you notice that give you those cues to proceed with caution or to take a U-turn out of the situation? And, also, how might you help a client? This is both from your own personal experience and how might you help clients begin to see those red flags?

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Monique: I think I'll speak from because I am sitting with someone, currently. Well, we're, probably, sitting with many someones, currently. But I am thinking of one specific client where we're having to do that work now. To be able to say, "Do you recognize how you are replicating that dynamic in this relationship?"

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And, again, like you say, it's so subtle and it's so easy to deceive ourselves. But with this particular person, I'm having to point to "What are you hoping is going to be the outcome here?" And, especially, because it is a relationship that she's trying to hold on to with that dynamic, and has already begun to recognize that there are some very toxic places in that relationship. 

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So it is one of those, "What are you hoping? What is the outcome here?" That's where I'm trying to get her focused. And, for myself, I've had to go there, too, to ask myself those hard questions. "Is this a person that you're hoping will validate you?"

"Is this a person that you do feel some sense or some need to say, 'Hey, I'm good, and will you like me?'" And you and I have talked, a lot, about the people-pleasing being, the PK growing up. So that is still very much a thing that I have to recognize and I have to really battle. And, to Aundi's point, a minute or two ago, it's exhausting when you have recognized that you have put your emotional energies in places where it's not been reciprocated. And when you get there, you're thinking, "Oh, my God, I'm exhausted and I'm lonely.

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So, for me, having to ask those questions, first and foremost, and, also, being quite aware that if this is not going to be, mutually, beneficial in terms of us kind of iron sharpening iron or being nourishing and emotionally healthy. I think, for me, that's one of the clues that I'm saying, maybe, I need to start backpedaling out of this and looking at it from a broader perspective to determine, "Okay, yes, I can go in."

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Or "Maybe, I need to deviate to another path."

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Alison: As a therapist, do you feel like, at times, what can happen is you can walk into a friendship where someone wants everything you have to give but doesn't reciprocate it?

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Monique: Oh, absolutely.

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Alison: So that's the red flag, is when you realize, "I'm giving a lot here and not a lot is coming back." When it's my turn to say, "Wow, I had a hard day." There's not much coming back, "I'm wanted if I'm there for them." That makes a lot of sense. I hear that one a lot, as well. And that can take a lot inside to recognize, "Oh, no, I'm worth more than that. I'm worth this two-way investment of relationships." How about you, Aundi?

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Aundi: Yes, well, I think you make some really great points, Dr. Monique, and I agree. I think that outcome piece is so good. Stepping back and seeing, like, "Okay, where will this go?"

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"What will this produce?" I think that's so helpful. Oftentimes, and I would say this, both, clinically, but also personally, things like the automatic responses to the person, I think, can tell a lot of information. So this feeling like, "Oh, if I don't do X, I predict this response from this person."

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And, now, certainly, there's some room there for caveats. Sometimes that's part of our own stories, too. Sometimes we're picking up cues that remind us of something, but it's not, necessarily, fully based in the present, so there's a lot of nuance. But, also, our bodies are very wise.

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And, so, one I think about is, oftentimes, those reactions to the feeling of why are you doing what you're doing? And it speaks a little bit, Alison, to that fawn response, too. I'm being generous to this person, but I'm doing it because I know that if I don't, I feel like I might be punished. Is a great example of the behavior itself is not bad, being generous is a good thing. 

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But if we feel like we have to be generous because the consequence will be that we'll be punished. There's an issue there and that speaks to the actual friendship, 

and if it's a healthy friendship itself. Or this person is in crisis, maybe, this person is in crisis a lot, and you can have compassion for that. But it's that feeling like, "I am the only one who can help them and I've been put in the situation to be the only one that can help them. All other offers or boundaries or anything else is rejected, and it's putting me in a situation where it's really hurting my mental health, it's hurting my well-being." 

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I think that sense of needing to be the caregiver, or for a client, they are being put in a position of being a caregiver. And a couple of others I think of is like situations where a friend is always wanting to fix it. You articulate just how you're doing and the person runs in and cuts you off at the pass, and it's like "Here's your three answers." Those experiences of, no, I just want to be a person. I just want to name how I'm doing. But all of these things remind me, ultimately, also how I feel when I'm with someone, and to me that's almost like the bigger thing. 

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Do I feel like I can exhale? 

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Does my body feel settled? 

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Am I always clenching? Things like that sometimes get me to those other pieces a little bit sooner, if I can pay attention.

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< Music >

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Alison: It's so interesting, and it can be subtle, the health or the safety can actually be subtle, and I say this to people a lot. Sometimes the sizzle is very deceptive. I don't want to say someone with a lot of charisma can't end up being a great friend. However, what I've noticed is that sizzle, that allure, isn't always the ingredient of a healthy friendship. 

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Just the other night, my husband and I noticed we were with another couple, and when we left, we were like, it was just what you said, Aundi, we both thought, "Gosh, that was so weird." I just felt like I could totally be myself, and it was so subtle. It wasn't like we'd had the world's best conversation. It was more just we left going, "Wow, that was just easy. It was relaxing." There's something there that I've learned to name and go, "Oh, that's interesting."

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Because you don't always feel that way with people. And when you've spent a lifetime being in that state, that activated state of, "Let me please you, let me show up." It takes a minute to detox from that and go, "Gosh, health actually just feels light." 

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The other thing I want to add, I've noticed, I've thought about this, is another paradoxical counterintuitive green flag, green light, is that if I feel the freedom to get frustrated. Or to feel like, "Oh, that's annoying, I've got to think about how to approach that with someone." Oddly enough, there's, typically, some safety there. If it's not safe to feel because that's normal in human relationships, in friendships. I've noticed, the less I feel safe to name something as, "Oh, that's a little annoying."

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Or "I don't know if I like that." That fawn part of me has reared up and says, "It is not safe. You have to only please this person." Which means I cannot even entertain a potentially negative, or a potentially frustrated thought about that person, and that was mind-blowing, to me, when I realized that, if that makes sense. 

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That if my system it's doing what you were describing, Aundi, that anticipatory, "I know how they respond, so I will just be this, this, and this." It's doing that calculated thing that's a huge red flag. As opposed to those normal human emotions. Where it's not like I unleash on somebody, but it's where there's safety enough for me to feel the full range of emotions inside my own body, about the relationship.

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Aundi: Yes, I think that's such a good point. I mean, I think about the safety that is needed to be able to repair, or to name just a reality. I often think about from a green flag perspective, people who give enough space, they give cues like, "But if you think differently, I'm open to that."

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Or "You might see this differently."

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Or "I'd be open to talking about that."

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Or "What are your thoughts on that?" All of those things, I feel like, invite a sense of, of course, you might think differently, and that's totally okay, and that just feels so safe to me.

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Alison: I love that. I think I experience a lot of that with both of you. I've noticed even, especially, Aundi, a couple of times, you and I will each feel some, 

I love you, you've used the word complicated emotions. Not necessarily about each other, but about something we're sharing, and that's such a neat way to name. That stirs up complicated emotions in me, which is me owning my own experience. But it also cues you to say, "This is a sensitive topic. Let's proceed, tenderly, with each other on it." I love that naming. That's been such a helpful naming, for me, in discerning trustworthiness.

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Monique: Mh-hmm. And I would say that that's what I discerned in you, Alison. I mean, and you know, as of right now, we've not met each other in person. So I often even think about that, that there has not been this embodied experience in real-time, if you will. 

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But even the ways that we have connected, that's exactly what I have gotten from you. And you know I told you, not too long ago, I said, "I just already feel like the day I meet you in person, I'm probably going to hug you and just boohoo." You're the one my soul has been looking for, kind of that feeling. Because the things that we talk about are very complicated.

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Alison: Yes, they are.

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Monique: And even when we had begun to engage deeper conversation, I said to you, "I'm almost in need of this corrective emotional type of experience." And I felt like, "Oh, God, I just threw a big burden in her lap." And I was like, "Oh, okay." But, to Aundi's point, you have the capacity to be able to say, "Wow, I'm okay with walking with you through this."

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As opposed to, "Oh, girl, you just got too much going on, and let me try to figure out a way to just, Mm, no." And, I think, that, to name it, as a green flag. You have the capacity. You have that emotional capacity. Meaning, for me, you're healthy enough to say, "I can listen to yours, it's hard. Yes, we need to proceed with this gentle caution, if you will." And, also, I can do the same with you, it's that reciprocal type of thing. So I think that that's what I discerned just even more immediately with you as well.

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Alison: And I felt the same, you were so honest. It just moved me how honest you were about the need that you were able to name. And, again, that sets us a healthy expectation of the friendship. And I also don't feel as if what you're saying to me is, "I need you to be perfect."

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You're saying, "I need a safe space for us to talk through some of these hard topics, together." Which, also, includes, sometimes, me saying, "I don't know if I'm going to get this right." It's just that we need to be able to have that baseline expectation that we're going to name some hard things, that meant so much to me.

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Monique: As well as me, and the older I get, I look for that or just try to discern that flexibility in people. Because if there is this role that I play, and I have always played, and if you don't fit that, then, we're really going to rub against each other in not-so-great ways. When I discern that, that's not there, for me, there is just kind of there's no need to even go any further here. I mean, we can be cordial, "Hey."

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"Hey."

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But in terms of trying to engage anything deeper, for me, especially, now at this point of life, it's like, "Nah, that's okay."

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Alison: The irony I want to share a little bit, Monique, is we had a conversation, offline, after we recorded your podcast on this show, last December. Where I shared with you my experience at that Christian camp. But I had never really talked about and, ironically, here I was, I don't know why it was just so traumatizing, to me, to be around a lot of Christians who were expressing, overtly, racist comments. 

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It really threw me, for several years, I was walking into it as a Jesus follower and left going, "I don't know what to make of this." And it was in a time before we were talking a lot about it, literally, before the Internet was a big thing to aid me. And, so, it was very lonely. And, so, meaning the reciprocation, you heard that story and honored that in me. And that was a powerful naming, for me, of something I'd never really named of what that's like. To be witnessing something that I didn't have the tools, at the time, to know what to do about. 

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I just knew I hated it, and I knew that it really, deeply, affected my own experience of the church at that time. We've held some space for each other in ways that have been deeply formative, to me, out of the naming you originally did, and I'm so grateful for that. I want to ask you guys, I think, this is a hard question, but it's an important one.

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We've talked about these green flags. I love that we flipped to green flags. We've talked about how you discern trustworthiness. We've also touched on needing to back out of friendships. How do you do that? When you begin to notice those yellow flags are there. That person's not going to be able to be there for you. How do you back out of that? What have you done? What would you tell people to do?

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Aundi: I think the first thing I would just say is that this is an incredibly complicated, potential, answer. When we are in a place where there is a friendship that exists, and what I mean by that is that there's a lot of nuance. Because in some situations it might look like this, and in other situations, it might look like this. And part of it is going to be dependent, also, on the health of the person we're interacting with, and, potentially, our own health and our own internal resources. 

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But this is something I think of, as you're saying, Alison, is a lot of times, boundaries begin with our yes. I say this a lot to clients. Boundaries are not about punishment. Boundaries are about really honoring what it is that you need, and that this is the place that we begin. And, so, when I think about friendships, I think about it like it's an adjustment of those boundaries, essentially. 

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That, whereas, maybe, we thought that we could have a little bit more flexible, slightly more porous boundaries with a person, through lots of cues. And we trust that our body is able, God gave our bodies so much wisdom to be able to discern, "This is not life-giving to me. I'm often feeling drained, I'm feeling hurt. I feel like this is causing me to have to spend more energy than I have the capacity for. It's not reciprocal." 

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These are all these kind of red flags. As we begin to discern that, I think that in some situations, depending on the person's level of health, it might be appropriate to have a conversation. 

Like, "Hey, in X situation, when this happened, that was really hard for me. That was hurtful. In the future, could you do X differently?"

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Sometimes when we perceive that person could handle that, I think, that might be good. There are going to be other times, and I've seen this, both, clinically and in my own life, where the person is showing such high levels of a lack of desire to being willing to take feedback. Where the boundary and, again, I think of you saying this, Alison, I think you say this so well. But, oftentimes, it's our behavior that, ultimately, communicates the boundary more so than necessarily the words that we are saying. That it's less about, "I need to have this conversation."

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It's more that, "I'm, unfortunately, not available this next couple of weeks." And that's the boundary. And, again, not from a place of punishment. From a place of wholeness and saying, "I need to honor myself, and in order to do that, here's how I'm shifting my priorities."

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Monique: Yes, Aundi, that's really good. I was in a situation, not too long ago, a couple of weeks ago. Where there was this invitation, and like you said, the wisdom in the body was like, "Don't go. Don't do this. Don't do it, Monique.

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And I'm thinking, "Okay." And I don't know exactly what, well, yes, I do, as we've talked about those trauma responses are just activated and there was this "Well, if I don't, this person is going to be upset." Or, sometimes, what has been directed at me, "Well, everybody can get together but you."

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It's been, "Oh, you're the one that's always missing." And I'm like, "Yes, that's not really true, but okay, why do you feel comfortable enough making me be that person? Are you having the same conversation with that other person that wasn't there the last time?" 

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Nonetheless, this is over the years, I went through that. If I don't go, I wonder, and will they feel? And, again, because I'm getting older, I do try to be very attuned to the Holy Spirit to see, should I be there because I don't want to take time for granted. So I factor that in as well. I do, and I'll say, "Lord, if this is supposed to not be about me, in this moment, direct me and just guide me.

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But in this instance, I didn't get that. And, so, finally, I said, "I am going to say no." And I did, and there was just such this sense of relief. But it was exhausting that there still are those times where you are having to tease through and say, to your point, Aundi, "How healthy is this person? Can they really hear me say, 'Oh, the last time I was in your presence, this is how I felt. Because of these things that were said or these things that were done.'" And when you recognize that people do not, necessarily, have that capacity and that flexibility to have that conversation. 

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Then I'm saying it's just not even worth the conversation. So there is just, "Oh, I can't make it today, I have something else to do." And if that something else to do happens to be taking care of me, then that's what's on my agenda, in that moment.

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Aundi: I love what you're saying, Dr. Monique. And, I think, especially, for Christians, this sometimes feels maybe like an uncomfortable statement. But I feel like you have to have a certain audacity to believe that you matter, you are worthwhile, you are worth that reciprocation. 

You are worth taking care of. It matters how you feel when you are with the people that you are with, and that doesn't mean that those other people don't matter. 

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Again, Jesus's words to love your neighbor as yourself, that includes yourself, and it needs to. Because, frankly, there is no mutuality without that peace and that's audacious. I think that there's something about that that for a lot of people, they're like, "Oh-eeh." 

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But, for me, as a trauma survivor, a commitment I've made to myself is to say, "No, you matter. There was a time in your life where it was not safe for you to matter and no more, that's over now." I'm not allowing the things that happened in my childhood, to the best of my ability, I choose to live my adulthood differently.

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Alison: Those are just such important words.

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***

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Alison: Sometimes what I'll liken a friendship breakup to is a breakup. And when you think about the model of a breakup, if you really have discerned, inside of yourself, "I am just not going to pursue this person anymore. There's really almost nothing they could do to make me want to invest more time and energy in there." I say to folks, that's when you use the actions, "It's not you, it's me." Because I don't have the capacity to invest, and I'm not sure the possibility is even there, to have that hard conversation.

If you're investing in that hard conversation of, "Listen, when you do this, this is hard for me." You are saying to that person, "I'm investing, I think, there's something here." And, so, it helps people to think about. It's actually not kind, if you don't have that capacity to really go there with somebody and walk through that hard journey of seeing if the friendship can change. 

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I mean, I love what you guys are saying, you do it for you. But one way because I'll have people say to me, "Well, isn't that ghosting them? If I just back out without the conversation." And the way that I look at that is, it's this decision where you're actually saying, "I've discerned I cannot invest more in this. 

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I can't do the work to make the friendship better. Therefore, I am going to move in a different direction." I might even name that, which, again, isn't ghosting, it's naming, "I've got this, this, and this that I'm saying yes to, this season of life, and I just don't have capacity to invest here anymore." And you don't have to tell them why, necessarily, maybe, that's to protect yourself from fallout. 

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Maybe that's simply just a decision because you just, legitimately, don't have the bandwidth, and that can be really hard for people. And it comes back, I love the word audacity. I think as Christians, sometimes, we think it's our job to, compulsively, please other people, and to never disappoint anybody, and to never let anybody down.

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And that if somebody else is disappointed or let down by us, we have committed a cardinal sin. And, instead, I think that biblically is to live really, authentically, aligned with the Spirit. I love that you said that, aligning with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, of " This is the direction I need to go in my life. I hope that you will support me in this, but if you don't there's just not much I can do."

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Monique: And I spoke about aging, not that I'm old, old. But I like the way Dr. Tony Evans always says it, "None of us really know who's old and who's young because none of us know when the Lord is going to say it's time to come home." So I like that. But as I have gotten older, and I so enjoyed hearing Aundi's story, definitely not the trauma, but hearing you tell it from a place. And when you recount it from this place of looking back, and the work that you've done, and the healing that has taken place. 

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I so enjoy listening to you speak of that because you can hear like, "Oh, this is the work that she has done to get over that fawning." Sometimes the language I use with clients when we talk about that freeze response, and that's been mine quite a bit, that one and the fawning. They're probably neck and neck crossing the finish line there. But I think about the freezing and the older I've gotten, I think, to myself, "How do I thaw? What makes me thaw?" 

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Even just imagining when you take something out of the freezer. What do you do? Do you just set it on the counter, put in the microwave? However, you look to try to defrost this thing and thawed it a bit. That's the picture that I have to keep in my min. Because it comes, literally, for me, the place of "God, teach me to number my days." And, so, many of my days. And when you were saying so much of my childhood was this way, and now as an adult, I'm choosing differently. 

And, for me, when I look back, so much of my life has been about pleasing everybody else and trying to keep everybody else happy. And it doesn't matter what I'm feeling, or rarely is their turn to say, "Well, what's really going on with you? No, you're saying you're okay, but, no, what's really going to." Just don't get that a lot. 

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So I say I have to figure out ways where I am nurtured, I'm nourished in relationship, and even if that means, for me, at this stage of life, fewer relationships that are more life-giving, then I'm all for it. I am all for it. Because I just cannot, I am at a place where I cannot live however many more days that I have, in that same state. And, so, I think that that's what keeps that little bowing mechanism underneath me. That fire that burns underneath me, to say, "I can no longer sacrifice any more of myself in that way."

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Alison: I love that. To wrap up here, you're leading right into this last question that I wanted to ask you guys. Which is, what would you tell your younger self, maybe, your 20-something self, your 25-self? I see by the looks on your faces. What would you tell your younger self about friendship based on all that you've learned, now? What would you want her to know?

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Aundi: I think the main theme that I would want my younger self to know, two things. One is I would want to encourage her to trust herself, to trust her body. To trust the messages that her body was giving her about different people in her life. Because having a history of trauma, it was easy for me to discount how my body was reacting, and somehow that would end up being like things that were not my responsibility became my responsibility. 

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They felt like they were my own fault because I didn't listen. Because in my childhood, it wasn't safe to listen to my body. So, therefore, then as an adult, when the red flags came up, I bypassed them. Because I thought, "Well, it just must be me."

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"It must be my trauma."

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"I must be so selfish."

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"You're right, I am the one who does X, Y, and Z."

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And not to say that I am perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I don't mean it that way. But I would love, if I could go back, and just really be with that younger self, to encourage her to really listen to that. And, then, the second thing would be to encourage that my younger self to know I have had a really healthy, great relationship with my husband, for a long time. He's been such a resource and gift to me. But friendships have been a little bit trickier. I'm now 40, and the last ten years, there's been so much goodness and growth. 

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But, I mean, I'm 40, I've lived a lot of time, and there's been a lot of pain around friendships. And it's almost like telling that younger self she deserves good friends. Yes, it makes me a little bit emotional to think about that younger self, and just that she deserves that, and to wait, and to know that she'll find it.

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Alison: Uh, that's real. That's beautiful.

Aundi: Yes, and to your point, too, Aundi, just a minute ago. When you mentioned we are to love God, and love others as we love ourselves. And I would want to tell my 20-year-old self that I love her, and I would befriend her, I think that would be you.

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Alison: Okay, now we're all a puddle.

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Aundi: Oh, that's so beautiful.

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Alison: Oh, my gosh. I just want to say you both have given my young 20, 25-year-old self a gift these past few years, in ways that I'm not sure I can even fully articulate. I've tried a little bit. One of the things I think about friendship is a good friend helps you see yourself in a new way. In a way that is like, "Oh, my goodness." And you both have done that for me. You've helped me see goodness in myself. Which sounds, again, paradoxical, or I'm assuming I do that for you, otherwise, that would feel very one-sided and narcissistic, I'm pretty sure I do. 

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Monique: Oh, absolutely.

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Alison: But that's remarkable, to me, because it's not just me mirroring other people. It's, oh, my gosh, here are two women who I leave conversations with them, and I'm seeing myself from a different angle. I'm seeing qualities in myself I didn't even really know were there. I knew were there, but they'd never really been called into being. We call each other into being, into more fullness of who we are. And, boy, that has just meant a lot to me from both of you. You both have been gifts, these last few years, to me. I have needed your friendships in ways I didn't know.

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Monique: I just want to say, too, Alison, that I thank you for bringing Aundi. Because, Aundi, I honestly think that my connection with you was Alison, originally, initially, especially, when you first did, the podcast with me. And you're also one of those that I just felt like, "God, I feel like I've known her before forever." Whatever the case may be, there have just been good things, Alison, that, yes, I have had the opportunity to experience you bear fruit in my life. And this, so far, has been fruit that has remained. It's been fruit that I've been able to not only just enjoy, but it has nourished and sustained me. So thank you.

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Alison: That's a really good note to end on. I love that. Is this a relationship that's bearing fruit? I love that. Because so often I'll talk about how we learn the fruit of the spirit as if they're things we are supposed to present to others. "I need to be good to others."

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"I need to be kind to others."

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"I need to be joyful for others."

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It's what I feel with both of you is I also feel those fruit toward myself, when I'm with you. I feel, "Oh, I can be kind toward that part of me."

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Or, "Oh, that part of me feels seen, now." And that feels so just deeply satisfying and joyful to me that someone has seen that part of me, that I've carried so silently for so many years. And, so, there's fruit internally that is borne by these friendships, 

and that might be a great benchmark for what is the fruit that this relationship is bearing in my life. And, especially, as kind of traveling down this road of getting to know somebody new, of testing out a new friendship. Of saying, "I see some good here." And then taking steps to say, "Oh, there's good fruit there." 

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Because, I think, with someone, that fruit will start to appear, fairly, quickly if those green flags are there. So I love that. I love that as a way to end, and I'm just so grateful for you both, and I really appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time to talk about this with me, today. I was so looking forward to this conversation, and it did not disappoint.

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Aundi: Thank you for having us.

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Monique: Yes, I carry you all with me, like Dr. Curt mentioned, "I carry you all with me." So thank you.

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Alison: I love that. Thank you guys.

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< Outro >

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

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