Science-backed tools.
Spiritually-based wisdom.

I loved this beautiful and honest conversation about friendship with Jennie Allen, bestselling author of Find Your People and founder of IF:Gathering. She shares candidly about a painful season where she felt alone and how she's learned to lean into deep community, even when it's messy. If you've ever struggled with feeling lonely, misunderstood, or like it's hard to trust other people, please listen to this episode.

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There are so many gems in it, including:

1. Our greatest fear in friendship

2. How to say "that hurt" to a friend

3. What prompted Jennie to close off to friendship for a season

4. How she found her way into trusting relationships again

5. The healing power of knowing others & being known by them

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

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Resources

• The Best of You Podcast question form
• ‍IF Gathering
• ‍Find Your People by Jennie Allen
• ‍Romans 12:15
• ‍James 5:16
• ‍Colossians 3:16
• ‍Galatians 6:2
• ‍The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
• ‍Jennifer Lawrence wins Best Actress at 2013 Oscars
• ‍‍The Center for Being Known Website‍
• 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 33: People Pleasing & Developing Your Own Inner Compass: Thoughts on Depression, Mental Health & the Church, and Finding Hope in Dark Places

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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.
• 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.

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, and I am so excited for this new series, Friends on Friendship. If you have questions about friendship, during this series, check out The Best of You Question Doc, we'll link to it in the show notes. I am going to devote the last episode of this series, to answering a few of your questions. 

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So I want to know what questions you have about friendship, about making new friends, about drawing new boundary lines, in older friendships. How to sustain friendships over time? Whatever your questions are, let me know, I'm going to devote the last episode, in this series, to responding to your questions. So find that doc in the show notes, The Best of You Question Doc, it's also on my website dralisoncook.com. So check the episode show notes for that link. 

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Listen, if you want to check out all the past series that we've done, you can go to our page on YouTube. It's on YouTube at Best of You Podcast, that's where you find it. So go to YouTube/atbestofyoupodcast and you'll see we've set up playlists for each series. 

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So if you want to check out, for example, the series we did on Psychology Buzzwords. Where we covered narcissism, and gaslighting, and some of the buzzwords, or if you want to check out the series we did on Boundaries for Your Soul, which is the Christian adaptation of Internal Family Systems. You can find all of those series over there on YouTube. It's a quick way to find a whole cluster of episodes that you might want to go back and listen to. 

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All right, so in last week's episode, Curt Thompson talked about confessional communities. These are these intentional groups of just a few individuals who commit to a structured way of meeting together, regularly, in an intentional way. The goal is to go deep. Where you really find a place to be seen, and heard, and known by other people who can really enter into life with you. And you can learn more about those groups over at Curt's website thecbk.org, we'll link to that in the show notes. 

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So, for today's episode, I wanted to talk to a new friend of mine and someone you all know, very well. Who's been a part of one of these intentional friendship communities. Where she has learned to take existing friendships and go even deeper. She's going to talk to us, today, about her experience being in an intentional friend group, and how it's changed her experience of friendship. There's so much to unpack in this episode, and I'm so thrilled to bring you my conversation today with Jennie Allen. 

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Jennie is a Bible teacher, she's an author. She's the founder and visionary of the IF Gathering, and she's the New York Times bestselling author of the book Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World. I'm so excited to bring you this conversation, today, on friendship with Jennie Allen. 

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Thank you so much for being with us, today, Jennie.

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Jennie: So good to see you. It's so good to be here, Alison, thank you for having me.

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Alison: It's so good to be with you. I loved being at the IF Gathering this year, and I saw you just doing such an amazing job managing that event. Traversing that landscape of seeing your friends, of being in charge of the whole thing, and it was just really neat to get to be there with you. So thanks for having me.

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Jennie: It's great to be here. I'm glad you were there, too, that was fun to have you. Everybody was happy you were there. I hope you didn't get stuck in corners having to give free counseling to people.

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Alison: No, it was a really powerful event. I actually took some time, there was a lot of withness in it that was beautiful. And then I would take some time, and I went up, and I sat at the back of that beautiful church, we don't have churches like that where I am, here in Boston. So that whole church was just so beautiful, and I go sit up by myself, in the back, to just try to take the whole thing in. It was really powerful, just the whole experience of it. 

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So we're in a series, right now, on friendship, and we are just coming at it from all different angles. Last week we had our mutual friend Curt Thompson on, talking a little bit about friendship in his own life. We actually had a couple of his friends come on and join us.

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Jennie: Cute, I can't wait to hear that.

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Alison: It was hysterical, basically, they just gave him a hard time the whole time.

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Jennie: I love that. Yes, oh, that's so great.

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Alison: It was really fun because he talks so much and he teaches so much, but it was fun to get that little window into his-

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Jennie: Well, I will be listening and sharing that, for sure, with people.

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Alison: Yes, and he talked to us a little bit about intentional friendship and what he calls these Confessional Communities. And, so, I wanted to have you on because, number one, you wrote a book on friendship. But number two, I know that you're a part of one of those confessional communities. I was so interested, as I've read your books, and as I've learned about these Confessional Communities, and I'm piecing together the dots as I try to get to know who you are as a person. 

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You write, in Find Your People, about how being vulnerable with other people is a little bit hard for you. And, then, I know that in these past couple of years, you've been a part of one of these Confessional Communities. So I'm so curious how that's worked for you. So to start off, tell us a little bit about the Confessional Community and what that's been like for you.

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Jennie: Sure, yes, you definitely are sensing the correct tension. Because when I wrote Find Your People, I was not yet in the confessional community. That came shortly after I wrote it, but before, I believe, I released the book. So it has been a crazy two years with them. We have grown deeply together. 

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In fact, the book I'm about to be finished with right now, writing, largely will come out of that group and what I've learned with them, together and a lot of what I've learned from Dr. Thompson, too. Which I never call him that, but it feels appropriate when I'm talking about him as my teacher, and counselor, it feels great to call him that.

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Alison: I can only imagine his face.

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Jennie: He is just Curt to all of us. He's the lone boy in our group, and he has just been such a phenomenal leader. Pressing, really, that issue into my life of this is not an optional way to live. You have to be, one, in touch with what you are feeling and two, seen, known, loved, in those places in your life. Not just as a human, over dinner, that you have some people to hang out with, but that you actually share with them these parts that you're scared to say out loud. That you're scared to even admit to yourself. 

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And, so, he laughs at me a lot. He laughs at me a lot because he just sees me trying so hard, but also very resistant in that process because it isn't natural. I grew up in Midwestern. My mother was Midwestern, and my father had grown up in the military. So military dad, Midwestern mom, there weren't a lot of feelings in our house. 

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In fact, I was just with my parents this weekend and I was asking him questions, because the book I'm working on now is about our emotions and about our feelings. And, so, I asked him, I said, "Dad, am I right that I didn't have a lot of emotion as a kid?"

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They were like, "No, you never had emotion. You're right, you didn't have a lot of emotion. You were a really thoughtful kid. 

You were always thinking, and daydreaming, and probably creating," in my mind is what I remember as a kid. "And processing everything in great detail, but not feeling or a lot of emotions." And I just don't think they were modeled for me. 

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So, then, you meet Curt Thompson, who's all about feeling your feelings, and he presses you into a group of people that are very emotional, and longing to hear all my feelings. And, so, I was stuck, I didn't have an option. If I was going to be in this group, I had to show up, in that way, and it was scary. It's hysterical because, by that point, I'd already written the book. So I would say I had a steely focus about it, I wanted to do it, but it wasn't easy. It still wasn't easy.

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Alison: That's a great way to say it, "I had a steely focus, I was going to be vulnerable, by golly."

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Jennie: "Dang it, I'm going to do it." And that's kind of how I am, and in this book I wrote that story of just "I'm going to show up, and I'm going to do this thing, and I'm going to win it. I'm going to win it. I'm going to be so vulnerable." And I would say that has served me really well, of treating it as something to be intentional with, to choose to do it. 

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I think we wait, sometimes, to feel like sharing, or to feel like being known, or to feel safe enough that we can say everything, and that's not how it goes. I mean, honestly, the first time I really shared my story with them I got really mad at them, and I had my feelings hurt because the way they responded really hurt me. That's the first time I ever let down my guard and really did the work with them. 

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But what Dr. Thompson saw and knew was, "Jennie, what are you feeling right now?" And he could tell I was not happy with how they'd responded and, at that moment, I had a choice. I had to decide, "Am I going to say what I really feel? Which is that I'm mad and hurt." Or "Am I going to act like it was okay?" Because that's, typically, how we all function in life and, I think, that moment was a big turning point for me.

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Alison: I love that. I want to circle back to that, you said a couple of things, one, about structuring. I look at it a lot as structuring your support and I'm a big believer in that, especially, for women. Where a lot of my listeners, I relate to this, Jennie, it's I'm not the friend that will pick up the phone and be like, "I'm having a hard time." I think there are some folks who do that, that is not me. 

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So I have to have it on the calendar. And I tell people this, "I have to have it on the calendar, I have to have it scheduled, because I will meet a schedule, I will show up for an appointment, whether it's with a friend or whatever." And then when they say, "How are you?" It forces me to practice that discipline. 

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So that's a little bit of what I hear what you're saying and, I think, for everybody, that's really important. What's interesting, to me, is it almost sounds like you're saying, and again, I'm piecing this together, you're someone who pours out.  You're not someone who would ever, and you talk about this in Find Your People, too. I hear you talk about you are the person, you will open up your door if someone else were to call you in the middle of the night. 

But for you to be the one to show up with your need is far more challenging, far more difficult, and, frankly, it sounds like far more vulnerable. There's a reason there's that protective up. It's you want to be handled correctly. It's hurtful if someone doesn't get you, or doesn't quite understand what you're saying, or projects on you, that doesn't go over very well. That's hard, that's painful. It's not because you don't want that, it's because it's almost like you need them to get it right or it's going to be too hard. Is that fair to say?

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Jennie: Absolutely. I think one of my greatest fears and it, certainly, happened many times, in all of our lives, is being misunderstood. And that was something I really had to die to, to be able to do community in a deep way. I couldn't do what God was calling me to do, and that be my primary goal because it's not going to always happen. There's going to be, certainly, misunderstandings, in general, in any relationship that we have. 

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And, so, part of what Curt does with the Cohort that everyone can do, if they just do the work and choose to do it, is he really has us deal with not just what's going on inside of us, but what's happening in the room. 

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So in that moment, with me, when I was recoiling and he's giving me a chance to say what I felt, we began a conversation that was very different than the one we were having. Which was about my soul, it was about my being, it moved to about our relationships. And that's the place that we rarely move in relationships because if we move there, there's more at stake, it could really escalate. It could get worse. If you say, "You just hurt me."

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Now, one, you're already hurt. Now, you're even being more vulnerable, you're going deeper in, and you're saying, "What you just did really hurt me." And you're entrusting them with something sacred because now they have the chance to hurt you more. So why do that apart from this is how it was supposed to be? 

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When you look at the Scriptures. When you look at the "One another" verses, and you look at the "Mourn with those who mourn."

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"You are to confess sin to one another."

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"You are to admonish one another." That's a really pretty word that's not fun to live out. When you really look at these verses, "To bear with one another." These are messy practices. These are saying things like, "I will entrust you with that misunderstanding and that fear."

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"I will bear with you with your difficulty and not leave the room."

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"I will pour out the thing that I see that is hurting me and you might run." 

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It's making choices that are not easy and that's all through Scriptures. So it's supposed to be messy. A lot of what I talk about in Find Your People is this village mentality of, "This is how every generation has lived prior to the Industrial Revolution." Until the Industrial Revolution, every generation on Earth lived in a village, and even now, 80% of the world lives in villages. 

So this is the way it really was built for us on Earth to be. We need each other. And, so, you have agricultural needs, you have protection needs, you have schooling and educational needs that define a village, and that usually was about 150 people, tops, many times smaller. And then a new village would form because those needs would become too big for that village, and a new village would start. But you'd rarely leave within 20 miles, you'd never even travel further than that. So people had to work out their stuff.

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Alison: You're stuck.

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Jennie: You got to figure it out. You got to live together for your whole life, and we don't have that problem anymore. We can quit people like that. We can walk away from anything that's hard. And that commitment to stay, and the commitment to choose each other again and again, in spite of the mess. In fact, because of the mess, I think, that's what the Cohort has taught me more than anything is they aren't afraid of my hurt, or fear, or anger, or of my insecurity, or the thing that I'm saying that, definitely, doesn't look as good as Instagram looks, they're in. 

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One of the lines we say a lot to each other is we're not leaving the room. We're just not going to leave the room. So that really turns into pretty deep, safe work because when you don't leave the room, and you're talking about the deepest parts of yourself, and the hardest parts, you actually can start to take ground. But we miss that part because we're afraid of it.

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****

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Alison: What did friendship look like for you before this, even back in your 20s. You're a young mom, what did you think of friendship back then?

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Jennie: I actually had it, I was very vulnerable. I remember when my husband's best friend met me, he told my husband, "I think I met your wife." 

                        And the thing he said about me is, "She wears her heart on her sleeves." And I was that girl. I was the girl that was safe, and I wanted to be close to people. I shared everything, they shared it with me. 

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I look back at my relationships prior to a season, I'll tell you where it changed, but that girl was as vulnerable, and passionate, and safe as she could. But, then, nobody will be surprised by this, it was being a pastor's wife. 

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All of a sudden, many of the things I would share would be used against me, and would be spread to other people, and I just learned there's very few people I can trust. And in that way, I think, all of us, probably, hit that point in our life, at some point, sometimes, sadly, very young and I just closed up. And not that I never opened up to anybody, but I was just so careful and it was easier to just help other people. 

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And, so, we walked through really dark season, around 2014. Where every part of our lives was caving in, every single part. And I look back at that, and I think one of the reasons it was so hard is because I didn't tell people. Zac was pastoring, I didn't know how to tell people. And it wasn't one thing, it was every part of our lives. 

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And, so, I look back at that and I feel so sorry for her. I feel so sorry for her because she was doing everything she could to keep her family intact, and take care of a new child that we had home, a four years old, from Rwanda, it was just too much. And I didn't know how to ask for help, at that point. And I think that we all go through those seasons where, for some reason, we decide we can't trust people.

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Alison: Yes, I hear it so often. Just everything you're saying, I'm like, "Yes." Every woman who comes through my practice, there's this similar theme of some point in time, where it was just... and when you said pastor's wife, I just thought, "Oh, gosh, have I heard..."

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Again, that village, when that village of which you're a part, whether it's a church or whatever it is, whatever village where you get hurt and it is too painful. And I love what you said, it was so true and so powerful, what we do is we just hide. We hide our own pain and focus on helping others. 

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This is everything I do when I'm working with women. We hide behind that mask of "I'll just help others." Which works for a while, but until you just can't do it anymore and you need help. And, so, I appreciate so much for sharing that. What did you do? How did you change that? How did you come out from underneath that?

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Jennie: Well, I still am, candidly, and one thing that I write a lot about in Find Your People is the great friends God gave me in the last season of my life, and it wasn't just the Cohort. But before that, it was a few friends here and one of them is named Lindsay, and she just would not have it. 

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I mean, we could not be together for two hours and her share about her life, and I not share about mine. She was going to pull it out of me, and she would not settle to hear that everything was fine. 

She was going to fight for what was really there. And I think having someone that really saw me, that wasn't going to settle for that was, certainly, helpful and the precursor to that, and I know not everybody has that. 

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To some degree, we all have to choose and be that person if we want it in our lives. There's very few Lindsays in the world. There's very few people that will pursue you that ferociously because she really did, and I'm grateful for that. Because I really needed that in that moment, in my life, because I had felt so unsafe and that helped me. 

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But I do think at some point it had to become a choice, and I had to just start to be honest with myself and, candidly, when I first started telling them about the hard parts of my life, it just felt like complaining. I really didn't see anything positive that could come from it. It just felt like, "I'm going to vent to you; and you're going to walk home, and do your bit, and I don't see the purpose." I do not feel that way at all anymore, today. 

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I mean, years later, now, I see that all the things that you are feeling that you're not allowing to surface and to be known in community with other people, all of it is there. You can say you're fine but you're not fine, it's all sitting right there. 

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And, so, just learning the power and the freedom that comes from just getting it out and, sometimes, that doesn't go well, and I've learned that's okay, too. Part of the joy for me, and the freedom for me, is just to say it, to not hold it in. And I can even handle it being misunderstood now, and it hurting because the value, to me, has gone so far up that I don't want to miss it because a few people can't handle it or handle it wrongly.

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Alison: Yes, that's part of the fruit. As you learn how to let people in and you find a couple of safe people where it goes well, you build that tolerance. You build the reserve for the times when it doesn't go well. The thing about venting that's so interesting, as you find safety it's not venting, it's a quality you have to experience. It's a quality until you know it, but I want to name it for folks who are listening.

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When you vent to someone and it's the unhealthy kind of venting, they join with you in it, and it just goes a negative spiral down. They're joining you going, "Yes." And we're becoming, I call it, we become common enemies, we hate the same things. That is not good for your nervous system, it's not good for your mind. 

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What you're talking about, and it's so true, is when you unload and you say, "This is what I'm really feeling." In that safe place, with that person who says, "I'm with you, I hear you, I see you. There's no judgment, there's no shame, I'm with you. I'm not going to try to fix you or solve it for you, necessarily. I'm also not going to join with you and go down the negativity." 

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There's this way in which when you're witnessed, in that way, and then you do that for another friend, that all that stuff is released, and it creates a virtuous cycle. A cycle of positivity where we both feel better, we have better creativity, we know better. 

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Our nervous system is more in that calm, clear state where we actually make wiser decisions it doesn't descend. And we can experience that, too, sometimes, and now you know the difference. You're like, "Oh, wait a minute, I just shared and that person wanted to go all the way negative with me. That's not actually what's helpful to me, I'll scale it back next time with that person. But I know what it feels like when it's life-giving." And some of that is trial and error, that's what you mean by messy. 

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Some of that is figuring it out and, then, as you have those positive experiences, you build those reserves, you build that muscle that says, "Okay, I understand." Wisdom, really, it's the beginning of wisdom that only comes through checking it out. I want to pause on, you talked about how Lindsay, a friend, came into your life, and pursued you, and taught you that. And now you can look back and go, "That's what was happening."

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Sometimes when women come to me and they're really stuck, and they're in it, I will say "You might need to reach out to a professional to get support." Whether that's a therapist, whether that's a spiritual director, whether that's a pastor, where you are getting that back to baseline enough. So that you have that tolerance to do the messy work of trying to find friends. 

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I don't view therapy as a replacement for friendship and, sometimes, I think that can happen. I was just curious, I wanted to ask you about that because there's two things going on. I'm a big believer in structuring your support, having those professionals as you need them, especially, if you're working to build up your friendship muscle because it takes time and it's messy. And also for other things in life, it's just healthy to have those. 

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And I also get concerned, and I'm saying this as a therapist, I've heard about this, I said, really, our job is to work ourselves out of jobs, in a way. Because the more people are in these really intentional communities, the less they need us, we're just the stopgap. Trying to get people back into healthy communities, that's where the joy is, that's what God wants. Our job is to have you all need less of us. 

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That being said, we need the experts. We need that safe place that therapy provides, that other disciplines provide. But really what we need is to find our way into these healthy friendships, so there is a tension there. I'm just curious, your experience with that. Have you, at times, needed to go outside of the friendship group to get yourself to a place where you could; do you resonate with what I'm saying? Does that make sense to you?

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Jennie: Yes, you know what it makes me think of is when we're children and how much we are learning about relationships. And how much we are learning about how to conflict, and how to make a friend, and how to ask for help, and how to be needy and not too needy. 

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All those things are really supposed to be learned in a really healthy family structure. Which I know I'm preaching, literally, to the person who writes the books about this. But how many people, I more speak from a place of ministry, similar to you, in a way, because there is, certainly, lots of people are talking to me as if I'm a counselor. They're coming to me with their problems. 

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And, so, I'm getting insight and glimpses into so many people's lives. And I would just say how I discern that for someone else is when I see that there is a big breakdown from childhood or a big breakdown in life. Where it's like what you do is you pay for a friend. You pay for someone to help you learn to do those things that you didn't really learn in childhood. And, so, it's hard and sometimes, it's so sad because the number of emails I get and the number of conversations I have with people. Who just will say, "I've tried 15 people."

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"I've done this twelve times." They have given their life to trying to find deep community and they just can't. And that to me, is when you need to go, "Okay, maybe." And it's not even something to be frustrated with yourself about because that's not your fault. But the fact that you really didn't, it's not easy to be a friend or it seems to be that it's not being received by other people. It's probably a breakdown in just your own experience, that you haven't gotten to learn and mature in ways that maybe other people have. 

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And, so, again, you're so good about this, of just the compassion to have for that part of yourself that didn't learn that and then to choose to learn it. And, so, for me, I would say I was blessed with a pretty healthy family. Certainly, like everyone, we had some pretty big breakdowns, in our family, that I've had to work through, but that is a gift in itself.

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I always tell my dad, he's hard on himself because I write sometimes about him and he's like, "Gosh, I feel like the bad guy in your stories." And I was like, "No, Dad, you are actually the one everybody relates to because you didn't parent perfectly. And you left room for me to need God and to have to find my own way, in a lot of places, and we're really healthy and good today."

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And, so, we've just got to go, "Okay, we all have been given a different set of circumstances." And that's why I love counseling so much because it helps close the gap where maybe you feel a maturity lack in an area. I'm watching this with my kids right now, and it helps close that gap to where you don't feel confused when emotional things are happening in the room, and you don't know what to say, and you don't know how to handle them. If that's you, I would just say there's probably a little emotional maturity gap, somewhere you missed that class.

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Alison: Emotional regulation is a skill you have to learn and if you didn't learn it, you got to learn it. And a lot of times you might need to learn it before you can be successful at it in a friendship.

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Jennie: And, in my experience, unlearn some things, too, learn some things and unlearn some things. And I'm watching, it's really fascinating to see your kids do therapy. I mean, it's terrifying, and we always joke, "We're saving money for therapy." And when they got old enough, almost every one of them has taken us up on it and I love that. And they come home and they tell me what they're learning and it's like watching someone feel a lot of feelings. Move to someone who can articulate why, what they are, what they need, it is so beautiful, and it really does bring maturity. 

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So that has been a big part of my story, but I hope it's a part of everybody's story. I'm known for writing about, podcasting about this line right here, "Every person needs a counselor." I really believe that and, I think, it can come, just like you said, in many forms. 

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But we all need someone to help us see things in an honest way that we may not see about ourselves, and to help us see what we're missing. Because no one has arrived on the scene of perfect emotional health, or relational health, or spiritual health. So we all need voices to help garner that out of us. 

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And, so, sometimes, it might be a mentor and not a paid therapist. But for a lot of people, these days, with the mental health crisis, and where we are, sometimes, many times, it needs to be a paid therapist.

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Alison: I love how I'm the therapist saying, "We really need friends." And you're the ministry [Inaudible 00:31:39] everyone needs-

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Jennie: Needs a therapist.

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Alison: One of the things that struck me at the IF Gathering, when I was there, it's the first time I've been to one live. And other than being from a part of the country where the whole thing was just like "How does this exist? Does this number of people...?" It's just a totally different kind of experience of gathering here in New England. But it was the way the body of Christ works together. 

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And, so, I was sitting there, and one of the things, and this is Jennie, I think, being in ministry, being a therapist, there are real overlaps. In the sense that as a therapist, when I'm at something people see me as a therapist, and I'm just a woman. I'm just a woman who's feeling shy, who's feeling awkward, who's like, "I don't know how to connect to people." 

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I have this huge protective ability because I can just make it all about you, and that's how I will cope. But, really, that's just a cover for "I don't know what to do in this group of women." Any more than what we were talking about when you're the pastor's wife and it's just easier to be the one pouring out to everybody else. Than acknowledging, "I don't trust anybody here." That kind of thing. 

‍

So, anyway, I was sitting there going, I was wrestling with all of that. And there was this amazing moment where all of these women came forward, it was unbelievable. It was this beautiful moment, all of these women came forward to have an encounter with God, with Jesus, and it was amazing. And the therapist part of me clicked in and I was like, "This is amazing."

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I thought, "How are we going to get all these people counseling?" 

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Because when we, you and I both know this so well throughout the course of being on planet Earth, for a few decades. That we have these amazing, and I've been through it myself, and I've been through it with so many people. We have this amazing encounter with Jesus. We come to know Him, and we come to love Him and, then, I just know all too well, I'm like, "Oh, gosh, all that stuff we have to unlearn, all that baggage, all that pain." Then we go into churches, churches are filled with messy people. 

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And, so, much of how I see my work is to keep people going in that process. I was just talking to John Mark Comer about this. Where we're supposed to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Salvation can also be translated as wholeness, as healing, we have to work out our healing. It's not a one-time event, it's an ongoing process of working it out. And, so, that's what I see in that moment, and I was just struck with the body of Christ. I was like, "Oh, I can't do what Jennie does."

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I mean, this gift that you have to gather these millions of women and to reach them with the gospel. But I do know what I can do, and that is I can get busy and keep putting out resources to help folks keep walking in community. We're all doing the same thing, we're just looking at it from different angles. 

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So that's a little bit of a segue, but I love that, and I just wanted to name that. That was a really beautiful moment, for me, because we can feel siloed from each other. There are folks in church ministry, there are folks pastoring, there are therapists, when we're really all about pouring into the body of Christ. That's what we're all trying to do from different angles.

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Jennie: Well, let me say something about that because when you were saying that, even my life can feel siloed. I can feel like, "Well, why am I?" We're now working on a gathering that's different from IF Gathering, and it's costing me a lot of time and energy. And, yesterday, in the middle of a meeting about it, they looked at me and said, "Well, what is your new book about? Is it about this?"

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And I was like, "No, it's about emotional health." And I started spiraling, and what am I doing, and, immediately, though, my brain went, "No, I'm doing the same thing." What you said about emotionally healthy people and it being messy, ultimately, we're all doing the same thing whatever we're doing. 

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We're trying our best to feel our way to God, together, that's what we're doing, and we're trying to go home. I mean, anyone that believes in heaven, and Jesus, and the story of the Bible, then we know that this life is short and that everything we do in it is meant to matter. Not because in its essence it's spiritual, but because everything matters because it's all going home to heaven. 

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And, so, when I look at Pilgrim's Progress, which is one of my favorite parables of what we're talking about. The guy becomes a Christian early on and he just falls into the Pit of Despondency, and the Castle of Doubt, and gets attracted to all the addiction stuff at Vanity Fair. And, so, you just see all these moments where you're going, "Come on, dude, get it together." 

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But then you look at your neighbor and you're like, "Come on, dude, get it together."

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And then they look at you and they're like, "Come on, Jennie, get it together." So it's just rather than viewing life, I've just learned, rather than that being my mentality of like, "Let's just get it together." It's just like, "Well, let's just pilgrim well together."

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"Let's progress well together."

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"Let's just get on the road together with all of the people in the pit, and me in the doubt castle, and someone that I love addicted. Let's just crawl our way to each other and crawl our way to God."

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And I think that is different than what we think it should be, which is running, perfectly, a straight line in life, with no problems, and straight to Jesus. As if that would help anyone, give me a break. Nobody even wants to hear that story. That's not even a good story, more or less someone that you would even like. We like the people that have struggled, that are struggling. We are drawn to the people that are vulnerable and admit their weakness. 

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I always think of Jennifer Lawrence because she's a real likable actor and actress, and when she falls... I mean, it was before anybody knew her, and it was one of her first award shows, and she falls up the stage, in her beautiful gown. And she gets up and she laughs and dances a little, and she wasn't a big star at the time. 

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But that was the moment the world fell in love with Jennifer Lawrence. It wasn't because she took that award gracefully and she said the perfect speech. It was because she fell and laughed at herself, and we just got to have more of that in our life. We got to have people that do that in our lives, and it just helps everything go together. It's like if we can simplify it all down, so we are feeling our way to Jesus together, feeling our way home, and helping other people do it, it makes everything simpler.

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****

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Alison: My husband always has this saying and I love it. He says, "We are all sitting at the children's table." And it's kind of true, we're all just sitting at the children's table try to muddle our way through.

But the point is, to use the phrase that you guys use, "Let's just not leave the table. Let's sit here together, and sometimes it's going to be fun and sometimes it's going to be super messy. Sometimes we're going to really help each other." 

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And, again, I think, this goes without saying, but I am going to say it because I know people will raise it. When there's toxicity, there's that piece I love in Pilgrim's Progress where they are harming him, that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about when it's falling into toxicity, then, it's time to get up, and move, and get out of the line of fire. 

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We're not talking about shaming each other. We're talking about the messiness of being imperfect humans, trying to muddle our way through friendship and community together. And that being a lot of what it means that we're bringing heaven here on earth. We're not going to go up in the sky. I always think of N.T. Wright stuff; we're not going away in the sky to be disembodied spirits where we live in silos. We will be with each other for all eternity and it will, hopefully, be a lot easier and a lot lovelier. 

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And, so, part of that glimpse that we get now is braving the messiness of figuring out how to say, "That hurt me." To a friend or of figuring out how to say "I need you." To a friend. Or how to figure out how to pick up the phone and go "I am not doing okay." And having that friend maybe not handle it correctly but say, "Hey, I really need you to try to get this." That's the work of being a part of this body of Christ, of being in this together. 

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Jennie, what would you want your younger you, that you that got stuck and buried in your pain? What would you want her to know, now, based on what you've learned at this point in your life?

Jennie: Well, my therapy is about to show. I would have so much compassion on her, and I would just be so proud of her. If I could talk to her I would just say, "You know what, you are handling so much and you are doing it really well. And in this season you're having to be a Navy Seal, that's Navy Seal Jennie right there and she's having to survive because every single part of her life was broken, and it was not caused by her." And, so, I just think largely it wasn't. I just feel for her and I'm really proud of her.

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And I would say, "It's okay to tell a few people that. It's okay to let that guard down with a few people, and if they don't work out, try a few more. I wish she wasn't so alone." It's interesting, some of my friends, today, are going through things, almost, to the T that I was going through at that time. And, again, I talk about some of these things. It's things like my husband was in such a deep depression that he couldn't work, he couldn't help. I was, basically, single parenting him and our kids for a season of life, and it was also a season that many difficulties were in our life. 

‍

And, so, I had to be okay. And I just feel really sad that she felt like she had to do that alone, and I would want her to have people. And it's been so fun to be able to be that friend to people that were me.

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Alison: Yes, I love that.

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Jennie: And they are so vulnerable and I feel sorry for that part of me, every time we're there for them because it's so helpful and it's so healing to them. And I'm sad that she didn't have that in the way that my friends have that, and it's, obviously, not just me. I'm not crying because I'm that good a friend, there's a lot of us around this person. But I wish I'd been brave enough to be honest about it because it really does change things. It really does help your heart, and your soul, and your nervous system, all of it. Your brain, it heals. 

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I saw this video, recently, I will send it to you, Alison, because if you haven't seen it, you'll love it. But it's a video of the neuropathways. It's two neuropathways finding each other and they're working so hard. But it'll just melt your heart because it's just a close-up, and it doesn't look like they're going to find each other and connect, but they do. 

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And anyone that's been listening for a while, I'm sure you have talked about this, that that actually heals our neuropathways, or Dr. Curt Thompson has because he teaches me this. Those little guys, actually, come back together, and work better, and places in our brain reconnect. 

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And, so, I really don't believe we are built in such a way to heal without people. We have to have people to heal, God built us that way. And, so, it's just the way it is. And, so, you can deny it, but you won't get more healthy. You can pretend it's okay, but you won't heal. When you are safe, and seen, and soothed with a group of people wherever and however you get it, it does begin to heal everything about us.

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Alison: I love that. I love that your own compassion for that version of you that was alone is finding a sort of healing in, now, being able to show up for others. That's the beauty of when we let people into our pain, it's not just about us. We're also giving a gift to someone else other than-

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Jennie: Yes, I feel the gift of it when I'm with my friends that are telling me what they're going through. It just feels like a privilege to be there and to hear it. I never get tired of it, I really don't. I really just feel the joy of being with someone in their suffering. There really is a joy in it, I can't explain it unless you've lived it.

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Alison: It's holy ground, that's the only way I can put it. That's why the work of being a therapist like we get to walk into holy ground. There is something about that moment. And, again, it's not that you're happy that someone is going through this, it's painful. But there's something about where someone is being so honest and you're with them in that, that is really close to the heart of God. It's just sacred soil. 

‍

So I love that. I love that you're able to empathize with that part of you and allow her to be a part of changing that for others, that's so beautiful. Jennie, as we close today, I ask everybody this, what is bringing out the best of you, right now?

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Jennie: I mean, I know this has been the theme of this show and our conversation, but it's that cohort, it really is. I think they have taught me to even enjoy the parts of me that I used to resent or feel ashamed of. And, so, when you say that the best parts of you, and I know, and I've read your work. I know that what's bringing out the best in me, right now, really, are those parts that I haven't loved and I haven't really shown many people on Earth. And the practice of doing that with people that are fighting for me to do that, has been life changing. 

‍

I would say, right now, too, and I'm going to turn this back on you. Because I would think, if I were listening to this, I would want what I have, what we're talking about, but I wouldn't know how to get it. And, so, I would just turn this back to you because I don't want anyone to leave and hear my story, and feel like it's not accessible to them.

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Alison: Yes, how do we go about helping other people get into these types of friendships? What I always say to people is there is a five-pronged approach. Number one, if you're really hurting, and as you said, Jennie, is it's been so hard for you, get a therapist that's the best place to start. Because you're going to learn to work through why it's been hard for you to be in healthy relationships while you're in a healthy relationship. You can't learn it by yourself. You have to have someone that's what therapists are for. 

‍

So get a therapist, number one, to just anchor you in your goal. Make that your therapeutic goal, "I want to learn how to have healthy friendships with other people." And you can also get in other intentional relationships like that, that are more one way. 

‍

I always talk about one-way relationships. Where it's a therapeutic relationship, or a mentoring relationship, or a pastoring relationship where someone is pouring into you. The goal being, though, to learn how to have healthy two-way relationships, these two-way friendships. And then I am a big proponent of, and that's why I love these Confessional Communities, I think there are other ways to do them, of structuring them. 

‍

And, so, if you don't have, we've talked a little bit about Confessional Communities, what I do in my own life is I have different Zoom calls with different friends. I have a monthly Zoom call with my sister and my two childhood best friends. We don't live in the same part of the country. We have to have that on the calendar where we are regularly. We don't have a fancy structure for it. We know how to go deep together. So if you've got those friends, get it on the calendar, be intentional about it. 

‍

And then there's the whole middle ground of just naming things. Someone you like to walk with, someone you go to the grocery store with, naming, "Hey, could we be intentional about going a little bit deeper together? I'm reading this book or I listened to this podcast. Would you be willing to listen to it with me? Let's talk about it." Naming something with folks. 

‍

Because a lot of times we're sitting there talking to somebody and we're both shooting the breeze about things that don't matter, and we both are longing to go deeper and we don't know how to do it. So just be the one to name that. Share Find Your People, share this podcast, "I want to do this more intentionally." Just start talking about it, there's so many different ways to do it.

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Jennie: Mh-hmm, I love that. Yes, and it's been so fun because the book has been out for about a year, Find Your People, has been. How many people became friends just by reading the book together. I think there is something so special and beautiful of just saying, "Hey, would you want to do this together?" 

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I love that one because, maybe, I pictured it after it was done, barely. But I wrote the book challenging people to go do this, not thinking that people would come around the very material and actually become friends, so you're right. I think, sometimes, we just need someone's help to start the conversation in a deeper way. And maybe that's where you and I can come in, then, with resources of "Here, do this, and it'll help you go deeper."

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Alison: It'll help you. We'll link to the book, it's a great book. It has all sorts of practical tips on how to gather people, how to find friends, how to keep them. I have an article I will link to Seven Ways to Increase Your Support Network, that teaches you how to get a therapist, because that can be hard. All the way through just beefing up different ways of getting support, we'll link to all that. We're going to continue on in this series.

‍

Jennie, thank you. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself. Thank you for doing this work behind the scenes that informs everything you put in front of us. We are so grateful for you, thank you.

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Jennie: So good to see you, Alison.

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Alison: Thank you, Jennie.

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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.

‍

I'm so excited to announce our brand-new series, "Friends on Friendships"! Join us over the next 5 weeks as we learn together how to forge transformative, healing, and life-giving friendships.

‍

We are kicking things off with an incredible conversation with Dr. Curt Thompson, Amy Cella, and Pepper Sweeney, who are real life friends and hosts of The Being Known Podcast. We laughed so much this episode, and at least 2 of us also cried 🙈 . You don't want to miss all the gems about friendship throughout this conversation.

‍

Here's what we cover:

1. Why friendship is risky

2. The most important ingredient for safe friendships

3. The physics of "taking your friends with you" (even when they can't be with you.)

4. Laughter as intimacy

5. Why 3 is most definitely not a crowd

6. Glimmers vs. Triggers

Check out Curt's brand new book The Deepest Place, available for preorder.

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

‍

Resources

• Check out Curt's brand new book The Deepest Place, available for preorder now.
• Learn more about Confessional Communities ⁠⁠here⁠
• ‍The Being Known Podcast
• ‍The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD
• ‍The Center for Being Known Website
• "Hence we picture lovers face to face but Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead." -C.S. Lewis
• ‍Genesis 2:25
• ‍John 13:35
• ‍More on IFS by Richard Schwartz, PhD
• Being Known Podcast on Youtube
• ‍Resources for support

‍

‍Related Podcast Episodes:

• Episode 20: Making Peace with Yourself (& Facing Your Fear of Disappointing Other People)
• Episode 27: 7 Ways We Manage Perceptions Instead of Forging Real Connections

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Wild Health has opened 10 spots in their Premium Program for BEST OF YOU listeners. Visit ⁠www.WildHealth.com/Premium⁠ to apply for membership.
• Check out Nuts.com/bestofyou. You'll receive a free gift and free shipping when you spend $29 or more!
• 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

‍

Alison: Hey, everyone. I'm, Dr. Alison, and I'm so glad you're here to discover what brings out the best of you. This podcast is all about breaking free from painful patterns, mending the past, and discovering our true selves in God. I can't wait to get started as we learn, together, how to become the best version of who we are with God's help. 

‍

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You podcast. Where we are starting a brand new series I am so excited about. The series is called Friends on Friendship. We're going to take a deep dive into all the different nuances of friendship. I've invited some of my own friends on, some new ones, some, really, old ones that I've had for a really long time. 

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We're going to talk about how to make friends. We're going to talk about how to learn when a person is trustworthy. We're going to talk about what to do when you need to move away from a friendship. So we're going to cover a whole lot in this series. It's a great way to kick off the summer, and I'm so excited to have Curt Thompson, along with his friends Pepper Sweeney and Amy Cella on the podcast today. 

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Curt Thompson is a psychiatrist and interpersonal neurobiologist. You know him as the author of The Soul of Shame, The Soul of Desire, and he has a brand new book coming out this August called The Deepest Place. I had an opportunity to preview the book. It's a powerful look at suffering and hope you can preorder it now. It's such a great book, super excited about that. 

‍

He also hosts The Being Known podcast with Pepper and Amy, and I had a chance to get to be a fly on the wall. When I was at a conference that Curt puts on each year, and see their friendship in action, and it's what gave me this idea. To not only just talk to Curt about friendship, but to invite him on with his friends, so that they could talk, together, about what it's like to work together, to create together, to share joy together, to share struggles together. 

So I'm just so excited they're here to kick off this series. In this episode, there is a moment where I'm surprised by the fact that I get moved to tears a little bit, and I name it to them and I can't figure out what's happening. And as I thought about it, a few days after we recorded, I realized that I was having what we call a glimmer. 

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Glimmer is a nervous system response that's the opposite of a trigger. When you think about yourself being triggered by someone, it's usually negative. It usually activates you in a negative way. Well, a glimmer is my version of going to an art museum. 

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Some people go to an art museum or they go out into nature, and they see beauty, and it prompts them to just see the glory of God. "Wow, God, how did you make that beautiful tree? Or that whale?" I went whale watching, recently, and I was just amazed by how did God create these whales? Or you go to an art museum and you see a beautiful piece of art or something that just prompts you to be transported into a place of wonder, a place of beauty. A place of awe, and it can take us to an experience of just joy in being part of God's creation that is just so magnificent. 

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As I thought back over it, I think, in that moment in the episode, I was just having a glimmer. Just the joy, and the playfulness, and the levity that was spilling out of their connections to each other was spilling over onto me. It was just really beautiful and a really lovely moment, and I was grateful to have this opportunity to share that with them. 

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So, without further ado, I am just so excited to bring you my conversation with Curt, Pepper, and Amy to kick off this new series, Friends on Friendship. 

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< Music >

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So we're starting this new series on friendship, and I was thinking about friendship and I thought to myself, "I don't want to teach about friendship; I want to try to show it." And I thought about you, Curt, because while you may not use the word friendship to describe what you're doing, I really think a lot of what you're doing is about creating intentional friendship. I think you call it Confessional Communities, you call it connection, you call it being seen, being known. Everything you do is this idea of being known, and isn't that what friendship, at its heart, is about. 

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And, so, I couldn't think of anybody better to have on but you. And then I got a chance, back in October, when I got to come to your conference held through The Center for Being Known, where I was a speaker, to not only learn from you but to witness you with some of your friends. And it honestly moved me, personally, to see the three of you behind the scenes, finding so much joy in this work that you do together. That almost moved me more than reading about a treatise on why friendship is important, as helpful as that is. 

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And, so, I thought to myself, "I want to have the three of you on to talk about that." I want you to touch, Curt, on this idea of Confessional Communities because I love it. Actually, next week, I'm going to have someone on who has benefited from an Intentional Confessional Community that you helped her to set up. You are really going out in the world, trying to get people to be more intentional about bringing people around them in ways that really God wants us to. 

So I'm going to stop now. But that's my prelude to why I wanted not only you, Curt, but Pepper and Amy, who I don't know as well, I'm excited to get to know. But most of all, just having observed and witnessed and been a silent, quiet, witness of this friendship that you have really ministered to me. It changed me. It inspired me to go out and try to do more of that. 

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So with that in mind, tell me a little bit, Curt, let's start with you, about what you think about friendship. Why you think it's so important? What inspires you to be so passionate about helping others set up these communities, where they are known deeply by other humans?

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Curt: Well, I'll see if I can do this in 30 seconds. 

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Pepper: Because he can't say anything in 30 seconds. Let's just start by saying that this episode is going to be a little longer than you're used to, because Curt has a lot of words.

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Amy: He's very generous with his words, most people say that.

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Pepper: He is, we talked about having quotes of Curt's on T-shirts and selling them, but then we realized that every shirt had to be an extra-large because there'd be too many words.

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Amy: Extra-large?

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Pepper: Just way too many. Extra, extra large.

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Curt: Oh, then you went to the trouble to say yes, and we'd also have to print them on the inside of the T-shirt.

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Alison: This is exactly what I meant about showing versus telling friendship.

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Curt: Yes, is that what they're showing? I'm trying to catch up to the train, I think, I don't quite get it. Week after week, I got to put up with this, and then they call it friendship. 

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Alison: I love it. 

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Curt: Well, here is the thing, in the spirit of what you are longing for this episode to be. I would offer that a way to respond to your question would be for Pepper to talk about how this friendship got started. Because I think in describing that, he's going to offer a reflection and an answer to your question. How's that sound?

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Alison: I love it.

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Pepper: Well, so we met while all working on a project with Nicole Johnson, who had put together this unique retreat experience called Seasons Weekend. The weekend was full of artistic endeavors. It was full of just beauty, and the whole purpose of those weekends was for us to guide this group of people through this experience.  

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And as a team, we came together and we would be together for five days. And in those five days, that were very intense, we would work with the people that we were working with until, relatively, late. And, then, our team would stay up until the wee hours of the morning getting to know each other better, and building those friendships there. 

‍

So in the beginning, it was a very unique way for friendships to start. Because it was almost like four times a year we were going away to camp, and we were all together, breaking bread, at every meal, together, for five days. Staying up to the wee hours every night, and we very quickly developed. Because of the unique nature of this, it was a little bit to our advantage in that we knew we only had a certain amount of time together, so we need to be vulnerable with each other if we were going to do it.

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And, so, that happened pretty quickly where, all of a sudden, we were sharing things with each other that you wouldn't, necessarily, share with people at such an early time. So our friendship, it was escalated really quick and went deep really quick. It wasn't just a wide friendship; it was a very deep friendship that started in that way. But, then, it was also unique in that we weren't really living our lives together. Except for those four times a year, where we were coming together five days a year. 

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And, so, that, also, almost makes it a utopian friendship because there's not a lot of ruptures that are happening. That you have to repair, what you do in everyday, normal, friendships. And, so, yes, it was a unique beginning. And, then, also, this podcast that we're doing together, that we've been now doing together for a couple of years. Just the element of us having something that we are coming together for, with a purpose, that forces us to be together, in this project, has helped carry that relationship on. That's how it all got started and how it's continued.

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Alison: I love that. What you just said reminds me of how C.S. Lewis talks about friendship in The Four Loves as different from lovers, in that lovers face each other, in a way. I think what he means by that is they're working out their relationship. That's part of being in a romantic relationship. 

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Whereas friends are facing forward, they're working toward a purpose outside of themselves, or enjoying a hobby, or enjoying an activity, or enjoying a work, or enjoying creating something together. Not that lovers can't do that, too, but that's just what that reminded me of is that you started in this context, your friendship started in this context, about being part of something bigger than yourself.

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Pepper: Yes, for sure.

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Curt: I think, though, I appreciate your reflection on Lewis's work. In some respects, I wouldn't want to think of those two different kinds of loves in binary terms. Because, I think, that they are, and Pepper, as you mentioned, part of what it means to turn toward each other, even as friends, includes our sharing parts of our stories that felt risky. 

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There have been plenty of moments when the three of us have, with each of us, revealed things about ourselves that we don't like about ourselves. And that we are worried that "When the other hears this part of my story, I can't predict what they're going to do." And, so, it feels risky.

And, so, it is the signature element, I think, of this notion of being vulnerable. And, of course, even though, as Pepper said, we haven't had ruptures to repair in the same way that we might have if we were living together. The act of repairing a rupture is, yet, still one that requires great vulnerability. And it is this common ground of vulnerability that I would say that we share, in which I feel this deep sense of being known. 

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It's not only that we have a common project that we're creating. That act of creativity is certainly part of it. But like we often talk about, in the Genesis account, the end of chapter two, where to create beauty and goodness in the world most durably, it requires nakedness, it requires vulnerability, it requires our willingness to say, "Here is the place where I don't feel like I'm doing very well."

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I mean, just this morning, it was not a major thing, but in our new series, I was not feeling up to the task of something with one of the elements, and there is a certain part of me that feels bad. That I'm like, "I'm not going to be able to bring my best self to the table. What are Pepper and Amy going to think?" 

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We have enough capital, I think, now, in our relationship that I know that I need to just say, "Here's where I am; I don't feel like I'm where I really want to be and it feels bad, confusing." All those kinds of things, and I think it's practicing those little things. Being committed to practicing not letting any stone that has to do with our relationship be left unturned.

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Pepper: Yes, I just wanted to add, one thing that I've experienced through this friendship is although we haven't experienced a lot of ruptures. Having the relationship with these two, with Amy and Curt, has really aided and helped me to be able to go and face ruptures and amend ruptures in relationships with people that I do have every single day. But it's because of the relationship that I have with these guys that and things that I've learned from them and within our relationship, that have helped my other relationships greatly.

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Amy: Well, and I would add to that, that not only have the tools that we've learned with the three of us, or that I've learned with the two of you. But, then, knowing that you guys are in the room with me, when I go to make amends or repair ruptures. Then I feel much more equipped and confident that it's going to be okay, no matter how it goes.

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Curt: Right, totally.

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Alison: You don't mean literally in the room? You mean knowing that you have this foundation of health and strength, gives you the confidence.

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Amy: Yes, they're with me in my mind.

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Alison: The voice is in your head.

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Amy: Yes. 

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Curt: So you raise an important question, Alison, when you say we're not literally in the room. And, yet, we would say, when we do this work in the confessional communities, if you want to step out onto the base of physics, if you will, I would say, like, "No, I actually do take them in my brain, in my embedded neural networks." The memory of Pepper and Amy being with me, literally, has the effect of allowing my body to be at ease. 

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And, so, I can imagine them. I practice imagining, "Pepper is sitting on my left, Amy is sitting on my right, and I'm going to have this conversation that, otherwise, it would be very different conversation, for me, if I was feeling like I'm having to do this by myself." And, so, you're right, they're not literally in the room. And, yet, if we take the material world in quantum mechanics seriously, I don't know.

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Alison: That makes so much sense to me, and I want to circle back to this meeting where you went deep, and that you don't, necessarily, have the day-to-day. So in my experience, in my life, I have two childhood friends and my sister, who I've, literally, known since I was born. 

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We were best friends the first 18 years of our lives, same ages. Our families grew up together, whatever, we kind of lost touch. We've started intentionally coming back together. We try to come back together a couple of times a year, and what you said resonates. We don't have the typical rupture repair because we live all over the country from each other. We have very different lives, day-to-day lives. 

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But that history, that is literally in our DNA, when we started being intentional about spending time together again, in person, regularly, I understand exactly what you're saying. It creates some foundational health, confidence, courage, creativity, all the good things that we want. Even when I'm not talking to them on a daily basis, and those are some of the most important friendships.

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Now, I thought that was attributed to the fact, the longevity. When we get together I'm, literally, going back into my five-year-old self with this person that shares that memory with me, which is just so astonishing, to me, the power of that. 

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But what I'm hearing you say is, in this concentrated environment in which you got to know each other. Where you went really deep and into the layers and layers of who you were. Quickly, you were able to create that very significant shared experiences that are a seed bed going forward, and that's just powerful for folks. I think that's good for people to hear that you can create these friendships at any time. 

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Curt: I would also say it mattered. I think, part of what made it possible for our relationships to be as rich as they are, is that there were multiple ways in which we were interfacing with each other, on these weekends. There was depth of sharing that was vulnerable. There was creativity. There was cognitive work, Pepper was producing it, and Pepper was directing the weekend. There is a program that has to be timed and so forth, and I know that he had to work hard because he was working with me. And, so, I'm well aware of how hard the work was for him. 

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Amy would come and she's a contractor. She comes and she comes with her tools, and she built things every weekend. 

And, so, there was the creativity aspect of this that required, that demanded, effort. Each of us had to be present for the attendees in ways that we had to be giving, we had to be empathic, and we had to be pouring out. There was so much humor, oh, my gosh.

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Pepper: So much laughter.

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Alison: Oh, my gosh, I mean, the first weekend Pepper and I meet, there's this iconic story of us. We were going up to Nicole's hotel executive suite to have a meeting, wasn't it? Is that what we were doing? 

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Pepper: Yes.

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Curt: And later in the evening, I can't get down the hallway because Pepper has said two or three things, I'm leaning up against the wall, I can't get down the hall. I'm a grown man, I can't get down the hallway because I'm-

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Pepper: Literally, he slid down the wall onto the floor, he was laughing so hard. Which made me laugh so hard, and that was really early in our relationship. I mean, laughter, I don't know Curt, if you want to talk about this, laughter is such a connector. It's such a universal thing that can connect us. I'd love to hear what you have to say about that.

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Curt: Well, we say if you go to see a stand-up routine and you're in a room that is pretty intimate. If you're in a room of 200 people, but it's all pretty packed in, vulnerability is just awash in the room. The comic has to be vulnerable. The moment I start to laugh at something... 

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I was on a college campus not that long ago. In which, as I was speaking to the students, there were moments when I thought I was speaking to cardboard cutouts. And I'm like, "Wow, I must be generationally, myself, out of this community."

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Later, I spoke with some of the leadership, some of the other students, who were saying, "Oh, my gosh." They were just so dialed in. So I'm like, "Wow, please explain." And they said in this particular setting, in this particular university, it would be common that if you were to respond to a speaker or to a professor, as if you were moved by them, as if you were being touched. As if it would matter to you, as if what they had to say was valuable, you would be at risk for other people around you scorning you. 

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I'm like, "Okay, that's a new thing." I wasn't aware that that's a thing but, apparently, that's a thing. But what it speaks to is how risky it is to be vulnerable, even when you are allowing yourself to be receptive to anything that's coming toward you that moves you, and this is what comedians do, they move us. 

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They say the things that nobody else in the crowd will say, and pretty much that's Pepper and Amy. They say the things, in the crowd, that nobody else will want to say. But anyway, that whole sense of vulnerability with humor is another way that it creates flexibility for us to be more deeply connected.

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Alison: And we're laughing also at ourselves, often, with the comedian. Which, again, as we started off this episode, immediately, that's why I called it. That's, to me, a mark of friendship, being able to hold yourself lightly, laughing at oneself, which is such a key ingredient.

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Curt: And because it's such an antithesis to the shame, that we often respond with when we imagine ourselves. It's like, "Oh, no, this is actually joyful." People are like, "We are enjoying each other in the middle of our vulnerabilities, and our mistakes, and our brokenness, and so forth."

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Alison: I love that.

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Curt: Early on, in our podcast, one person wrote a comment on a social post or something saying they wish that I wouldn't tease Curt so much. And, yet, this is what it really is. I mean, we're bringing out the best in one another. I mean, we're able to laugh at these things. It's not anybody trying to one up anybody, or there's no place at all in there that's manipulative, or mean, or anything like that, it's all love.

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Curt: Yes, especially when we talk about Amy.

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Pepper: Well, let's not go that far.

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Amy: Always.

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Alison: Amy, what's your experience been like coming in with these two guys and this friendship?

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Curt: Careful.

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Amy: Careful, yes, it's been fabulous. I mean, Nicole Johnson, I've worked with her for almost 22 years, and Pep has worked with her longer. So I've known Pep for 22 years. So we have that and then we come together and meet Curt, and it's fabulous. I mean, and this sounds trite, but they bring out the best in me. They are a safe place and when I say I take them into the rooms with me, they go with me, and they make me a better person. And, then, from that place, I can create beauty because they are part of that foundation. So it's been amazing.

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****

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Alison: So, Amy, I resonate with what you're saying because, literally, right now, in this moment, the minute your face has popped onto the screen, and I know Kurt a little bit. I don't know Pepper and Amy hardly at all, I feel it right now, I feel joy. I feel a little bit of moisture at the back of my eyes, just connection. I, immediately, am not looking at my script, I could care less. I just want to be with you guys. I want to have a conversation. I feel alive, and you guys are making me think of my dearly beloved friends with whom I have that left. My mind is going, "Oh, yes, I know."

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"Yes, me, too, I get that. There's just love. What is this ingredient? And this is what I felt when I was with you guys in D.C., that seems so intuitive. My nervous system, my body says, "Oh, yes, this is so life-giving. This brings out the best in all of us." But you don't find it all the time. How do we put words on this for folks? This feeling of connection, of realness? And I'm trying to think of what it feels like. It feels like I can just be myself, as you're saying, safety. How do we cultivate this? 

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How do we bring this more into being? Maybe what I'm noticing is the safety and connection between the three of you spills over, and I'm experiencing it now with you, which is just beautiful.

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Amy: I mean, the first thing that came to my mind was being intentional about time spent. In that first gathering, with Seasons Weekend, we didn't know each other, so we weren't really being intentional about iy. But then following that, we were intentional about spending time together.

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Pepper: Yes, Alison, when you talked about intentionally getting together with your sister and your longtime friend, it is. I think the data shows that most people change their friends every seven years because of life's situations. And, so, if you aren't intentional, and like this podcast that we do together, we're very intentional about it. There's work that we have to do between the recordings and we're connected with each other then.

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Before we start recording, we're sharing our lives with each other for sometimes an hour before we even start recording. We're very intentional about staying connected and continuing to be vulnerable with each other. And, I think, maybe, what you are feeling is that sense of the three of us have created a safe space. For me, I experience from Amy and Curt, I know their hearts. I know that I am safe with them. And, so, that's, maybe, what you're feeling as well. Just that we all know that we're safe with each other, so you've come into this.

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Alison: It's really, literally, what I'm hearing you say is that your work that you do together, literally, is an overflow of your friendship. And, so, you just gave me some examples. So prior to recording, you are coming together and not just getting right to work. You're connecting to each other as humans, is that right?

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Pepper: Absolutely right.

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Curt: Yes, I mean, I know plenty of people, people who I know, who once a year go for a three-day golf trip, they're intentional. It doesn't look anything like this. There are plenty of communities that gather, intentionally, for a whole range of reasons. 

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I think that in some respects, Alison, what we try to do is, not to overplay this hand, but we talk about attachment. And what is attachment? When a parent is with their newborn, the parent is with intention being with the newborn, with joy. The whole notion, we are doing this with joy. But we are also going to, with intention, be vulnerable. It's not just the intention itself, it's the intention toward what.

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We talk about the first wound of the Bible happens on the second page. Where Adam is put into general anesthesia and he wakes up with a chest wound. And he's like, "What the heck?" But what's the intention of the wound? The wound is beauty and goodness. It's poetry and song that he responds, he's not paying so much attention to that wound. The very next page of the Bible, you have the second wound that begins with the conversation between the snake and the woman.

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Both of these acts are intentional. God's act with Adam, the snake's act with the woman. But the outcomes are very different. The intended outcomes are very different. And I think that the nature of that Season's weekend, itself, required of us. 

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We weren't going to be able to do that work if we, ourselves, were not going to be vulnerable with each other. And I think that when we are practicing that, over time, we continue to strengthen our comfort and confidence with each other. We can use the word safe or safety, and that's comfort and confidence at being our full naked selves. Our full, vulnerable selves, and the more we do it, the more confident we become. The more we do it, and so forth. 

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And when Jesus in, John 12 says, "Look, the world's going to know your mine the way you love one another." That's how the world's going to know your mine, not by going out and preaching. It's going to know because of the way you love one another, and this is what it means for us to love one another. We're going to be vulnerable with each other, on purpose. And then people come around this and they walk in the room and they're like, "Wait, what's happening here?" If that makes sense.

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Alison: Totally. 

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Curt: And, so, I think, it requires people to willingly be committed to vulnerability in that way.

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Alison: I appreciate what you're saying; it's intentionality is one piece of the equation. But just as you said, you can be intentional with your drinking buddies every Friday night and escape everything. 

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And, so, it's the combination of intentionality and substance/vulnerability, and it strikes me, listening to you, that each of you as individuals has done some of that work internally. So you've become a safe person for yourself with God, and I don't know which one is the chicken or egg, I always go back and forth on this. And, then, which allows you that capacity to do that with another and or being with each other has opened up the capacity for internal safety. 

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And all of that becomes this virtuous cycle, as opposed to a vicious cycle, of this just levity and light. All these qualities of the self, what Dick Schwartz calls the qualities of self-energy, calm, curiosity, creativity, courage, connection, confidence. But I'm sensing it from the relationship, the dynamic among the three of you, which is so interesting.

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Curt: Totally. Again, not that we can't say enough about Trinitarian theology, but there's a sense in which even when you have two people in the room. There are elements of human relational dynamism that are not complete. To have a third person in the room changes things significantly, and we could talk forever and a day about that. 

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But I think the fact that there are three of us, at the very least, the fact that we're not all dudes. I can't say enough for how much it means to me that I can have a deep relationship with a woman who's not my wife, but who gets me and who would go to the wall for me. I get experience of that with other men.

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Alison: Yes, it's powerful.

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Curt: And I've got two people here who would do that for me.

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Alison: Yes.

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Amy: And it's one thing, I know that I would go to the wall for Curt and Pep, but then for Curt and Pep to know that. Does that make sense? The power of that?

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Alison: Yes, it's true, and they receive it, and absorb it, and allow it to change them, which is vulnerability. It's powerful, it's really beautiful, thank you for sharing that. So here's a question, as I'm listening, there's so much of an obsession about personality type, and qualities, and all these things. And I'm sitting here listening, going, "Is the key ingredient vulnerability, over and above what qualities or what personality?" In terms of creating this safety. Isn't it so much deeper than compatibility fit? I'm just sensing something so much more substantive.

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Pepper: So for 15 years, I met a gentleman, who was sort of a spiritual mentor, for me, at 6 o'clock in the morning, at Du-Par's Restaurant in Studio City, California. And to get to that place of vulnerability it takes time, it takes effort, and, for me, it has been the key to the deeper friendships. I mean, what Curt is teaching on The Being Known podcast; the interesting thing about it is we're living it at the same time. 

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And, so, I'm gaining so much from doing this podcast, with these two, and it started with the vulnerability. That's where it started for us, for me, with the two of them. Because that's what, for me, takes the level of depth of the relationship to a place where you can be open to learning, and hearing, and believing in one another.

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Curt: Okay, can I pile onto that, though, and say something additional because, I think, the vulnerability is important.

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Pepper: So I just want to say that I always feel so safe that I can say anything I want because Curt will make it make sense. That's how safe I feel in our podcast. I can say anything, I can talk about anything, and Curt will turn it into, "Well, you know in Leviticus..." I think this is what you're trying to say. So, right now, Kurt's going to give you the exegesis on what I just said. The hermeneutics of Pepper Sweeney.

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Alison: We all need a Curt.

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Pepper: Yes, go ahead, Curt. 

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Curt: Can I just say, Curt does not need all of this. You might all need a Curt; Curt doesn't need all of this. I don't need any of this. So this is about vulnerability. Look, it was not my idea to do the podcast.

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Pepper: True. 

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Curt: Oh, thanks for emphasizing that Pep, great-

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Pepper: So it wasn't mine either.

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Curt: I mean, what were we? We were two years into Seasons Weekend. At some point, Amy says, and I don't remember the time frame of this, Amy says, "I think you should think about doing a podcast."

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Amy: And he said, "What's a podcast?" 

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He said, "Sure, I don't know what that means, but sure." That didn't quite go like that.

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Curt: But close, it was close to that.

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Amy: It was close. 

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Curt: So I basically said, "I don't listen to them; I don't have time." I got all these excuses, "I can't do this." But, on occasion, she would keep coming, "I think you need to think about doing this." And, at some point, she also wove in this idea, because in the course of conversation, I'm like, "I can't invite..." In a podcast you would invite guests.

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I'm like, "I don't have time for that. I can't do that."

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And she said, "Well, what if it wasn't just you talking? What if you had a conversation partner? Someone like maybe, Pepper Sweeney." And, so, I wasn't ready to do it because I had other projects that were going on. And then I completed the manuscript of The Soul Desire and felt like I was just a big exhale. And it was so odd how I finished that manuscript, and suddenly, and it's just the oddest thing how it's just a matter of timing. 

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Suddenly everything just like the penny dropped, and I felt like, "Let's go do this." I have no idea what we're going to do. I wasn't confident, I was not, in that moment, confident in me doing a podcast. I was confident in Amy's and Pepper's confidence in whatever it is that they're thinking about.

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Pepper: Curt often talks about the fact that we can't imagine our futures until someone else imagines them for us. So often people come into your life and they'll say, "I see this in you."

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Curt: Totally. So what we are doing, it is Amy calling me forward in a specific place where I feel extraordinarily vulnerable. Like, "I don't know what the heck I'm doing." No. So, I think, that's another part of the vulnerability. It's a matter of not just we reveal parts of us that are unsteady, and broken, and imperfect. But it's also a matter of our being willing to respond to someone else touching a part of us that is vulnerable and saying, "Hey, I want to come into that room in your house. And I want you, and me, and Pepper to go someplace with that."

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And you're like, "How can anybody go someplace with that? It's a mess in that room."

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And they're like, "Oh, we're not just here to be with you. We're here to do something beautiful with the very thing that you think just needs to be kept hidden."

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Alison: Yes, calling each other into more and more being, really, calling each other out more and more. That's the virtuous cycle of friendship, is more and more and more goodness. More and more of who you really are and the gifts you bring only can come out through the crucible, the context of friendship, that's beautiful. 

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This really should be the Amy and Pepper podcast, that's what it should be called. It should be called the Amy and Pepper podcast.

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Pepper: It'd be a lot shorter.

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Curt: But they knew they could push my vulnerability so far, but not too far. They knew that I was, probably, going to have The Being Known podcast was the name, and all the things, there is-

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Amy: He'll catch up with us.

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Alison: Yes, Curt, this may be projection, and so if it is just completely discard it. I think so much of the work that you and I are both trained to do you're a therapist. You work individually with people. You're a speaker, a writer, I relate to all those categories. They're all very solitary endeavors in many ways. And, so, I'm curious what that was like for you, inviting, you've alluded to it, and maybe that for you wasn't, maybe, you wouldn't have looked at them as solitary endeavors. So that could be projection from my part. But how do you invite people into your processes?

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Curt: Well, I think, I've learned this and I'm still learning the reality of this. That because we are rhythmic people, to be human is to be rhythmic. One of the ways that we're rhythmic is this continual movement back and forth between life and work, in solitude, and life and work in community. Just like exhaling and inhaling. Just like the pulse of your heartbeat. 

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And I would say that the work that we do best as therapists, when we are doing our individual work, in solitude, with another patient, for instance. If you're writing you're in your office and you're banging away at the computer. But that's only going to flourish to the degree that I'm, then, taking that and then being back in community in some way, shape, or form. 

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And, so, the best of the work as a writer, a speaker, a therapist, is made possible because you're in rhythmic connection with the community. So living and working in the practice that I have, the best time of my week, at the practice, is every Wednesday, from 11:45 to 01:00, when our staff meets together. It's the best part of my week, of the practice. Because I can take what's happening in that room and know that I'm not by myself with what's going to come, in all the other moments with patients. 

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And, so, it feels like, then, this becomes one more of those communities. Our podcast becomes one more of those communities in which I'm being nourished, and we each find nourishment, and we each provide nourishment for each other. 

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Alison: Yes. 

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Curt: That enables me, then, to go back, to go do the speaking thing that I'm going to do the next day, or the individual therapy work that you're going to do the next week. So that's how I would reflect on that.

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Alison: I love that.

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******

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Alison: I love that idea of the rhythms, of aloneness and togetherness, of solitary and connected. And just thinking here, as we have just a few more minutes, how do you, in practical ways, create those rhythms in your life? Curt, you just gave us a glimpse. This podcast group is one for you guys, and I love the idea that this isn't just, I heard you very clearly say you're being nourished. You're pouring out through this podcast. You're helping a lot of people, but you're also being nourished by it because of this trio, and that that's possible in workspaces.

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That's possible in our families. That's possible in lots of different contexts, where we're both it's not binary of "I give out here, I receive here." 

There are ways to create rhythms, I really love that. So I'm curious, Amy and Pepper, do you have thoughts on that, in your own lives, how you incorporate rhythms of togetherness and apartness?

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Pepper: Well, I will say using this podcast as an example. So we meet normally on Fridays, pretty much every week, and we have a nice chunk of time blocked out, in the mornings, and that has become a major rhythm for me. Where that really helps me carry on through the week, and then I know that that's coming again. 

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I work a lot, so I'm either on the road touring with shows, or I'm sitting in this little room, by myself, in front of a computer. Which is 90% of my work is done by myself. I have Zoom calls all day, all that kind of thing. I have other friendships and things here, locally, but I've relied on this podcast as a major rhythm in my life. And, as a matter of fact, when we go on hiatus, we'll start texting each other, "Okay, it's been too long."

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"This is driving me crazy, we got to get back together." So, yes, this has been definitely a rhythm for me, that has fed into me and helped me to be a better person, I think.

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Alison: Are you surprised by that, Pepper, how significant this has become? Did you anticipate that?

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Pepper: Very surprised by it, actually. I just said to Curt this morning, I think, if I remember we started this, I thought, "Well, if we can get maybe 400 people to listen to this podcast, that's going to be a major win, and Curt's work is going to get out there to more people, and it's great to be in front of a room of 400 people. We just hit a million and eight downloads this week, and it's a huge surprise to me. But I do think, also, I wouldn't have done this podcast. I wouldn't put this much effort, and time, and work, and energy, into something if I wasn't going to get something out of it.

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Alison: Yes.

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Pepper: And what I'm getting out of it is these relationships, is the learnings. Like I said, doing this podcast makes me a better person, on so many levels. It just makes me a better friend, a better husband, a better dad, a better son, all the things, it really is something. I think, I anticipated some of that, but not to the extent and the importance that it's become in my life.

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Alison: It's beautiful. What about you, Amy? Are you surprised by the depth and the degree of how much this has shaped you? And if not... That's a loaded question, well, no, actually it doesn't really-

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Curt: She's not surprised at how much she's shaped Pepper and me, she's not surprised of that at all-

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Amy: I mean, I am surprised at the impact it's had on me. It's both yes and no because it really is an extension of our relationship. And, so, I would be more surprised if it didn't impact me. Because I would be like, "Why suddenly did the impact stop?"

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Alison: Yes.

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Amy: But what it has taught me, too, is that, I'll use the word endeavors, the different endeavors I have in my life. I have a group; I get together with a group that's just about projects we're working on. And, so, walking away from that group knowing they know what I'm working on, and they are supportive, and caring about that. I wouldn't have known how to do that group if it weren't for the podcast, I don't think. Because it is an assimilation, if that makes sense. So now I bring what we have in the podcast to areas of my life, it has infiltrated my life.

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Alison: Interesting, so it's spread over.

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Curt: That's what we are, we are infiltrators, great.

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Pepper: Infiltrators.

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Amy: That's a different podcast. 

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Alison: Yes, that makes a lot of sense and not just, structurally, the DNA, of it, who you are, now, what you bring to these other pockets, as Curt says, outposts of safety and connection, has fundamentally changed. I do want to compliment you guys because I do know a lot of stories of folks, who were good friends that pivoted into working together and the friendship fell apart, that does happen.

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And, so, the fact that, that's why I'm asking, it's not so much are you surprised. Because, you're right, it makes sense, you knew the power of these connections. But I would also say there's clearly, and this is where the individual work, I think, is also a component. There's the absence of ego, for lack of a better word. 

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The fact that all three of you are really committed to your own work, as you come together. That's allowing this to thrive in new ways, as you've brought in a creative partnership. I mean, I want to give you guys some credit for that. I don't think that would, magically, happen just with anybody, any group of friends, that said, "Let's embark on a pretty sophisticated project together."

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Curt: Yes, I mean, I can't say enough about the role that is played by my awareness of and confidence in the fact that Pepper and Amy are both doing their work, and I'm trying to catch up. But it really does make a difference. It does make a difference, when you're aware that everybody, we're trying to do our work, and we know that we do it imperfectly, but we're still trying to do it.

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Amy: For sure. Well, and Alison, you said, and this is what you were saying about when you said, I don't know which came first the chicken or the egg, this work it's almost simultaneously. I would do a little bit of work and then I would be aware, "Oh, there's a little bit more of work to do, but I can do it because this safety is building." So it goes hand in hand. Does that make sense?

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Alison: Yes, it's a dance. We do our own work, internally, and God puts His finger on certain areas. But if we just live that in a vacuum, 

it's when we go back into those safe spaces that that work gets tended and cultivated. And, also, sometimes, God uses the group to put the finger on things that we need to notice and then go back into our quiet personal time, and say, "Oh, God, I need to deal that with you. Do I need to deal with that in the group? Do I need to deal with that internally?" 

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I mean, that's another practical thing, we're running out of time. But I think about that a lot in friendships is when we talk about vulnerability. We don't always have to tell our friends every single thing we think or feel, especially, as it relates to some of the negative stuff, that we all deal with from time to time. 

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For me, as I've understood this dance of friendship, I was always somebody who I knew how to be receptive. So if you think about the therapist/client or spiritual director/spiritual directee model, I knew how to be the person receiving care. 

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I also know how to be the person giving care. What has been more challenging for me, and really I've only tackled, I'd say, in the last few years, is this dance of interdependence. Of sometimes I'm the one holding space for you, sometimes, I'm the one needing you to see me, and that is really hard and really painful. I can do it if that's your job, and that's your role, and I pay you to do that. 

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But in the context of friendship, that's hard, and I've been learning about that, and that's when you talk about vulnerability. One of the things that as I've grown and learned about that, it's I don't have to tell friends, these safe spaces, all the things I'm rumbling with inside my soul for it to be vulnerable. But I do need to know that I could, if that makes sense. It's kind of a paradox.

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Curt: Sure, sure love that and affirm what you're saying, that just makes a ton of sense. I also think that the fact that there are, again, this is not to be completely prescriptive. But the fact that there are three of us in this work and not just two of us, makes a huge difference. I think, because when any one of us needs something hard to say to one of the others, it's helpful to have a third party in the room. That my brain can borrow your brain so that I can talk to the other person's brain. I think it makes a difference in all kinds of ways.

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Alison: That's a really good word, it's a really practical word for folks. That there's an intensity to one-on-one, that it's not all bad or good. Again, it's not a binary, but there's something about the group, the collective. I do want you to touch on, Curt, before we close a little bit about your vision for Confessional Communities. We'll get into more of a practical example of that in another episode, but can you just tell us a little bit about that?

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Curt: Yes, listeners can read about it in The Soul Desire, where currently, we are beginning the recording of a miniseries on Confessional Communities. There are also two really helpful resource outlets for this, The Center for Being Known, the nonprofit that you came to speak for, The Connections Conference. We just launched our second cohort of 18 Confessional Communities, there are almost 200 people that are involved in those. 

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Where we do online training and then support for that. And, then, our practice is doing two and a half day intensives, where you come and you're up to your neck in the actual work. 

We're going to be doing that beginning this fall, committing that to training therapists, who get clinicians who want to do that in their own practices. 

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And it is a way for us to combine what we know about what the biblical narrative calls us to with neuroscience, with group psychotherapy practices, that enables us to move toward formation. And we believe that our minds, our hearts, our souls, our brains, our bodies are more effectively formed in the context of a community. 

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It becomes a crucible in which the shame and the fear that I walk around with is provided a container into which it can come. And as you, so artfully, like to talk about, the different parts of us can come to be seen, soothed, safe, made to be secure, to, then, go from that space, over time, to create beauty and goodness in the world. In the other domains of life where it's been difficult for us to do that, and we take those members with us. And if I can take three or four members with me to do a hard thing, I'm much better able to do it if I have to do it by myself.

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So, like Pepper was saying earlier, it takes time. God could have made the world in a day, it took six. I mean, The Ark of the biblical narrative could have taken a lot shorter, but it's taking time. He appears to be taking an amount of time that I'm not always happy with, especially, not least in my own life. But these Confessional Communities can create space in which we are, literally, loving each other as God has loved us, and such that the world will look at that community and know that we are the disciples of Jesus.

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Alison: I love that. And, so, if people go to that website, we'll link to it in the show notes, you're helping people figure out the structure of that, the how of that. How to set that up, which is so important? It's just such a need for folks to have these spaces. Again, to circle back to it's not just the time, it's the quality of that time, how that time is being used. And, so, you're creating, you're helping equip people to do that on their own.

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Curt: That's right.

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Alison: That's beautiful. Thank you, guys, so much. I could just shoot the breeze with you all day long. When I was with you, I talk about this sometimes, holy envy, and when I feel holy envy, it's I see something in other people. 

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I'm like, "Oh, that's good, I need more of that." And I have, literally, since October, done because I have friends with this level of depth. "Oh, my gosh, I need to intentionally build some things around that." So thank you. Thank you for inspiring that. Thank you for what you do with the podcast. Tell us where to find the podcast, I think, it's just such a great gift. Where can people find it?

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Amy: Anywhere they listen, Being Known Podcast, they can search for it and find it.

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Alison: And you've got some fun outtake videos on YouTube, too?

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Pepper: There's plenty of outtakes.

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Amy: Every episode have plenty of outtakes and every episode has a gag reel.

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Alison: I love it. Thank you guys so much; I just appreciate all of you. I appreciate the work that you do. I appreciate you sharing this friendship trio, this trinitarian friendship with us today, as a living example, sort of a parable, almost, of what this all means in real life. So thank you.

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Curt: Thanks, Alison, it's been great to be with you.

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Amy: Thank you, Alison.

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Alison: Hope to see you again soon.

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Curt: Right on.

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Alison: Bye.

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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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Phew! Today's episode gets fiery 🔥🔥🔥! Many of us were taught to "turn the other cheek" as a call to be a doormat or to naively "love someone" into change. In today's episode, I'm not holding back as I paint a picture of what I think the Bible really teaches about standing firm against toxicity. You'll discover a completely different picture of what it means to turn the other cheek.

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Here's what we cover:

1. What "turn the other cheek" really means

2. What the Bible has to say about toxic behavior

3. Why it doesn't work to "love people" into change

4. Examples of toxicity & how to protect yourself

5. How to be shrewd when dealing with gossip, cruelty or manipulation

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

‍

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.
• Visit christiankitchenscoffee.com and use code bestofyou for a 10% discount on your first order!
• Go to ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
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Music by Andy Luiten

Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

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

• Sign up to receive my weekly newsletter and 3 free resources here!
• ‍Matthew 5:38-39
• ‍Sermon On the Mount: Matthew 5
• ‍Matthew for Everyone by N.T. Wright
• National Domestic Abuse Hotline: Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for 24/7 free, confidential support
• ‍Psalm 23:5
• ‍Romans 8:31
• ‍Matthew 10:16
• ‍Proverbs 18:2
• ‍Proverbs 12:15
• ‍Proverbs 10:18
• ‍Proverbs 18:6
• ‍Proverbs 14:16
• ‍Isaiah 32:5-7
• ‍Scriptures about how to be wise: Proverbs 14:7, Proverbs 23:9, Proverbs 26:4-5, Proverbs 18:7, Galatians 6:7, Proverbs 29:11
• ‍Proverbs 13:20
• Resources for support

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‍Related Podcast Episodes:

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

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Transcript

Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You podcast. Today is the last episode in this series we've been doing called What Does the Bible Really Say? And it is packed, we are covering all kinds of hard questions in today's finale episode. This has been such a popular series. We'll come back and do another round two Listeners Choice edition in the coming months. 

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In the meantime, do not forget to sign up for my weekly The Best of You email, it comes out every Thursday. It's free, and every week I include some sort of bonus content related to the podcast. You also get three free resources, when you sign up for it you get a Boundaries Kickstart Guide, another eBook, as well as a guided audio exercise.

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So you can head over to my website, dralisandcook.com, to sign up for that email or you can see the link in today's episode shownotes. I am so excited about our new series that launches next week. Stay tuned for more information about that. I've been planning this one for a long time and I cannot wait to share it with you. So thank you for being here. 

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Thank you so much for just your notes, your comments, for what you share with me about what this podcast has meant to you. 

It means so much to me to hear from you, to know that what we're doing here matters to you. It matters a lot to me. This is my passion; my life is bringing together my faith with psychology. Bringing together what I know to be true of God. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Next week, we're going to be talking to Curt Thompson about these confessional communities, where people come together in these groups. 

Where we tell our stories honestly, bravely, in safe places, where we are heard, where we are seen, where we are loved. And as we do that work, there is no match for the power that we unleash in this world. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"Thanks, but no thanks, no."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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< Music >

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This is what it means to be married. This is what it means to be a friend. This is what it means to be a church community. This is what it means to be a neighborhood. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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< 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.

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We're hitting hard today on this question "Am I really supposed to die to myself?" So many have been encouraged to misapply the message of self-denial in ways that are not healthy. So what does the Bible really say about it?

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Here's what we cover:

1. What "deny yourself" really means

2. 3 different types of people

3. A surprising invitation

4. A practical exercise to apply to your own life

5. Your Questions: Healed vs. Saved

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

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Resources

• ‍The Best of You, by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍Genesis 1:27
• ‍Genesis 2:8-9
• ‍John 15:1-8
• ‍Matthew 16:24-25
• ‍Psalm 139:14
• ‍John 12:24-25
• ‍John 1:11-12
• ‍Jesus encourages the suffering: Mark 2:11, John 4:50, John 9:7
• ‍Jesus befriends the ostracized sinners: John 4:25, John 8:11
• ‍Jesus rebukes the elite: Matthew 23
• ‍Matthew 9:21
• ‍Philippians 2:12
• ‍"We are living in eternity right now. We just haven't died yet."‍
• Resources for support

‍

Related Podcast Episodes:

• Episode 54: Can I Pray My Anxiety Away? A Surprising Approach to the Anxiety Pandemic & How to Walk Yourself & Your Kids Through It
• Episode 55: Am I Supposed to Distrust Myself? Why Trusting Yourself is Necessary to Establishing Healthy Relationships With Other People
• ‍What Does the Bible Really Say Youtube Series
• ‍Boundaries for Your Soul Youtube Series

‍

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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.

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Transcript

Alison: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so glad you're here for this series we're doing on – What Does the Bible Really Say? We're hitting some of these hard questions. Some of these messages we've been taught, while true, while biblical, can sometimes be misconstrued if we are not understanding them in their appropriate context. 

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Both historically, their historical context, and, also, in the context in which these messages land today. And we're going to get into more about this idea of context in today's episode, which is all about this question, Am I really supposed to deny myself? And it's such a great question. Especially in our modern culture, especially in our modern American culture, where there's so much excess. There's so much get what you want, when you want it, right when you want it type of living. 

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There's so much emphasis on the self, which is something that I think a lot about. Because as a psychologist, as a therapist, everything I do I am focused on healing the self. However, I'm always holding that intention with the God who made us. 

So we heal ourselves in relationship with the God who made us, and we do that work of healing the self, not so that we can live for the self, for ourselves. We do that work so that we can live from the truest, most beautiful, God-made part of ourselves.

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So, again, we don't do this so that we can live for ourselves. We do this so that we can live more fully, more holy from ourselves. And by that I mean the truest, most beautiful version of your image-bearing self. This is all rooted in that theology of Imago Dei, which means, in Latin, "Image of God." We bear the image of God. And you'll hear me say this time and time again, I'll speak of us as image bearers. 

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It originates from Genesis 1:27 in the Bible, which says, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them." This verse shows the orthodox Christian viewpoint that human beings, men and women, alike, are created in the image and likeness of God. 

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We possess inherent dignity, inherent worth, and a special connection to the divine in a way. There's something really unique about what it means to be made in the image of God. 

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So what is significant about being made in the image of God? 

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Number one, it gives us inherent dignity and worth as humans. Every human life, every person, that you meet bears the image of God. And if you think about that, it really changes how you view people. Now, again, it doesn't mean that there are people who are, systematically, seeking to cover over their image of Godness. Are, systematically, denying their image of Godness through their toxic behaviors. We still have free will. We still have choice. But the truth is there is that spark, there is that image of God in every single human soul. 

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One of the things I think a lot about in my own life, since I was a little kid, is one of the areas where I see beauty is through other people. I see a reflection of God in the souls of other people. That's part of what draws me to my work, as a therapist, as a psychologist, someone who studies the human psyche, is the more I get to know a human soul and how intricate it is, how unique it is, how complex it is, how beautiful it is, the more I see glimpses of God. 

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And, oftentimes, I feel similar to how other people feel when they go to an art museum and they behold the beauty of a piece of art. Or people who go into nature and they behold the beauty in a tree, or in a lake, or in these majestic mountains and these things declare the wonder of God. Because all of these things are reflections of the creativity of God. 

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Well, I see that so clearly in human individuals, and I've always seen it that way in my work as a therapist. No matter how broken a person is who comes to me. It is such a joy to get to sit with a fellow image bearer and help that person begin to uncover more and more of that uniqueness, that is a little glimpse, a little reflection, of God that that person was meant to shine forth in this world. 

We reflect who God is in this world which is incredibly amazing, and what an honor, and, also, a little bit scary. We better do a good job with that, because other people are going to project onto God what we show them about God.

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So it shows the inherent dignity and worth that we all have. The notion of imago dei also gives us a sense of moral responsibility. If we are made in the image of God, there's a certain capacity for moral reasoning, for wisdom, for discernment, for an ability to distinguish between right and wrong. And if you think about all the way back to the garden, to that first commandment that Adam and Eve broke, which was they were not to eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. 

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There's a way in which God was drawing a boundary. "You are fellow image bearers, but you do not want the full authority of what it means to know completely the difference between good and evil. That's a weight I don't want you to bear."

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There's an interesting boundary that God put there that He gave us the ability to distinguish right from wrong. To understand we have a conscience, we can be discerning, and there are also limits to that. That God put in place, in the garden, prior to Adam and Eve eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

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Some scholars think that God put that boundary there as a way of saying, "Listen, I've given you a special role, a special significance, a special creative ability. I have given you creative potential. I have given you stewardship and care." That's another thing that humans are given by God. They are given unique ability to steward and care for other created beings, for animals, for nature, for the environment, for the things around us. 

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With that boundary that God put around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there's a way in which God is setting a boundary by saying that, "I want you to stay in relationship with me. There is a limit on what you can do. And you can govern wisely, and you can govern well, and you can care for others, and care for yourself with a lot of complexity, and a lot of ownership, and a lot of authority, and, also, you must always stay in obedient, trusting, relationship with me. 

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You cannot have access to all the knowledge in the universe. You need to stay in relationship with me. That our discernment as humans, our ability to ascertain right from wrong, dark from light, goodness from what is evil, depends on our relationship with God. God is always the ultimate author of all truth, of all goodness, and we must stay constantly attached to Him in relationship to Him. We cannot go out on our own way and try to grasp at the ultimate, sort of cornucopia, of the ultimate knowledge of the universe. 

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If we go out on our own and try to do that without God, we are going to end up in trouble. We are going to end up in trouble, and that's why He put that boundary there, according to some scholars. 

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So while we have a lot of agency, a lot of creative power, a lot of authority, a lot of ability to steward, a lot of discernment, we must steward all of those gifts, constantly, by staying connected to and in partnership with the God who made us. 

And I say that, always, on this podcast, "With the one who made us." We do not go at this alone. We must always stay connected to that vine. 

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When you think of the metaphor that Jesus used of the vine and the branches, we are nothing if we are not connected to that living vine. As we go through our days trying to discern truth. Trying to discern, even in the midst of our day to day lives, "What do I need to do in this situation?"

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"What's the best path here in this parenting challenge?"

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"How am I to discern what's right from wrong, in this work situation?"

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"How am I to discern the best way to guide my child?"

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"How am I to discern the best way to steward this money?"

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"What's right, what's wrong? Where am I veering towards selfishness or toward deception?"

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"How do I align myself with what's right and with what's good?"

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In all of these situations we find ourselves in, it requires us to stay connected to the vine. There are no easy answers to most of those questions. It requires ongoing relationship. And, so, it's in that context of understanding this incredible gift that we have, that we are made in the image of God. We are image bearers; we are co-creators with Christ. 

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We are given the gift of being able to exert agency in our lives, to have a lot of freedom. To proceed with wisdom into our work, into our relationships. All those things are a gift of our free will, of our human autonomy, of what it means to be human. These are all beautiful things, and it's against that backdrop that I want to bring us now to this command that Jesus gives us, in Matthew 16:24, "That if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."

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< Music >

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The Psalmist in 139:14 says, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it well." So we have this backdrop that while we do have a fallen nature, while we do inherit the sin of Adam and Eve, eating of the fruit, we are also inherently worthy. We are inherently dignified by that state of being made in the image of God. So against that backdrop, now, we turn to this concept of self-denial. 

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So let's start by looking at what Jesus actually said. So Jesus said to deny yourself to follow Him. This comes from Matthew 16:24, and these are Jesus words, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." And then He goes on to say, "If someone wants to save their life, they must lose it. And if anyone loses their life for my sake, they will find it."

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So coming to this idea of context, it's first really important to understand the historical context of this passage. And I really appreciate theologian N.T. Wright and how he unpacks a lot of historical context, especially, in the New Testament. And, so, this is from his book Matthew for Everyone, which is a commentary on the Book of Matthew. But he talks about how Jesus is in the midst, in all of the gospels, of teaching His disciples a completely upside down way. 

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Jesus is really giving a nuanced teaching to the disciples here, where He's turning things upside down. 

Where there's this subtle tendency, and you can imagine if it was you, sometimes, I think about if Jesus were to come back today. In our humanness we'd be like, "Yes, finally, Jesus is going to vindicate me."

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There's a human ego in all of us, that is like, "When our Savior finally comes, when the Messiah finally comes." There's a little part of us, not all of us, but there's a little part of us that's like, "Finally, I'll be vindicated. Finally, Jesus will set me free." And we know what that means, but there are parts of us that see that as, "Maybe I'll get a little bit of vindication, finally, here on Earth." And we see that in a little bit of the disciples, as they were following Jesus. 

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They were a little bit confused about, "What does this mean to follow you?"

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"Does this mean we're, finally, going to get this vindication against our oppressive rulers?"

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"Does this mean that we're, finally, going to get our due? We've suffered for a really long time." And Jesus is always nuancing that in this upside down way. And it comes to a culmination, really, at this point, and following Jesus is actually going to cost you everything. And, yes, that's good news, in the long run, but in the short run, that might feel a lot like a death. 

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This is what N.T. Wrights says, "It's going to be like learning to swim. If you keep your feet on the bottom of the pool, you are never going to work it out. You have to lose your life to find it." And what Wright is saying is, if you're learning how to swim and you're keeping your fingernails there on the edge, or you're dragging your feet on the ground, you're never going to really learn how to swim. You got to take the plunge. You got to go all in and it's going to feel like you're drowning at first. 

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If you remember that feeling, I remember it very well, it feels terrifying. You're going under and, then, suddenly, you start to catch yourself. And, suddenly, you start to find your way, and, then, you're starting to get to that new way of being that you've longed for. 

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And, so, there's this real nuance to what Jesus is saying here, that "Following me might not be exactly what you think it's going to be. In fact, at first, it might feel hard. You might have to give up some things, you might have to change, and change is hard, and you might have to leave behind some of your old coping strategies. And you might have to leave behind some of your old grudges, and you might have to leave behind some of that ego. 

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But I promise you, if you let go, if you surrender, if you let go for that moment, I promise you, you're going to get the true life. The new life that you've been so desperately seeking." And this message is underscored in other parts of Scripture. 

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In John 12:24-25, Jesus talks about this process of dying to yourself like a grain of wheat. And here's the passage, he says, "Listen carefully, unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat." It just stays that grain. "But if it's buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real, and eternal." This is John 12:24-25, the Message version. 

So, similarly, to that learning how to swim, this grain of wheat, if you just hang on to that grain of wheat, it becomes nothing, it's meaningless. But if you let it go and you let it be buried in the ground; and it feels like a death, and it's dark, and it's scary, but that's how that seed actually sprouts and reproduces itself into something even more beautiful. 

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And, so, we need to remember that in light of these passages, denying yourself. This process of setting yourself aside, of letting yourself go, of dying to yourself. It's a process of letting go to those things you are clinging to that are actually keeping you from the person you were really meant to be, to unleashing more of that image of God. That beautiful reflection of God that's inside of you, that's inside that seed that has to crack open, that might feel like a death, in order for you to reveal even more goodness, more light, more beauty into the world around you. 

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Another passage where we see this John 1:11-12, where John says about following Jesus, these are John's words, "But whoever did want Him," meaning Jesus. "Whoever believed He was who He claimed and would do what He said, He made to be their true selves, their child of God, selves." John is saying that when you follow Jesus, believe in Him, enter into a trusting relationship with Him. 

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Where you walk in partnership with Him hand in hand, over time, it's not a static, once-and-done thing. It's a constant, ongoing, relationship, a companionship, a partnership, the best friendship, you will become even more of your true self, the beautiful soul that God made. And we know, from Jesus words, that this process can feel like death at times, like you are losing all that you've known. 

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"Really, Jesus? Really, you're my friend and you want me to walk through this?" Sometimes we don't understand why Jesus walks with us through dark valleys. Sometimes it doesn't feel like He wants what's best of us. But here's the promise; as we die to old ways, and we trust Jesus, and we don't let go of His hand. Even as we plunge ourselves into the depths of whatever it is that we face, we become more of the fierce, light-bearing people that God made us to become. 

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So now I want to get into psychological context. How do we interpret this message of denying ourselves, in light of everything we've just laid out? In light of the different psychological contexts we find ourselves in. And what I mean by that is the different realities of our experience, as humans, because this is a series on the Bible, we're going to be very Bible heavy in this episode. 

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I want to turn to this idea of how Jesus interacted with different types of people, in different psychological contexts. When Jesus walked the Earth, you could say He spent time with three different kinds of people living in three different contexts. The first were those who were suffering from illnesses beyond their control. 

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Now, some of these might have been mental illnesses, some of them were medical illnesses. Some of them were spiritualized, in the sense that they were interpreted at the time as demon possession. Maybe they were demon possession, it might be that they put that name on things that we might describe in psychological terms. Either way, the reality is He interacted with these people suffering in a very unique way. 

He gave the sick and the suffering special care. Jesus didn't blame the suffering nor did He marginalize them. There are so many stories, and I'll list all of these in the show notes. 

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But there's so many instances where Jesus encouraged those who were suffering. Where He helped them and He treated them with respect. In many cases, He healed them. And what's so interesting is that in each of these cases, Jesus asked the person who was sick or who was suffering to take an active part in their process of being healed. "Get up, take your mat, and go home." He says in Mark 2:11.

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"Go back home, your son will live." In John 4:50.

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"Go wash yourself in the pool." John 9:7.

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He empowers them to move out into their lives, He gives them a job to do. He does not blame the sick, nor does He marginalize them. In fact, it's the opposite, He welcomes them and gives them a role. 

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Now, I want you to think about this in the context of what it means to deny yourself. In these cases, when Jesus is approaching those who are sick or suffering in ways that are beyond their control, and of no fault of their own. He is not saying to them, "You need to get over yourselves." He is inviting them in to a process of healing. He's empowering them to take agency in their life.

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Now, the second type of person that Jesus encounters are those who you might describe as sinning, those who are straying. He interacts, frequently, with those who would have been labeled as sinners, in His day. Adulterers, rebels, prostitutes, tax collectors, et cetera. And here's the thing, when the religious leaders criticized Jesus for being friends with these people, Jesus rebuked them, and in fact chose to prioritize his time with folks that the legalists of His day didn't really like.

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It's notably to a woman four times divorced and from Samaria, a place that was not esteemed very highly, whom Jesus honored by disclosing His true identity. He tells the woman at the well, "I am the Messiah." In John 4:25, this is a really big reveal. Jesus befriended sinners, He forgave them, and He also called them to change. "Neither do I condemn them, go now and leave your life of sin." He says in John eight through 11. He empowers them to go out and live a changed life. 

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And, then, lastly, Jesus interacts with those we might describe as sanctimonious, the legalists of His day. These were the folks who were quick to speak out against others, and who thought they had it all together. They had it right. They were following the law, they were moral, they were the ones living by the law. 

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But Jesus took a different approach with these folks. He was actually harsh with them, at times. He accused them of being more concerned about their appearance than their character on the inside. He would say to them, "You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence."

Those who were quick to speak up against others were taken down a peg or two by Jesus. Those who cried out for help, when everyone around despised them, were lifted up. Now, I want you to think about these three different contexts, in light of what it means to deny yourself. Where do you find yourself in these three categories?

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Are you someone who has been hurt?

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Who has been traumatized?

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Who has been cast aside?

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Who has been abused?

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Who has been sidelined?

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Who has been walked on? 

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Do you think it's possible that when Jesus says to deny yourself, it doesn't mean that you should continue to take mistreatment? That you should continue to shove yourself aside? That you should continue to feel shame? 

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What if Jesus invitation for you, and that invitation to self-denial, is to instead get up and let go of those shackles of shame that other people, and the enemy, want to keep you down with, and to instead come alive to the person you really are? If you're someone who finds yourself in that straying category, maybe, you've been struggling with an addiction, with a compulsion, with a sin that has just got you. 

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What if Jesus invitation for you is to deny that behavior, deny that sin, but not continue to beat yourself up? Instead, be free of those chains that bind you, so that you can live into the fullness of who God wants you to become. And if you find yourself in that third category; what if Jesus invitation to you is to set aside that ego, that pride, that false pretense. That you really know what's going on, that you're special to God because you've got it so together?

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What if God's invitation for you is to pry that self-righteousness out from your soul, so that you can live in the humility of knowing that you, too, need Jesus? The way we frame this invitation to self-denial, depends on the specific nature of the circumstances you find yourself in right now. If you're someone who has been denying yourself; so that someone else can abuse, or exploit, or take advantage of you. The invitation to you may well be to deny those parts of you that are telling you that you are not worth more.. 

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If you are someone who's been playing small so that others won't be threatened by you. The invitation for you might be to deny that lie, that God does not want you to come out of hiding and bravely inhabit the fullness of who you are. 

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If you are someone who has been trying to perfect yourself to earn the approval of others. Your invitation to self-denial might be to deny the parts of you that are perfecting yourself to win love. And what might it be like to set those parts of you aside, humbly, before God, and ask Jesus to teach you how to walk in the truth that you are already His beloved.

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What if dying to yourself means dying to the lie that God does not want more for you? 

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What if it means saying, "Yes, I will do whatever it takes to become the truest version of my God-given self?"

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What if dying to yourself means yes to following Jesus, as He seeks to heal the broken parts of you?

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This is what I believe it means to come alive to the truest version of yourself. It means dying to old ways that you've learned to cope and survive. It means dying to toxic patterns of relating to other people, of dying to ways of pleasing someone to get love. Of dying to shaming messages and self-hatred. 

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To dying to your practice of burying your pain, instead of bringing it out into the light, where it can receive healing. It means dying to the ways you've perfected yourself, incessantly, to your own exhaustion. It means dying to the lie that you don't matter and that your life does not have value. 

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This is where I love the way our biblical knowledge comes together with what we've learned in psychology. If you've followed me through The Boundaries for Your Soul series, you know that I believe we are comprised of parts. We are multifaceted beings. And so much of this invitation to deny yourself, may well relate to those parts of you that have learned to cope, or learned to survive, or learned to keep yourself in ways that are no longer serving you.

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This is not a shaming invitation. This is an invitation to let go of old ways so that you can become even more of your true self, of the beautiful person God wants you to become. 

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I want to close today with an exercise and an answer to one of your questions. So the exercise is an exercise in coming alive to yourself. If you've struggled with that voice of self-denial and you didn't really understand what you were supposed to deny, maybe you've been denying the wrong things. Maybe you've been denying your talents. Maybe you've been denying your gifts. Maybe you've been denying your God-given voice, that you actually need to use to speak up on behalf of yourself. 

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So this is an exercise to help you with that. If you have a blank piece of paper, you can divide it into two halves and think of a situation or a relationship that's been hard for you. And I want you to begin to notice the messages in your mind. So on the left side of the paper, I want you to think about what are the die-to-yourself messages that run through your mind? 

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These might show up in any kind of ways. Maybe they're not, literally, "I need to die to myself here." But they're the ways you've tried to get yourself to die to things based on messages you've picked up. So here are some examples; maybe you're someone who always tells yourself things like, "I should always do what they want me to do."

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"I should always meet the needs of other people."

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"I should just forget about that dream."

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"I should just be the bigger person in this situation."

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"I should pretend that what she did was okay to me." And these are always we tell ourselves, "Oh, we're dying to ourselves." When, in fact, we're actually bypassing the work of coming alive to the person God made. 

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We're relying on our old coping tactics of guilt tripping ourselves, and shoulding ourselves, as opposed to letting go of the edge of that pool, and in partnership with Jesus saying "Okay, God, I'm willing to try it a new way." So write those on the left side of that paper, and then on the right side of your paper, I want you to call this your – What-if-I-could messages.

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These are the – What-if-God-wants-me-to messages.

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"What-if-it's-possible messages." And those, for example, might be things like this; "What if I could take more space from this relationship?"

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"What if I could confront this person and ask them to stop treating me this way?" If it was safe to do that.

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"What if I could speak up, and use my voice to speak up against something that I don't like or the way that somebody's treating me?"

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"What if I could say no because I'm overextended, and I just simply don't have what it takes to do what that other person wants me to do?"

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"What if I could say, 'This isn't okay with me. I'm not comfortable being treated this way?'"

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"What if I could walk away from a situation?"

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"What if I could begin to use this gift or this talent that really brings me a lot of joy."

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And then you begin to just look at these two columns. Look at these messages where you're shooting yourself to death. You're trying to die to yourself, but it's not the right kind of death. You're trying to deny all the wrong things. And look at that column in contrast to this other column of, "What if I could do some of these other things?"

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Then ask God, connect to the vine, connect to the God who made you. Connect to the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you, to ask Jesus for guidance. This Trinitarian God and say, "God, show me where I might have been missing it a little bit with this self-denial thing. Have I been denying aspects of myself that you might, actually, be calling me to claim? 

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And if that's the case, show me the things I, actually, need to deny. Maybe it's the part of me that guilt trips me. Maybe it's the part of me that shames me. Maybe it's the voice that I inherited from my parents or from a pastor, that isn't actually your voice. Can you show me, God? Can you show me what's the real thing I need to deny or set aside? 

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Is it these coping tactics?

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Is it this way of playing small? 

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Is it this way of always pleasing others? 

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And what is the invitation you're calling me to come alive to instead?"

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All right, so the point of this exercise is to grow an awareness of the ways in which this message of self-denial has gotten a little bit twisted in your mind. This happens to so many of us, and it's a great tool of the enemy. And as you do this, I want you to consider, is it possible that there's a different way that God wants you to deny aspects of yourself to bring you into even more of the life He wants for you to have.

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To close out, today, I want to address a question that came in, that we really thought was a great question. It's from Abby and she wrote, "In my experience, it seems a lot of church messages still hold a lot of that 'You should try hard to get it right.'

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'You have to win God over.'

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'You have to earn your salvation, even though they will say, we can't earn it.' And this implies I've got to make it to heaven, which has very little to do with our life now." Abby goes on to say, "Have you experienced pushback in your interpretations of salvation having a component of healing. Of backing off of the shoulds, and the rule following, and the shame, and the trying harder, perhaps more common to church models in teaching in our culture today? How do you cope with it?"

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Thanks for asking the question, Abby, it's a great question. The truth is I really surround myself with people who are thinking in these theologically nuanced ways, If you read C.S. Lewis, I still love the Narnia Tales. He paints such a beautiful picture of this embodied way of living out your faith. 

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There are so many people out there who've become my intellectual friends, my heroes of the faith. Who keep me anchored in a more robust theology that, frankly, is more true to historical orthodox Christianity than this very current, very specifically American type of theology, that really focuses in on this, "You've got to get yourself saved."

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And that's, primarily, get yourself saved, get yourself right with God, get your morals right, and then you'll get to heaven. This very narrow lens, which is really just a fraction of the gospel message that we see, especially, here in modern American Christianity. 

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And, so, I would just say that the way I cope with it, number one, is I really try to surround myself with real people, and thinkers, and with teachers who are really open to this holistic orthodox Christian theology. That encompasses the mind, the heart, the body, the spirit.

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Another thing that has really meant a lot to me as I've dug in to the Scriptures is this idea, and I've talked about this on here before, but I want to mention it to you, again, today, is just this idea that this is all steeped in real scholarship, real biblical scholarship. Where we know that this Greek word Sozo sometimes it's Soteria, that is often translated as saved or as salvation in our current biblical translations, can also be translated as healed or wholeness.

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And, so, there are certain places in the Scriptures where you can replace the word saved, what's been translated as saved, into the word healed. For example, in Matthew 9:21, where the woman who has been sick says, "If only I could touch His garment," speaking of Jesus, "I will be saved." Now that's the common translation we see. But you can substitute that word healed in, "If I can only touch His garment, I will be healed."

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And there's a different connotation there, there's not just this connotation, "If I can touch His garment I'll be saved, and I'll get my ticket to heaven." And then what does she do for the rest of her life? That's not what we see in Jesus. We see a man who is wanting relationship with humans, wanting to stay in connection to them. 

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And, so, the connotation of "If I touch His garment, then I will be healed" suggests I will be more whole. I will be able to go out and live this life as a follower of Jesus, as a disciple of Jesus, in my family, in my town, in my community. I will be productive. I will have a role to play. And, again, we see this time and again, when we see how Jesus interacted with the sick, with the suffering, with the sinners, He gave them a role. He said, "Do this."

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"Go there."

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"I have purpose for you."

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"Your life starts now."

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"I'm not just saving you so you can sit around till heaven. You got work to do, good work to do, to continue to bring more of my healing into this world."

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And I think about that verse in Philippians 2:12 that says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." And if you think about replacing that word salvation there with the word healing or the word wholeness and, again, the connotation of that verse changes. "Work out your healing with fear and trembling."

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"Work out your wholeness with fear and trembling."

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This is what we're called to, this is the work. That we are to work out our process of becoming whole, becoming more healed this side of heaven. We won't arrive there this side of heaven because, number one, it's a complicated process. 

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And, number two, we're living in a broken world. So we're going to bump up against continuing layers of hard times. But we are also, continually, being made new, continually, being made whole. And there's a continuity between the life we get to live now, in this process, all the way through eternity. And every once in a while I'll say this line to people and that is this "We are living in eternity right now. We just haven't died, yet."

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So think about that. We are in eternity right now. We're in it. It's started. Eternity doesn't have a start and a stop, we're in it. It's the waters we're swimming in. We don't understand that in our finite human minds. We haven't crossed over into eternity, but we're actually in it. There is no there and here in eternity, we're living our lives are eternal. We are in that now. 

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And, so, what if every moment that you're with someone, every moment you're alive, is an opportunity to bring a little bit more of that healing that we hope for on the other side of death, on the other side of heaven, into this world now. And I believe there's very clear theological and biblical basis, in orthodox Christianity, for that truth. That's a more accurate depiction of what it means when Jesus has already won the battle. And, yes, we are still in the in between, we're not quite there, but we've already started. 

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The enemy of our souls is still active, but we are already in this process of becoming more whole. And that gets me excited about doing the work of denying those things that hold me back, that keep me from that wholeness that Jesus wants us all to have.

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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 gets the word out to others. While you're there, I'd love it if you 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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This week we're talking all about self-trust-how we develop it, and why it's so crucial to the health of our relationships with other people. We also talk about how trusting God is a process that develops in the context of healthy relationships.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The surprising foundation for trust

2. The role of attachment

3. 3 relationships that contribute to trust

4. What to do if you are too trusting of others

5. A first step toward building self-trust

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

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Resources

• Episode 54: Can I Pray My Anxiety Away? A Surprising Approach to the Anxiety Pandemic & How to Walk Yourself & Your Kids Through It
• Episode 23: Am I wounded or am I sinful?
• Episode 51: The 12 Common Thinking Traps, Mind Reading, Mental Filters, and How To Stop Taking Things Personally
• ‍Boundaries For Your Soul by Kimberly Miller and Alison Cook
• ‍The Best of You by Alison Cook
• ‍Jeremiah 17:9
• ‍Jeremiah 31:33
• ‍John 14:16-17
• ‍Ezekiel 36:26
• ‍John 8:32
• ‍Jeremiah 31:33
• ‍Resources for support

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Listen & subscribe to Wear We Are!
• Visit hiyahealth.com/BESTOFYOU and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.
• Visit christiankitchenscoffee.com and use code bestofyou for a 10% discount on your first order!

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 for this series that we're doing – What Does the Bible Really Say? Where we're covering some of these hard questions. Where there's been some misunderstanding or some misconstrued messages that aren't really that helpful to us, as we learn to navigate what it means to be a fully embodied human, an image-bearing human. 

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People who bear the image of God, who are given a life to live. We have a lot of work to do to engage in the process of healing, engage in the process of becoming a whole person this side of heaven. And confronting some of these church messages that have encouraged us to bypass the work of becoming more fully the people that God made. And last week we talked about – "Can I pray my anxiety away?" We talked about how that idea of either trying to bypass anxiety and just pray it away or, frankly, just shutting anxiety down with medication. 

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Although medication, certainly, can be, incredibly, helpful in treating certain forms of anxiety. That neither of those really gets at this reality, that we all will deal with anxiety from time to time. Some of us will deal with it more than others. Some of us will deal with it in specific ways that need care from clinicians, from therapists, from psychiatrists.

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Some of us will deal with it as it relates to situational events or traumatic events. Regardless, we will all deal with anxiety. And as Curtis Chang talked about, in episode 54, we have to find a way through anxiety. And we walk through anxiety as we, simultaneously, understand the hope that coexist side by side with anxiety. And, so, often we need other people to help us through that process.

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We are not disembodied souls who live in isolation, who live in our own respective silos. We are created to live as autonomous beings who are, simultaneously, in connection with other human beings. With other God-created beings. We need each other and, especially, when we're dealing with something like anxiety, we need to be embodied. We need to move into our own bodies, and we need to be attuned to, through the presence of loving others, of other bodies that show up in an embodied way to help hold some of that anxiety with us. 

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This is true for shame; we don't heal shame in isolation. When we experience shame we need the presence of embodied others to help us reduce the impact of shame. Remove it from our nervous systems. There are so many ways in which these various things that we struggle with as humans who live in a broken world. Where there is going to be suffering, where there is going to be hard times. 

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Where we have to begin this process of naming what is happening without shame and walking through it instead of bypassing it or spiritualizing it and say, "Hey, I can just pray this away." Which deprives us of the opportunity of seeking out deeper intimacy, deeper connections with other fellow sufferers, fellow humans, who buy their embodied presence. 

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When we name something, when we are able to say to a spouse, to a friend, to a therapist, to a pastor, to a few trusted people, "Hey, I need to name that this is what's happening inside of me, I'm dealing with anxiety. I don't need you to pray it a way. But my naming it with you and in the presence of your loving empathy, your loving compassion. The fact that you love me and are with me in this, as I walk through it, is what helps me suffer a little bit less. It's what helps me suffer this a little bit better, a little bit more lightly."

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This is what I want you to understand through this series with some of these hard questions. We're not saying that we don't need spiritual resources. We're not saying we don't need God. We're not saying we don't need other people. We're saying there's a nuanced approach, a more holistic, embodied approach, to how we deal with these challenges. 

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So today we're going to tackle this topic of can I really trust myself?

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Should I trust myself? 

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And if I should trust myself, how do I begin to trust myself? 

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What if I don't trust myself? Because, in fact, I have led myself into relationships, into situations, into decisions, that haven't proven out very well for me, number one. And, number two, maybe, I've been taught that I shouldn't trust myself. That my heart is deceitful and wicked, and I actually shouldn't listen to myself. I shouldn't listen to my own instincts, to my own wisdom, that I can't trust myself at all. How do I make sense of this? That's what we're going to try to piece through, today.

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So the first thing I want to point out is there are two extremes in this conversation. Many of us, not all of us, but many of us if you grew up in any church environment or church culture. 

You may have been taught, explicitly, that you can't trust yourself. That you shouldn't trust yourself, and a lot of times that is based on a passage from Jeremiah 17:9. Where Jeremiah says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure." And I talk about this specific passage in both Boundaries for Your Soul, Kim and I talk about it, and I talk about it in The Best of You. 

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But I want you to bear in mind, right at the top of this episode, that while Jeremiah warned against the human heart. That it can be deceitful, that it can be, desperately, wicked. This is the very same prophet who just a few chapters later, in Jeremiah 31, prophesies about the coming of the Holy Spirit and he says, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts."

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So the very cure for the heart being fallen, missing the mark, being broken, whatever word you want to use. We talk about this back in episode 23, where I talked about "Am I wounded or am I sinful?" And the many nuances of what it means to be a human being who lives in a fallen state. Where we are imperfect, we miss the mark, our hearts do lead us astray. We don't have the fullness, the completeness, of what it means to ascertain reality and discern it in a, perfectly, whole way.

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We are limited. We miss things, all the time. Our minds do play tricks on us. Again, we talked about this in episode 51 on all the thinking traps that we fall into. That our minds are capable of tricking us and playing tricks on us. Our emotions, while valid, don't always give us the most objective take on what's happening in front of us. 

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They're informed by our prior experiences. There are all these filters that we've inherited, that we've learned to put up, for whatever reason, that cause us to perceive reality in inaccurate ways. This is just part of what it means to be human.

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So Jeremiah is not wrong, that we cannot completely trust our heart, our mind, our bodies. There are ways in which they're going to misinterpret data, and a couple of other things are true. Two things can be true at the same time. Jeremiah is saying that through the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus, we gain access to the Spirit of God. What prior to Christ was external, we could only connect to God through the external law, suddenly, becomes internalized.

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We receive the Holy Spirit. John 14 talks about the Holy Spirit coming to live within us. Jesus says, "I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. You know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you. That's from John 14:16-17.

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So the Spirit comes to dwell in the hearts of all those who believe in God. God responds to our human brokenness by transforming our souls from the inside out. And Ezekiel underscores this idea, Ezekiel 36:26, where he says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

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And, so, there's all this nuance around this one verse that gets tossed around, all the time, as a way to tell us we shouldn't trust ourselves. It's so much more complex than that, and that's what I want to try to tease out a little bit with you today.  

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< Music >

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So, number one, what we take from the scriptural basis is when you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, you have access to truth, there is a truth compass. There is a truth agent inside of you, "The truth shall set you free." If you think about that, that's really powerful. There's a way where you can begin to align yourself with the truth.

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The truth about yourself, the truth about God, and the truth about the world around you. This is not a one-and-done thing, and this is where we get tripped up. We think, "Well, if you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit, you're all set. You're good to go."

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This is not the case we now have access to the spirit of truth, inside of us. We can ascertain the truth. We can discern the truth. But this is a process we will engage for every single minute of every single day for the rest of our lives. 

There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, we're complicated beings. God is complex, other people are complex. So this is a journey of going deeper and deeper into what is true.

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"What is true about me, God?"

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"What do I need to know about myself?" That's a whole lifetime and that's, again, what I always say, "Life is never boring when you're living in partnership with God's Spirit. "There's nothing I have to fear. God, help me, throughout the days of my life, help me understand more and more about myself, about how you made me. 

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About how I function in the world, about where I'm wounded and I still need to be healed. About where I have some really cool gifts that I still need to develop. About what's going on in front of me right now." That's a journey that we will be on for the rest of our lives. 

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Same is true about getting to know God and learning what's true about God. It's not a one-and-done thing. It's like, "Man, the more I get to know God, the more I'm like, 'Wow, where's a whole lot more to know. There's an infinite amount of things to know.'" 

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This idea of being a truth seeker, one who aligns one's life to the truth of who I am, of who God is, and, then, you add in the variable of other people. Learning to discern and understand the truth of who these people are in your life, that you love. Think about your spouse, your kids, your friends, your family, people that are hard for you, trying to get out what is the truth. 

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What is going on in this situation? 

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How do I understand this person? And if you've been married for a long time, you will understand what I'm saying here. You can live with somebody a really long time and know them really well, and at a certain point and be like, "Oh, my gosh, I cannot believe I'm just understanding this about you." 

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And that may come to you as they start to heal more and more layers of them open up. Or it may come as you start to get a name for something you didn't realize. It's like a giant puzzle and suddenly a piece of that puzzle comes in and you realize, "Oh, my gosh, this explains so much."

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I see this all the time with people that I work with. Where suddenly folks who have been living together a long time, and operating under the assumption that someone maybe has a little bit of a temper or has an anger problem. And, then, suddenly, it's revealed, "Oh, my gosh, this person has been dealing with an undiagnosed learning disorder. A different learning style."

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Maybe somebody finds out they have a hidden addiction they'd never put their fingers on. Or that somebody has an unnamed trauma, that's never been brought to the surface. And, suddenly, you start to re-filter the story of your life with that person, through that different lens, and you start to see a fuller picture. 

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So this is what I mean by when the spirit of truth comes to live within us. We are able to discern what is true about ourselves, about God, and about the world around us. 

And while that is a process, that is not a once-and-done thing. It's not an all of a sudden "I'm good to go." That is not how it works. It's a process of ever deepening circles of becoming more and more holy, fully inhabiting the truth of who I am, and as we do that we begin to trust ourselves.

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And as we do that, we begin to trust ourselves. And as we do that, suddenly, we're starting to trust that we know how to discern reality. We know how to discern falsehood and deceptions in ourselves. We learn how to discern where we've been covering up something that we don't want to face.

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We learn how to discern where we haven't been living out of that homeostasis. Out of that calm nervous system place. Where we've been living out of a fight/flight response or we've been living out of a coping strategy. Or we've been living out of an addiction and, suddenly, we're able to discern that. We're able to name that, we're able to tell ourselves the truth about what's happening inside our own bodies, inside our own souls. 

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We start to trust ourselves. We start to say, "Man, I get it. I know when something is off and I've got the skills to hunt that down, to figure that out. To find out what it is. What is at the root of what's not right in my soul. Something's not right in my soul. There's something that's going on. I'm acting in ways I don't understand, Lord, help me get to the root of that." 

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We start to trust ourselves. And guess what the more we do that work inside of ourselves, the more we become so discerning when it comes to other people. The more we trust ourselves when cues go off in our body that say "Something isn't right there."

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"I don't think they're seeing this correctly."

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"I don't think their accusation of me is fair."

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"I don't think that their treatment of me is about me, I think, it's about them."

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"I think there's a toxicity in them that they're trying to put onto me, and I don't think it's about me."

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We start to trust ourselves in our discernment. Or, conversely, we start to say, "I notice that that person always shows up for me. Whatever they say to me, there's something in it that brings life to me. There's something in it that always helps me. It's not that they're perfect, but that helps me feel a little clearer, a little more true, a little closer to God. A little bit more grounded in myself. I think that is someone I can trust. We start to trust our instincts, our intuition, the cues our body sends us about other people. 

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As we've done this work of pealing back the layers of wounds, of pride, of deception, of all the things that we have in our own souls, and we learn to trust ourselves to do the work. To, first and foremost, tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. Both in our glory and what is good, and beautiful, and magnificent about us, and in those areas where we are missing the mark.

Where we are deceiving ourselves. Where we are wanting to hide something out of shame that we do not want anyone to know.

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The more we do that work, and we tell ourselves the truth about ourselves, the more we trust ourselves. When we start to discern and notice the truth about other people, these things all go together.

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So the bottom line of all of that is this, we absolutely have to learn to trust ourselves. And it starts with having enough safety in your body through the power of the Holy Spirit. Through a lived sense, at least, a glimmer of a lived sense that you are beloved of God. We have to have that safety first, and if you think about a baby, this all gets back to attachment. 

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A baby first needs to feel that safety, that soothing of being securely attached to a parent, to a caregiver. And in the context of that safety, that baby begins to explore the world around her. And through that exploration, she bumps up against the reality of her own limits, of the limits of other people. But that happens in the context of secure attachment of safety. 

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And, so, as we get glimmers and glimpses of safety through the power of the Holy Spirit. Through a connection to God, the one who loves us. And as we grow in getting glimmers and glimpses of safety. As we connect to a few other people, we are able to embark on this work of becoming safe for ourselves. Which means learning to see ourselves as we really are in our strengths, in our beauty, and in some of our blind spots, and through that process we begin to trust ourselves. 

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Because we trust ourselves that we can see what's true about ourselves. Even if it means seeing that what's true about ourselves in this moment is, "Oh, my gosh, I've got some wounds there, and because of those wounds I don't trust people very much. Or because of those wounds there, my nervous system, sometimes, gets activated and tells me not to trust things that I think might be trustworthy."

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So hear what I'm saying here, this is very nuanced. That as we experience a tiny bit of safety with God, with other people, we start to experience enough safety, in ourselves, that we can trust ourselves to name what is, actually, happening. Even if that first step of trust is to name, "I don't know how to trust myself very well." 

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It's a three-part process, we need all three of these and they go together. You learn to trust yourself through developing, trusting relationships with God and with other people. You learn to trust others, through developing a trusting relationship with yourself and with God. And you learn to trust God through developing a trusting relationship with yourself and with others. It's very trinitarian. We need all three to really come up with a whole picture of what it means to feel safe. 

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These two words are closely linked. We need a critical mass of safety. Enough safety to venture a risk of trust. "There's enough safety here that I'm going to risk a little bit of trust in this other person. 

Which means I'm going to risk trusting myself to course-correct if I detect something untrustworthy." So learning to trust ourselves is a process. It's a process that involves bringing God in and bringing other people in.

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So I want to pause here and ask you a question, as you're listening. Which one of these relationships is harder for you to trust?

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Is it hardest for you to trust yourself? 

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Is it hardest for you to trust others? 

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Or is it hardest for you to trust God? 

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And think about that, for a second, because it's an important cue for where you want to start on your journey to healing. If you are someone who struggles to trust God, and you want to love God, you believe in God. But maybe parts of you are just like, "I don't trust God."

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"I've been disappointed by God."

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"'ve been hurt by God."

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"My life has been really hard."

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"There is a lot of brokenness in my life and God hasn't really come through for me. He hasn't really picked up the pieces, and I don't know if I do trust God, anymore."

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Name that, just name that. Get curious about it. There's no shame in that. You may need to learn to rebuild trust in God through experiencing safety with other people. Through embodied image of God bearers. 

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So, for example, there's a vignette that I tell in chapter 10 of The Best of You. About a woman who was really struggling to trust God, but she experienced safety in a few other people. And I say this line in the book, which is "Glimpses of love and safety in other people give you glimpses of what God is like."

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So if you're somebody who struggles because the way that God was represented to you is really crummy, or you're really mad at God. As you get glimpses of goodness, of beauty, of love, of what it feels like; to be seen, to be known, to be understood in other humans, you are getting a glimpse of what God is like. And that may be hard for you to make that leap, but I just want to name that. As we learn to trust in our relationships with other people, we learn to repair trust in our relationship with God.

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Now if you answer that question saying, "I trust God quite a bit, I trust myself quite a bit, but I do not trust other people." What I would say to you is are you really, finally, attuning to your own body. Because while I will say and agree that, yes, a lot of people will let you down. 

A lot of people will betray you. What's true is that we are able to trust others to the degree at which we are able to trust ourselves. So I think those two types of trust are, intimately, linked. If you've had experiences that have led you to believe that others aren't trustworthy, that makes a lot of sense. It makes sense that you are cautious to trust. But as you are looking at that, part of the solution to that is learning to trust this inner compass that God has given you. 

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Now, don't mishear me, I'm not saying you should just learn to trust other people. What I'm saying is you will learn to discern trustworthiness in others. As you trust yourself to take small, brave, steps to test your relationships with others. 

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There's a difference between saying, "I don't trust other people." 

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And saying, "I take very cautious steps, a very measured approach, to discerning who I will and won't let into my life." I really pay attention to my nervous system. I really pay attention to red flags. I pay attention to yellow flags. 

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In fact, yellow flags, to me, I treat as red flags. But I will tell you that a few people have made it through all of my filters to where I will say that person is trustworthy. And where I've got to grow is maybe that gray area of folks who aren't, necessarily, toxic and aren't, necessarily, harmful, but maybe I need to learn to trust them a little bit. Which means I have to learn to trust myself to set those boundaries.

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It all comes back to, "Do I trust myself to enter into this relationship far enough to the point where if there's something that isn't safe or something that doesn't feel right, even if it's not toxic. That I will do what I need to do to take care of myself. That still goes back to the ability to trust yourself to self-regulate in that situation.

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Now, if you are someone who says, "I tend to trust other people but I don't trust myself." And I would put myself in this category. Early on I trusted God pretty easily, I'm pretty trusting of others. But I didn't know how to trust myself to pull back when I needed to pull back. 

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So I would outsource my trust and just say, "Well, I just have to assume that other people are trustworthy because I don't know how to protect myself. And I'm going to hope to get lucky that other people, for the most part, have my best interests at heart." 

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Either way, whether you trust other people too easily or whether you aren't trusting enough. The truth is the solution goes all the way back to inside your own body, your own soul, in partnership with the Holy Spirit. 

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In the first case, if you are not trusting of others, you've been hurt. You do not think people have your best interests at heart. You are wary of other people, and that has kept you from having close relationships. The solution to that is how do you work with yourself, work with a therapist, partner with God, to take small, brave, steps to test new relationships and that has to start within you. That has to start by establishing trusting norms within you. 

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That has to start with you saying, "I need to open up a little bit more to some girlfriends, to a man, to another human, and that's terrifying to me because I don't trust people. So what I'm going to have to do is work a process of taking small, strategic, brave, steps to putting out a little bit of vulnerability, not the whole thing a little bit of bait."

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I used to use this metaphor, it's like you put a little bit of bread crumbs out and see if that person picks up that breadcrumb. What do you need to see in that other person, that will allow you to stay with them just a little bit. Is it that you need the other person to go first, on their vulnerability? To put their own little breadcrumb out, and then you're like, "Okay, I'll meet you there."

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Then maybe next time you share a breadcrumb. You say, "I'll share a little breadcrumb because I want to meet them."

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And then you test it can they take that?

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Can they meet you there?

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Can they join you? 

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Can they hear you or is it going to be all about them? Or are they going to do something that scares you off? You put a little bit of breadcrumb out and see how they handle that, and then you discern your next step. But all of that means you have to be inhabiting your own body to both take the risk to put yourself out there, in a small strategic way. Maybe you agree to go to coffee; you go to the coffee, you don't commit to anything beyond that, and you commit to yourself that after that coffee you're going to check in with yourself. "How did that feel?"

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"Did that feel like someone who was interested in me?"

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"Do I want to have a second coffee with that person?"

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"Did they only talk about themselves or did they ask me a question?" And then maybe you have that second coffee, and this one you maybe share something a little more vulnerable, not too vulnerable, but a little more vulnerable, and you see how they handle it. And maybe you challenge yourself to say a no to set a boundary, early on. 

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Because you want to see is this someone who, if I show up in my authentic self, they receive me there, they meet me there, and they honor that and they respect me. Or is this someone when I invite them to do something I like to do, and I take a risk, and don't just only do the things they want to do, can they meet me there?

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Can we walk into this, strategically, giving them a shot to see if they can prove themselves trustworthy? That requires you to trust yourself first to say, "I trust myself, that if I see a red or yellow flag, I'm going to course-correct." And if this is new to you, do this with the support of a trained professional who has been taught how to be a trustworthy place. That's really what trained therapists are. 

Those in these expert roles have been trained to, at the very least, be trustworthy people. Where you can anchor yourself in that relationship as you take steps to try to learn how to trust other people.

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Now, if you are someone who is too trusting of other people, you are also disconnected from your own self. Both of those situations require you to reconnect into your own God-given self. So if you're too trusting, you've outsourced your trust. You're just blindly hoping others have your best interests at heart, and you're likely, at times, being taken advantage of. 

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You're likely, at times, feeling walked on, feeling like a doormat. Feeling like, "Wait a minute, actually, they're not having my best interests at heart. Maybe they're a really good person, but like anybody, they're taking more of me than I have to give because I'm not putting the boundaries on it." 

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And, so, you have to, again, do the work of going inside yourself, inside your own body. Paying attention to the cues your body is sending you and saying, "Hey, wait a minute, why is it hard for me in this situation with this person that I trust to insert my own voice." 

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To say "I do trust this person and also they are fallible, they are a human. They will miss something about me. They will misunderstand something about me. They will get busy in their own lives and neglect me, potentially." I can trust myself that when I notice that and that hurts. That I can learn speak up for myself and say, "Hey, what's happening here?"

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I can put a name to that and say, "Hey, even though I trust this person, something is going on in this situation that I don't like, that's hurting me." Or if you trust other people too much with your own decisions. You may wind up taking advice that later you realize, "I don't think that was the best advice. I actually think I should have trusted my own instinct there. 

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That in that situation, here's, actually, what I needed to do." And the first step, in beginning to heal from that is to name it and be really honest with yourself, "You know, in that situation, I know that friend had my best interests at heart. I know they wanted to care but that was not the best advice. That was not the advice I needed to take. I knew I needed to do that differently." I have to name that. 

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I've got to figure out how to do that differently next time. And you have to notice what did that feel like in my body, in that moment, when I had this feeling inside of, "Hmm, I get what you're saying, but I don't think that's the right direction."

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So you have to go down a path of inquiry, of doing that detective work of, at the very front end of that, noticing "What's happening inside my body?"

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"Am I just disassociating or am I aware that inside when they're giving me that advice, I am uncomfortable, or I'm not sure, or I'm just so quick to want to follow it. What is that about? Should I stop, for a minute, and take a few days and really think about whether I should follow that advice?" It starts with scaling back that impulse to only go to other people. To only look at other people's opinions, that external locus of control. Putting all of your discernment outside of you onto other people. 

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What would it feel like to first go internally and say, "What do I think is needed in this situation?" And if that's really hard for you to do, that's a really important area for you to explore. And what if I first say, "What do I want to do in this situation?" And, again, if that's uncomfortable for you, that would be an area for you to explore with a therapist. What happened there? 

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Where is that disconnect? Where you don't feel attuned to your own thoughts, to your own discernment, to your own nervous system, to your own wisdom. That it feels uncomfortable for you to discern and consider your own opinion, your own thinking, about the way you should proceed.

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So all of this goes back to learning to attune to your own inner landscape. Whether you are someone who wants to learn how to trust other people more, or whether you are someone who actually is very curious about the fact that it's hard for you to trust yourself at all. And that you've outsourced your trust too much, in such a way that is starting to impact your relationships, your decision making, and your sense of autonomy in your own life.

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Here are some steps to practice, regardless of which category you find yourself in. Number one is simply the practice of self-awareness. You have to start to notice your own inner landscape. When faced with any decision. When faced with any relationship challenge, "What do I feel in my body as it relates to this person?"

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"What do my emotions suggest about the situation? Are they mostly negative? Are they ambivalent? Am I conflicted? Am I doubting myself?" Just start there. Just start naming that, "I'm really ambivalent, I'm really conflicted. 

I can't figure this out, the reason I want to go to this other person is I just have so many conflicting thoughts and feelings about it." Naming that is a first step towards self-awareness. You're attuning to what's happening inside of your body. 

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Now, a really good friend or a therapist will help you begin to piece apart those conflicting thoughts and feelings, but that's a start. What does my nervous system feel? 

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"Where is there tension in my body, as I consider this situation?" You don't have to solve it, at this point, but become more aware of yourself. Self-awareness is a foundation for building trust in yourself. 

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Number two is to connect to the Holy Spirit within you in that process. We talk about this all through in both Boundaries for Your Soul and The Best of You. That the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, not just in other people around you. And, so, as you begin to become aware of your own confusion. The chaos, maybe, that you feel inside, the self-doubt that you feel inside. 

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Maybe even anxiety that you feel about making a decision about something and you just, desperately, want someone else to tell you what to do, or you are stuck because you can't trust anybody else. You actually wish you could bounce it off somebody. Whatever it is, you begin to go, "Lord, here's what's so interesting, I'm really anxious about this. Can you help me understand that?" And you begin to build trust with the anxious part of you.

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Now, again, I understand sometimes you got to make decisions in life and you may still have to go, "I've got to talk to somebody else about it." And that's fine, but you are, at least, taking a step toward. That my first go-to is I cannot solve this problem, I feel so anxious about it. It just stirs up chaos in my mind. I'm going to name that and then I'm going to invite God into that.

"God, help me understand that part of me."

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Now, when we are in a state of fight/flight, when we are stressed about something, that's often when our nervous system is activated. We sometimes need to get ourselves into a calmer body state. Where we feel calm. Where we feel that sense of homeostasis. Where our nervous system isn't activated and when we're in that place, in our bodies, of calm. 

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And, so, well, how you get there is you begin to notice. "When I'm in nature."

"When I'm jogging."

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"When I'm listening to music."

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"When I have a minute of calm near a beautiful place, in the morning, I notice my body is calmer." That's when you're more in a place of trusting yourself. You're in tune with the best of yourself, with your calm, clear, creative self. Begin to notice what that feels like. What does that feel like? 

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When do you feel that? 

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And when you're in that place, what might that feel like if you were to approach another human, or a problem that you face, from that state of calm. Can you begin to bring that sense of calm that you feel with you into a conversation, with another person or into a situation you have to show up for. 

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So often we know how to find that calm apart from other people. We go into our prayer closet, we calm our nervous system, we get right with God, we feel clear. And then we open the door, walk out of the closet, leave all that calm there, and then go back into the business of just differing, and defaulting, and deflecting to everybody around us. So we get that minute of calm, and then we just walk out and go back to our old coping tactics. 

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What would it be like to take that you, that in the privacy of that spacious place, is where you feel that calm, that Holy Spirit presence, and open the door and walk into that conversation with that other person deeply connected to your own sense of self. 

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Practice that, imagine that. What would that feel like to center yourself in yourself, and then practice going to the breakfast table and saying hi to your kids, saying hi to your spouse, without leaving yourself behind, this is the goal. This is the goal to carry that you with you into your relationships with other people. Not to stop moving into relationship with other people, but also not to leave yourself out of that equation.

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This is what it means to begin to bring a trusting, safe, embodied, relationship with yourself into every interaction you have throughout the rest of your day. It's an amazing way to live, and I believe it's actually the embodied, trusting, dynamic relationship God longs for us to have with ourselves, with others, and with the God who made us.

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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.

Today's conversation is pure fire! We're talking all things anxiety with Curtis Chang, author of a brand new book, The Anxiety Opportunity. This is such a fresh take on anxiety, unlike anything you've heard at church or in the secular culture. We also touch on the problem of how most of us have been taught to view heaven, and how recasting that vision has everything to do with anxiety. If you've struggled with anxiety or if you have kids who struggle with anxiety, please do not miss this episode.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The problem with the "prayer" or "pill" approach to anxiety

2. The anxiety pandemic

3. The most important thing we can do to help our anxious kids

4. Did Jesus experience anxiety?

5. Curtis's experience with crippling anxiety

6. The surprising discovery he made in therapy

7. Why heaven is not what you think it is & how that changes everything

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

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Resources

• ‍The Anxiety Opportunity by Curtis Chang
• ‍Good Faith Podcast with David French and Curtis Chang
• ‍Phillippians 4:6"If you can name it, you can tame it." -Dan Siegel
• ‍Resources for support

‍

Related Episodes:

• ‍Boundaries For Your Soul Series
• Episode 41: Boundaries With Fear And Anxiety—How to Calm the Chaos Within and the Joy of Internal Boundaries

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

• Go to ⁠www.organifi.com/bestofyou⁠ today and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Please visit christianapp.org/mentalhealthtsf to donate today!
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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.

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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 glad you're here. We have a brand new series we are starting today called What Does the Bible Really Say? We're going to hit on just some of those hot topic, hot button, issues in this series. Especially as it relates to the questions that we have about how we're supposed to live our lives here on Earth.

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So psychology focuses so much on the who we are now. Becoming a better version of yourself. Living life to its fullest, healing, painful patterns, presumably so that we can have a better quality life here on Earth. So what does the Bible really say about how we are supposed to approach this life we've been given to live? And I'm super excited because guess what? This is the start of season two of The Best of You podcast. I cannot believe it, but this podcast launched one year ago. We've put out 53 episodes of the podcast. 

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And, so, as we start episode 54 and a brand new season, a brand new year of The Best of You podcast, we are going to dive into what does the Bible really say about how we are to live this "One wild and precious life" that we've been given to live. To quote the wonderful Mary Oliver.

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So today's guest, we're going to hit the ground running with a question I hear all the time because so many of you have been taught this, "Can I pray my anxiety away?" This is a question I get so much, and it really leads to a larger question of these things that are hard. Things like anxiety or depression, just things that we struggle with, are we supposed to be able to pray them away? 

Is that really what the Bible teaches us about how we're supposed to deal with our challenges, with our anxieties? Everybody experiences anxiety, and is that really the best approach to it? To just pray for God to take it away? Well, to help me answer this question, I've asked Curtis Chang to talk about his experience with anxiety. 

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I'm really excited to introduce you to Curtis, and I try to only invite guests, on this podcast, who are people I have some acquaintance with in real life. They're either personal friends of mine or I know them through friends of friends, or I have a deep acquaintance with their work. I want to talk to these folks. These are folks whose work I've benefited from, who I've learned from, who I've gotten to know in my real life. And, so, with that being said, let me introduce you to Curtis Chang. 

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< Music >

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So I'm so excited to introduce you guys, today, to Curtis Chang. Curtis and I have a ton of friends in common. We just met each other, but when we started to talk, we realized we're part of this very small world. Were you on staff with university?

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Curtis: I was. I was on staff in the late '90s at university in Boston.

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Alison: And most of my friends in Boston have, at some point, either been on staff with university or still on staff with university at Harvard or went to Harvard, or whatever. And, so, we pretty much know everybody in common, which was really fun, but we'd never met each other. So Curtis Chang is a theologian and a consulting faculty member of Duke Divinity School. He's a senior fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary. 

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Curtis has written for the New York Times and Christianity Today. He's appeared on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, and NPR. He's pretty much been everywhere. He's the co-host of an amazing podcast I have just come to really value, it's called The Good Faith podcast. He co-hosts it with his friend, from time to time, David French, who's a columnist for The New York Times. 

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Curtis's ministry speaking and writing are fueled by a passion to help Christians recognize the surprising authority and relevance of Jesus for the parts of our life that are often left to the secular world. And Curtis has written a wonderful new book; I've read a lot of books on anxiety, Christian books on anxiety, secular books on anxiety. And I said this to Curtis, I said, "This is one of the first books I've read in a really long time that stunned me."

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Curtis: Listeners don't see the fact that you've got a bookshelf, stacked full of books behind you that prove that this is indeed true.

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Alison: Yes, I don't want to spoil it because we'll get to it toward the end, but you brought in one of my favorite theologians, which is N. T. Wright. But you brought it together with anxiety in a way I'd never thought about it, and I had an immediate epiphany. I was actually on a plane and it was so striking to me. It's a really good book, it's called The Anxiety Opportunity, and I cannot wait to have this conversation with you, Curtis. Thank you for being here on the podcast, today.

Curtis: Oh, it's a pleasure to be talking with you and talking about really substantive matters. In addition to dropping names of people we know. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation as well, thank you.

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Alison: Oh, my gosh, I want to dive in to the deep end with you, personally, because your experience of anxiety really flows out of your personal life. And you start the book off talking about your experience with anxiety as a young boy, and it was just so compelling. I think any parent reading that, their heart is just being so tugged toward this very vivid description of what anxiety was like for you. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

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Curtis: Yes, and it's important to recognize that we've always lived with anxiety. We certainly are living with higher rates of anxiety. I think, objectively, all the studies show that anxiety rates have gone up substantially, especially, for our teen. 

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So if you're a parent, odds are you have a child, a teen, in your family that is suffering from anxiety. And you know many other families with kids who are suffering from anxiety/depression. In my church, I don't know a single family that hasn't been touched by this. So we are living in a pandemic, a mental health pandemic of anxiety, that's for sure. 

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But it's also important to recognize that part of the rise has been just the rise of recognition of existing anxiety that's always been there. So, objectively, it's not we're just relabeling it, there's objective rise in anxiety. 

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But it's also helpful to recognize "Wait, we've always lived with that. We just didn't have, necessarily, the language or the tools to recognize the anxiety that was there, and that was certainly true for me growing up. Immigrant, part of an immigrant family, I immigrated when I was three. And in the Chinese-American culture, mental health is just not something that we have categories or tools to make easy sense of. 

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And, so, it just wasn't a category to be able to say I was anxious. And the story that I open the book up with was realizing that I grew up with a pervasive sense of anxiety stemming from the fact that I was a latchkey kid. 

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So starting at age eight, I was walked home from school and came home to an empty house by myself. I was the first kid to get home, and there was a key under the mat that I would use to let myself in. And now we think about letting an eight-year-old come home to an empty house, we think that's ridiculous, that's bizarre, but that was normal for me, growing up. 

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But it was, actually, looking back, I realized how much this was a deeply anxious experience for me, and both coming home to an empty house, thinking that perhaps the creak in the attic was some burglar that had broken in. And, so, I'd race outside when I'd hear a creaky sound in the house and try to be outside, so I couldn't be in the house alone. And then really afraid of that my parents wouldn't come home and that they wouldn't make it home alive. That was a childhood anxiety I had. 

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And, so, I developed all sorts of coping mechanisms to deal with it. Even though I was not ever able to name that experience as an anxiety. Certainly, and I tell the story in the book, certainly, I wasn't able to name it for my parents, and, I think, even if I did they wouldn't have any way to make sense of it. 

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And, so, that led to a bittersweet experience of my childhood, that I won't share the story of it in detail. But what it's trying to illustrate is, actually, even if you're a parent of an anxious child, listening to this right now. One of the steps that I talk about in my book that's helpful to recognize is to recognize your own anxiety, both, currently but also even in your past. As a way of actually making sense of it and establishing some sense of understanding of your anxious children.

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Alison: Yes, it was interesting reading that section, Curtis. We're, probably, roughly, the same age because all of the era things that you point to, I was like, "Oh, yes, I relate to all of those." The latchkey kid was normal. I talk about trauma, you didn't use this word, and I always want to not throw that word around lightly. But even if we think about these small t traumas as unwitnessed pain. You were alone in that experience without there being a name to it. 

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And, so, it lives in your body a little bit and we develop shame around that. Which you get into in the book, that was my experience, too. It's like, "What is wrong with me that I can't, literally, be in a house by myself after dark when I should be old enough to be in a house? We start to develop a shame narrative, and you talk about this. As this anxiety continues to go unnamed, to maybe even go unwitnessed to yourself, to others, it festers a little bit till you reached a breaking point, as a pastor, and tell us a little bit about that.

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Curtis: Yes, so one of the reasons I wrote this book was to reframe anxiety for Christians. Because the dominant narrative for anxiety for Christians is that it is a problem that we are supposed to make go away, and we can make it go away usually in one of two ways. 

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So in some churches, we're supposed to pray anxiety away and in other churches, to use a label for it, we are supposed to pill anxiety away. So we either use spiritual means to make anxiety go away, or we outsource it to secular mental health for either medication or therapy to make it go away. Which, by the way, I am a fan of medication and therapy, I think, it's a helpful tool. 

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But even in the secular mental health usage of those tools, the dominant narrative and understanding of anxiety, still, it is a problem we make go away, either through prayer or pills, again, using as a stereotype. And, so, for me, as a pastor, this is after I've become a young adult and now a growing and maturing adult, and I become a senior pastor of a fairly large church here in California. 

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And I take over the church from the founding pastor, which is, I discovered, is a very stressful position to be in. And the church ended up struggling, as many churches do, in that transition from the founding pastor to the successor. And, suddenly, I'm having to preach regularly, for the first time, lead a staff team. Deal with the fact that people are now no longer have the person that they've, psychically, imprinted in with as a founding pastor, the .com bust hits. 

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And, so, people are losing their jobs, our giving goes down, we have to do layoffs, and I start sleeping less and less. From seven and half hours to seven, then six, then five, I'm sleeping less and less. Now, in retrospect, that's a dead giveaway for somebody of my profile that I am experiencing building anxiety, that it manifests itself bodily in sleep. But I did not recognize that. I just said it's because I have more work to do. It's because there's a lot of issues I have to handle. 

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And, so, I'm just sleeping less because I have more work to do. And what I didn't recognize was that I could not, at that point, admit to myself or anybody else, that I was suffering from anxiety. Because of that narrative; that it is a problem that we're supposed to make go away, pray away. And in some churches, it's even a sign of lack of faith or even a sin. Many churches will even go so far as, "Oh, it shows you don't really trust God." So they misuse. Philippians 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything." To say that that means anxiety is a sin. 

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And, so, I was living with something of that, even in an unconscious way, that narrative, that anxiety was a problem. It was a sign of lack of faith. And here I am, the senior pastor, how then am I supposed to admit I'm suffering from, increasingly, crippling, anxiety? So I don't. I just try to ignore it. I narrate it in a way that pushes the problem to external factors and I don't acknowledge it, and it not only just doesn't fester, it metastasizes, it grows. 

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And, so, I finally hit a period where that sleep went from 5 hours to four. And then I went through a two-week period where I do not remember consciously falling asleep at all, for two weeks straight. I must have had some little micro sleep because your body just can't survive that. 

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But I don't remember consciously falling asleep and waking up for two weeks, in a row. And I remember during that second week, I was alone in the house, by myself, and I scream out loud. I'm shouting at the top of my lungs, "God, make it stop. I'll do anything, just make it stop." And then I had the second moment of realization which was, "Oh, so this is how Guantanamo Bay works."

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I realized, "Oh, this is why sleep deprivation is considered by the Geneva Convention, as a form of torture." Because it's not just I was tired, my mind was fracturing, it was psychic torture. It's hard to describe to somebody the psychic nature of anxiety-fueled sleep deprivation, of just how painful it is and how you sense you're losing your grip on reality itself. 

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So that happened to me and then, ultimately, that heightened anxiety slipped into depression, which is often what happens when chronic, untreated, anxiety goes for a long period of time. It can slide into deep depression. I went on disability, and I was barely functioning for months, and my wife had to raise our two young daughters by herself. Getting out of bed was like a major accomplishment, during those months for me. I was utterly crippled and disabled, as a person. 

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And, so, all of that, at least, is somewhat attribute to the fact that I felt so deeply ashamed about anxiety, that I could not actually acknowledge it as a problem. When it was still building and the worst of the symptoms could have been headed off. 

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So I share all of that to say that this is the danger of treating anxiety, solely, as a problem to make go away. 

Is that we end up not being able to admit it because it's surrounded by so much shame. But, more importantly, I share all that to say I know how painful anxiety is. When I say the title of my book is The Anxiety Opportunity, and I'm trying to reframe anxiety from solely being a problem, to actually being a profound opportunity for spiritual growth. 

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So I sure all I have to say is I know anxiety is painful. I'm not saying it isn't painful or it isn't a problem. I am saying, though, it isn't just a problem, that it also is a profound opportunity for the deepest kind of spiritual growth we need to encounter, and I experienced that. 

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I'm writing the book because I can say, as somebody who's gone through anxiety, that is precisely that. It is something to go through. It is not something to avoid or make go away, it's something we go through. It's like a doorway that we go through and on the other side God has, actually, our best self for us if we're willing to go through it.

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Alison: The paradox of that door, the metaphor that you're using, and as I'm listening and I was reading, is that we can't get through that door, to go through it if we don't name it and call it what it is. And that's what came through, so clearly, in your story, and it's what as therapists, we, at best, when we're diagnosing it's not to say, "This is a problem to make it go away."

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It's to say, "We need to name this." Because once we name it, and you talk about this in the book, we can differentiate from it. We can get it outside of us a little bit. There's a paradox there of the shame wants to keep us from saying, "Oh, it's..." And you talk about this so well in the book. Either we minimize it, we spiritually bypass it, as you're saying, or we try to externalize "Oh, if I just wasn't so busy."

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Or "If this wasn't the case."

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Instead of just going, "I'm dealing with some anxiety." Which makes us feel anxious to name it and, in fact, it's part of what opens the key to that door that actually allows it to soften. We talk about it in IFS terms as befriending it, which isn't to say that you love the experience of it. But the minute "You can name it," as Dan Siegel says, "You can start to tame it." And you really show us that in the book. It's such a gift that you take us into your journey, Curtis, because it was very real for you, this was not a minor event.

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Curtis: Well, it wasn't just a one-time event like I explained how I grew up with it, although, I didn't have the name for it growing up. Because I had developed so many coping mechanisms that made it a highly-functional anxiety until I hit that breaking point, as a pastor. And I experienced it after my breakdown, and I still experience it today, anxiety has not gone away from my life. 

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But what it has become is this opportunity for spiritual growth. Which is really the core message, and what I'm really inviting people to realize is that in anxiety we are given an insight. Given a picture, given understanding of all of the most fundamental things in our lives that we fear losing. Because that's what anxiety is, anxiety is the fear of loss. 

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And, so, when we're able to actually name and look at our anxiety, we're given a look into, "Oh, this is the true state of my heart, the true state of my soul." And there's nothing like anxiety to reveal that, if we're willing not to externalize it or not to be ashamed about it, but to actually just realize it's an invitation from God. That's the real invitation of the book is for people to follow this journey through anxiety, to realize that this is actually the key, I believe, for some really profound spiritual growth for all of us.

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Alison: Yes, it's beautiful how you talk about that. It's an invitation to look at our attachments, and you do such a nuanced job of it. Because there is one section of the book I really appreciated and got a lot from, where there's a lot of reasons we have anxiety. 

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Sometimes we're anxious because we should be anxious because things are really hard and that doesn't mean we have a predisposition to it, or whatever. And also two things can be true sometimes there is, you talk about idols underneath it. It can surely help us uncover and discover what are these things that we are just so afraid of losing. 

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Curtis, this takes me to you talk about in the book that this was the new thing that just was stunning to me. That in order to face the fear of the loss, the loss that is underneath so much of our anxiety, and it's a piece that I've never been taught before, we have to understand that that loss will be returned to us, and it gets at hope. Tell us a little bit about that. That was so powerful to me.

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Curtis: Yes, if there's one theological contribution that I'm trying to make to Christian understanding of anxiety that doesn't exist right now. It is that the ultimate answer, the ultimate strategy or approach to anxiety from a deeply Christ-centered perspective is the resurrection. Because the resurrection is the answer to anxiety. But it's important to understand how this works because what anxiety is it is the fear of loss. 

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Now, what a common mistake Christians make is that God's answer to loss is that we will avoid loss. So that, somehow, God will protect me from this feared loss. So if I am anxious about my finances, I'm anxious about my kids, how they're doing. I'm anxious about the world, the climate change, or politics or something like that, that the answer to anxiety is that feared loss will never happen. God will be the grand insurance broker in the sky.

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Alison: Are you saying that's what the church teaches us?

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Curtis: Yes, I'm saying that's the common mistake that churches can teach is that if anxiety is lost, then God is going to insure me from any scenario in the future of loss. Which is God, both, never promises that and anybody who's lived for any period of time, with any honesty, would realize that doesn't happen. Christians go through loss just like everybody else goes through loss. And that the Christian, the Christ-centered answer to loss is not that God will protect you and insure you from facing loss. 

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But, actually, if you go through loss with Jesus, and in Jesus, then we participate in the resurrection promise. And what the resurrection is, it's the promise to give back what we have lost, not to avoid loss. In fact, the resurrection is only resurrection if we have died. That's what resurrection means, that it is the restoration of life after death. So death is the loss of all losses. 

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So the resurrection promise, which is the center promise of the gospel, is not you will avoid loss. In fact, it is a promise, essentially, that you will go through loss, you will die. That's what death is, it's the loss of all losses. So we have to, actually, get over our fear and our impulse to avoid loss and be willing to go through it like we walk through a door. 

And that's what it means to walk through anxiety, is to walk through loss, to go through it. And, then, the promise is not we will avoid it.  Not that there's a way around it or a way away from the loss, but a way through that loss. And that way through is experiencing, enduring it, suffering it, suffering the real pain of the loss, but with the promise that on the other side is resurrection. Which resurrection is the return to us, it's the great get back of all that we have lost. 

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And Christians have not quite, one, understood that the true nature of that resurrection is the return of all these earthly, bodily, physical, real, concrete things that we fear losing. It is not we are zapped away in immaterial souls to heaven. It is actually a restoration of real losses that we both fear and will inevitably experience. 

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That's only when we can hold on to that promise that, then, we have the true Christ-centered response to anxiety, which leads us to our best self. Because our best, most glorified self, is given to us through death and resurrection. And, I think, if there's one thing I want to have a message out to your peers and your fellow practitioners, Christian therapists, is to actually really integrate the theology of the resurrection into our therapy. Because, ultimately, that is the deepest, most robust answer we have to anxiety. 

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The various things like mindful breathing, and presence, and naming, those are all good. Those are all helpful, Buddhists do that, secular therapists do that, that's cognitive behavioral therapy. What Christians bring, uniquely, to people suffering from anxiety, if they're willing to entertain it, anyways, is the promise of true restoration that only comes from resurrection.

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Alison: And you talk about all of those methods in the book, too, which are also very helpful. That's what I appreciate about the book. There's a practicality to the different strategies that are, sometimes, just really practical, really concrete, really in the moment. The best of what psychology has taught us is important, and that piece where you brought it back. 

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There's an exercise in the book, I'm not going to give it away, but I did the exercise. Thinking about how we think about heaven and it was revelatory to me. And you take us through a corrective about what it really means to find our lives, again, on the other side of death. And it's not what so many of us have been taught. And then you reverse engineer the fear. So it's like this thing, "I'm so anxious about my health. I'm losing aspects of my health that have meant so much to me." And we're afraid to face that because then we got to grieve it, and then that's just so sad. 

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But what this exercise does is it makes you go, "Oh, my gosh, God wants to give that back to me." And it's not a spiritually bypassing thing. It's not just like, "Oh, it'll be fine in heaven." That's not what you are saying. You are saying it's hard, there is some real loss, and anybody who struggles with anxiety understands that. You can't dupe yourself, gaslight yourself, to be like, "It's really fine, nothing bad.

No. People who struggle with anxiety are sometimes finely tuned to the fact that sometimes really hard things happen. And, so, what I love about what you're doing is there's a way of saying, "Yes, it doesn't mean everything bad that you worry about is going to happen." But, at the end of the day, what if it does? 

You have a God that goes in it with you and is actually going to restore that for you, at some point. And there's a hope that allows you to walk through the anxiety honestly, it's really nuanced. It's really beautiful piece of work, Curtis

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Curtis: Yes, and you not only get the ultimate restoration, but you actually will experience less anxiety. Not zero anxiety but less anxiety. Because when anxiety, which is a natural human emotion, we experience in the presence of potential future loss, it is normal, it is natural. It is not a sin, and I explain that in my book, including the claim that, you'll have to read the book to see how it's all laid out, that Jesus experienced anxiety. The gospels are universally clear Jesus experienced anxiety. 

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So it's not a sin, it's a natural human emotion and experience in the face of loss. Such that when Jesus, the ultimate true human, faced His impending loss in His death, He experienced all of the symptoms, well, not all, but many of the symptoms, classic symptoms, of anxiety and the Scriptures are clear about that. 

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But there's a difference between anxiety and anxiety disorder. So anxiety disorder is when we are actually responding to anxiety in an unhelpful dysfunctional way. And one of the most pervasive, common, thread that you run through anxiety disorders, and studies have shown this, is this avoidance, is that we're actually trying to avoid anxiety. We're afraid of feeling anxious. But we can't actually avoid it because it's a natural human emotion in the face of inevitable loss. 

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And, so, what happens is we get on this hamster wheel where we are trying, desperately, to not feel anxious. To do things to actually avoid feeling anxious rather than just suffer it and go through it, and that actually is what creates anxiety disorders. That's what, actually, multiplies the level of anxiety in our life, it's when we feel like it's something that we must make go away.

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Alison: Yes, I want to bring this around a little bit to where you started. Because so many of my listeners I know are probably thinking about themselves, but also about their kids. One of the things we do, in my family, to try to not do the anxiety avoidance is we try to categorize it. And, so, we would say things to our kids. So, for example, "Is it big, medium, or small?"

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So the point is, of course, there's anxiety, and they could do, "Oh, small."

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"Okay, great." 

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So if it's small, we just got to live with it; we got to do the thing. If it's big and it's starting to veer toward, then, we'll take a different approach. But just that it's the naming and it's the taming a little bit, it's categorizing, and that's what you're getting at when we avoid it or pretend. 

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And, as parents, and you talk about this in the book, as a dad, and I want you to talk about it, it was so great. If we're afraid to honor the reality that, "Of course our kids are anxious." Which means we have to do our own work with our own anxiety, we're going to make it worse for them. So tell us a little bit about that, as a dad.

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Curtis: Oh, well, this is something that I really spent a lot of time thinking and writing about this in the book. Because I just recognize that we are living in a mental health pandemic. Where the latest CDC report shows one in three of teenage girls felt deeply anxious and depressed enough to at least contemplate suicide, I mean, that's a remarkable statistic. And, so, anxiety is everywhere among teens. 

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And, so, how do we, then, equip parents to actually be parents in that moment? And I think what I'm trying to call attention to is if your kids are feeling anxious, that's going to trigger, of course, anxiety in you. And it's going to be a complex triggering because, one, you're just going to be anxious for them. 

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Of course, naturally, as parents, "My kids are suffering." You're going to be anxious. That's one level and, then, there's even a deeper, subtler layer, which is it's quite likely their anxiety is going to also trigger your own childhood experience of anxiety. That's the script, that's the emotional script that's deeply embedded in you. 

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And, so, if you grew up like me; denying it, minimizing it, not wanting to confront it. There's a good chance that me as a parent, now, are going to fall back on that same script. Because I'm sure you talk about this in your therapy, as parents, we're reliving our childhood scripts.

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Alison: We're healing those parts of us as our kids are bringing them to the surface, totally.

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Curtis: Exactly. And, so, being a parent of an anxious child is actually an opportunity for you to do some healing of your own anxiety that's deep within you from your own, perhaps, childhood experiences. So, for me, again, because I grew up as an immigrant, in my culture, both, secular as well as Christian, and as an Asian American of this sort of minimizing it. And the way that gets transmuted to me now is I along with being a theologian, I'm also a consultant. I consult organizations, strategy, and leadership and so forth. 

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And, so, what I end up doing, my temptation as a parent, is I slip into what I call consultant dad, and consultant dad is really trying to solve their problems. What's been the hardest thing, for me, to recognize is recognizing how much so much of my motivation, when I'm being Consultant dad and trying to solve their problems right away, is I'm actually trying to minimize their problem. 

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I mean, there's part of me that is, actually, legitimately, loving them and wanting to solve their problem. But there's this unnamed emotional motivation that's like, "I want them to be okay because them not being okay is making me not okay and, so, I want to minimize it. And, so, it's a very sophisticated, in some ways, method, although, actually, it's not that sophisticated because my kids can see right through it. 

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They can't quite exactly name all of it but they recognize something about consultant dad is not right. They don't like consultant dad, and the reason is because they realize at some, either, named or unnamed level. They recognize that consultant dad is me trying to minimize their problem and it's not giving them space to feel what they're feeling.

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Alison: Well, and consultant dad is trying to make the anxiety go away, without first naming it, honoring it, putting it...

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Curtis: That's right, exactly.

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Alison: I love that self-awareness, it's so beautiful. Because we all see it, we all do it, we see it in our spouses, when you just jump in to save the day. So you talk about it as consultant dad, and then what is it that you move toward?

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Curtis: Yes, I call him I call this other self, to use your IFS paradigm that we have multiple cells that we can call on. So if there's consultant dad there's also grieving dad. And grieving dad isn't jumping in to solve the problem. Grieving dad sounds something like this "Honey, that sounds really hard. I'm so sorry you're feeling that, and that's totally understandable." And that sounds really different than, "Let's solve this problem; you need to do this."

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"Have you thought about this?" It's a different voice, and I'm learning to lean more into and give more space and voice to grieving dad. And what I find is my kids, who are now 22 and 19, that's really the more appropriate dad for them at this age. I mean, there's a time when consultant dad is helpful for when kids need problems to be solved. But at this age, as adults, or near adults, they want somebody who is willing to grieve with them. And it's something that parents can give their kids in ways that no one else can. 

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And I'm discovering this right now, with my own kids, is that because so many of their peers are also anxious that there's not a lot of capacity, among their peers, to actually grieve with each other. To actually hold each other because they're all overwhelmed themselves with their own anxiety. That peer teens have a hard time, actually, making room for each other's anxieties because they're feeling so overcapacity themselves. 

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And, so, one of the great gifts parents can offer their kids is not to be the problem solver, although, there are moments and times when that can be appropriate. But to be the one who is grieving with your kid and making room for it and, ultimately, deeply, accepting their kids. Because the parental acceptance of your child, even as they are anxious, is something that any anxious person, but, especially, anxious teens are deeply craving. "Am I okay? Even in my current feelings, am I okay?"

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"Am I still loved?"

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"Am I still accepted?"

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"Do I still belong?" And that's the voice that the parents can give. No therapist, no doctor, no pill can deliver. It is that deep, fundamental, unconditional, acceptance. And that's why it's so important for anxious parents to do their own work of accepting their own anxious selves. This is why I want them to read the book and do the work for their own anxiety. Because it's almost impossible to accept a quality in someone else that you have not accepted in yourself. 

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If you are rejecting, ashamed about, trying to make go away your own internal anxiety. You will not be able to accept, make space, receive the anxiety in your child. So it's both an opportunity and a necessary means of responding to your child. That your child's anxiety is an opportunity for you to grow in self-acceptance of your own anxiety, and then that self-acceptance will flow back to give back to your child what your child most needs from you.

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Alison: It's so good. It's so right, and as you were talking and you were talking about holding that non anxious presence, that safety. I got a picture, in my mind, that's what God does for us. God doesn't say, Jesus doesn't say, "All right, here's the problem."

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Jesus says, "I am with you. I am with you in it." It's the presence that we create, and there are so few pockets of that for our kids. 

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There was a moment I loved, Curtis, where you had that moment with yourself, and it was just so beautiful, where you found yourself being present with your anxiety, from a different place inside. It reminded me of what Henri Nouwen calls the inner voice of love. And it was just a moment. I think, it was while you were in the therapy office, is that right?

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Curtis: In therapy, yes, it was in the middle of therapy experience, and my therapist was asked, my form of anxiety disorder is rumination. The turning over of a thought or a scenario, over and over in your mind, all in a desperate attempt to find something that will make the anxiety go away. So that's my anxiety disorder of my move at trying to make anxiety go away. 

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And, so, I was talking to my therapist about that and she asked me this question, which was so puzzling to me at the time. She said, "Well, is there a different move you can make?" And I thought she meant, "Is there a different mental move?"

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And I was like, "I'm trapped, I can't."

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And she's like, "No, I'm talking about a different physical move, a different bodily move." Which was just a question I'd never thought of before. And, so, I started to try to just tune in to what my body craved, and what my body wanted and needed in that moment. 

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And I discovered a move, and I talk about this in the book, and it turns out to be just a very basic reaching across my body and giving my shoulder, it's usually my right hand to my left shoulder, a very gentle pat. And, then, as I was just gently patting myself, I heard myself say out loud, "It's all right, kiddo. It's all right." Nobody has ever called me kiddo before. My parents didn't call me that. No one calls me that. And I was like, "Where is that coming from?" 

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And I realized, "Oh, that's the voice of what I needed to hear as an eight-year-old when I was a scared as a latchkey kid alone in the house." And I felt like I was receiving that from Jesus because that voice was somebody who knew me deeply. Who was with me even all the days of my life, including when I was eight years old and knew from a place of acceptance and empathy, having experienced anxiety knew exactly what I needed to hear and feel at that point. And that's the beauty of taking our anxiety and experiencing our anxiety with Jesus.

We experience it with the one who knows us, the one who created us, the one who Himself suffered anxiety. I find that so comforting and reassuring to know that Jesus, Himself, the incarnate one, the truly human one, suffered anxiety. 

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And, so, He does not look down with a wagging finger, with a shaming reproach, with some command for us to just get our act together when we're anxious. He knows, He's been there, He shares it. And, so, the voice we hear from Jesus, in our anxiety, if it is truly the genuine voice of Jesus, will be the voice of empathy and acceptance.

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Alison: I love that.

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< Music >

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Alison: You see the fruit of that, your own work to embrace and accept, and the opportunity that anxiety has given you to grow in the receiving of that love. You see the fruit of that in your ability to hold that, then, for your daughters.

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Curtis: Yes, you hold it for others, hold it for your loved ones, hold it for yourself. It's not like I never experience anxiety anymore. But I hold it very differently, and when you develop these various practices, that I talk about in the book, what I call holding practices. That are different than the avoidance habits, bad habits, we get into, when we can actually hold our anxiety. 

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I can say with my own experience and an experience passed by research, when you can actually hold anxiety, it doesn't make anxiety go away, but it brings it down to such lower levels. Because we're not on a hamster wheel trying to get away from anxiety. We're just going through it and we're just enduring it, just experiencing it, just suffering it, and it becomes big to medium or medium to too little when that happens.

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Alison: Exactly, and it brings you closer to the people that you love in that regard. Curtis, it is such a beautiful book, I'm going to be sending it to lots of folks I know.

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Curtis: Oh, thank you.

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Alison: It's just a really profound, everything I do I'm trying to integrate faith with psychology, and that's what this book is doing. It's the best of what secular therapy and all these strategies have to offer, combined with this really robust Christian theology, biblical theology. Tell folks how they can find you? How they can get a hold of the book?

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Curtis: Well, so you can get a hold of the book at your typical Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, wherever you get your book. So it's called The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry is the Doorway to Your Best Self. So please order, please review, and then also encourage folks to listen into our conversations around a lot of topics, but anxiety is a big theme that we weave through our discussion on our podcast called The Good Faith Podcast. Again, available on any Apple podcast, or Stitcher, or any streaming device. 

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And we really believe that anxiety is one of the unexplored factors in a lot of our cultural, social, even political struggles we have as Christians. And I'm trying to actually show how anxiety and our, potentially, misshapen responses to anxiety are responsible for how messed up we can get on all these other aspects of our lives. So, Good Faith podcast, please check that out, and The Anxiety Opportunity as a book.

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Alison: Well, thank you for just taking your story with anxiety. You also talk about, we didn't get into this, but the other moment in the book where I teared up was where you talked about the idol. And, then, when you finally released all that fear around that particular idol of work to God. How, ironically, you began to have a lot of fruitfulness, and a lot of it was in this area of taking this pain of anxiety and transforming it into these beautiful resources for others.

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Curtis: Yes, I found, when I talk to people, they all end up having their own examples of that story. Of when they do, finally, walk through their anxiety, how God opens up amazing opportunities for them to love, care, serve others in the world, and that's the anxiety opportunity. 

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So thank you for giving me a chance to share that with your listeners. And, listeners, by the way, tune into Good Faith because we're going to have a great guest coming up. You're going to have to tune in every week to find out when this great guest comes, but that's Alison. She's going to be coming on The Good Faith, and I can't wait to have this conversation because, Alison, you and I have some really fun conversations to have about the self and what is the true self.

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Alison: I can't wait. I'm looking forward to it. Tell us, as I ask all my guests, Curtis, what is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Curtis: So, most recently, I've been discovering music, and I feel kind of funny saying this, but I'm not a music listener. But I finally said, "You know what, I really should be listening more to engage a part of myself that is undernourished. It's the non-rational, more emotional side of myself. 

The part that's poetry, not nonfiction. And I realized, "Oh, that's what music is." Music is speaking to the heart, it's speaking to the emotions, and it activates that part. So my daughters finally showed me how to get on Spotify and how to actually open up a whole range of music. And I'm going to put a shout out, the music of Andrew Peterson is bringing me great joy.

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So Andrew Peterson is a Christian musician based in Nashville. He's written, released two albums called "The Resurrection Letters" Volume One and Volume Two. I highly recommend that because, as you know, as we've talked about, resurrection is such, for me, interwoven to the Christian response to anxiety. And to have this musical exploration of the Christian promise of resurrection has been so soul filling for me. So that's been the thing that's been bringing me joy.

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Alison: Well, I love that. I'm going to go check that out. I love that. I love your call to rethink and reimagine how we're talking about resurrection. I just want to put a plug in, if you just read those two chapters, I want to say it is not this sort of we're just going to sit around in the sky and sing boring songs. Because what hope is there in that?

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Curtis: That's right. Yes, how is that a response to anxiety?

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Alison: Exactly, I love it. Well, thank you again, Curtis. Check out The Anxiety Opportunity. Check out The Good Faith Podcast, and we're just so grateful for you.

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Curtis: Alison, it's been a pleasure, thank you for having me.

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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.

We are talking all about finding our strengths today with my friend, Laura Cootsona, an accomplished coach, consultant, and non-profit executive. She walks us through StrengthsFinder, a tool that helps you identify and lean into your strengths and uncover the strengths of others. Research shows that leaning into your strengths at work and in life is absolutely life-changing.

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Here's what we cover:

1. How to identify strengths to unleash your potential

2. The link between strengths and enjoying your work

3. Understanding the downside of your strong points

4. How to team up with other strengths

5. How to build a strength-based family

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

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Resources

• ‍My Favorite Psychology Tools Youtube Playlist
• ‍Strengthsfinder test by The Gallup Organization
• ‍More about The Jesus Center
• ‍Good Well Consulting
• ‍What Color Is Your Parachute by Richard N. Bolles
• ‍Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton
• ‍1 Corinthians 12:12-31 ‍
• Resources for support

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‍Related Episodes:

• Episode 49: Personality, the Big Five Traits, and Why Are We So Obsessed With Personality Types?
• Episode 50: 9 Types of Intelligence, the Trap of Comparison, and How to Connect More Authentically with God
• Episode 51: The 12 Common Thinking Traps, Mind Reading, Mental Filters, and How To Stop Taking Things Personally
• Episode 52: The Enneagram—9 Ways to Uncover the Best (and Worst) of Who You Are, Get Honest With Yourself, & Improve Your Relationships

‍

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

Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You podcast. I am so glad you're here. This is the last episode in our series called My Favorite Psychology Tools. I'm sad to see this one go. I have loved every single one of these, and maybe we'll revisit a part two of this in the future, and I'll see if you guys have some ideas about what you want me to talk about. 

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But today we're going to end with StrengthsFinder. This is one of my favorite psychology tools, that has helped me so much in my life. And to talk about it, I've invited my dear friend Laura Cootsona onto the podcast. Laura and I met several years ago when we were co-leading retreats with my co-author Kimberly Miller, called Leading Wholeheartedly. We led these retreats together and Laura was both the coordinator of the retreat, as well, as she led us through Strength Finders exercises at every retreat and I learned so much from her. 

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She has worked with nonprofit organizations for 37 years. She built a consulting practice that focuses on fundraising, marketing, CEO coaching, strategic planning, and board development. She recently served as the executive director of the Jesus Center, which is a social service nonprofit in Chico, California. That was focused on reducing the impact of homelessness. 

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She's also been deeply involved in Campfire Collaborative, which has been a huge part of the long-term recovery process from the terrible fires in Paradise, California. And more, recently, she has formed a collaborative consulting firm called Good Well Consulting, where she focuses on personal, team, organizational, and community health, and capacity building. She lives in Chico, California, with her husband and has two grown daughters. 

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Welcome to The Best of You, podcast, Laura. I am so glad to have you here today. We've known each other for a long time, and it's really fun to get to bring your expertise to this podcast. So thanks for being here.

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Laura: Yes, thank you, Alison, for inviting me. This is such a fun privilege.

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Alison: So, Laura, I learned about StrengthsFinder from you. We used to run these retreats together, these Leading Wholeheartedly retreats. And one of the things that you would bring to the table was you led us all through StrengthsFinder, and I found it to be so powerful. And I've gone on to use it in my own life. I've used it in my marriage. I'll tell a little bit about how we approach it, which has been really fun. But just tell us a little bit about how you discovered StrengthsFinder, what it meant to you, and how you've used it in your work?

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Laura: So I was, actually, having to go back a little bit, in the history books, to make sure I had the chronology correct. But I want to go back a little further, which I used to say I was one of those nerds that would read the self-help books and do all the exercises. And, so, I really think my pre-work towards StrengthsFinder was in a book that was published over and over, and I think it's still being published called What Color Is Your Parachute?

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Alison: Yes.

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Laura: And I still remember, circa 1986-ish, seven-ish, going through every exercise. And it was a little bit more of a blunt instrument, but it, basically, divided people into three categories. People who wanted to work with people. People who were really connected to place, and people who were connected to information. 

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So I had this big insight at 22, 23, that I liked to work with people. So I think that was, honestly, I'm belittling it, but it was really a big insight, at that point. And, so, fast-forward 15 years, I was in New York City. 

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My husband and I, were living in Manhattan, and as it related to his work, we met a woman who was working for the Gallup Organization. And I still remember her handing us this book called Now Discover Your Strengths. Which was, essentially, the first run at introducing the strengths philosophy into the mass market. That Gallup had done millions of interviews around worker satisfaction, and discovered the low ratings of worker satisfaction. And they started to dig, and built this all to figure out what was going to be the key to shifting worker satisfaction. 

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And, so, in the early 2000s, they put together what's called StrengthsFinder. And then in 2007 they published The StrengthsFinder 2.0, which is the assessment that is being used now. But throughout they kept refining it, 

and what's super great about it now is it's much more personalized. Because we could have the same strengths, but it'll show up really differently based on combination, personality, context, a bunch of other things. So now when you get a report, it's much more personalized, which makes it really fun.

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But I discovered it really after that New York season. In the early 2000, and it just really resonated because of its particular nature and its positivity.

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Alison: So tell us a little bit about what it is. It's a strength-based approach?

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Laura: Yes, and that's really critical, it's all based on positive psychology. So the idea that you would try to figure out where you're weak and build up those areas is the opposite of what the StrengthsFinder is. So the words are perfectly apt; Finding your strengths. Identifying, articulating, connecting with how you show up in the world and, essentially, it's a little formula. 

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They call the first element of the formula talent, but you could call it gifting, or natural abilities, God-given characteristics, however you want to talk about. What just is in you, it's like the raw material. And, then, the second part of the equation is experiences, skill development, training, education, all the pieces that can add value and depth, and excellence, within your naturally born talents, and that equals a strength.

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Alison: Oh, interesting. So it's a combination of nature and nurture, in a way.

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Laura: Yes, exactly.

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Alison: So strength is something you probably have a little bit of naturally, and it also probably was nurtured in you?

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Laura: Exactly. And what's fun about it is you can go back. I mean, I've done autobiographical exercises where you go back and you search for the early signs of that strength showing up. And, for me, they show up in childhood. 

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Alison: Yes. 

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Laura: Some of them are, incredibly, absent in my childhood and because of some small t traumas, but changes were in the way I navigated the world, they appeared later. But some of them are really they're there.

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Alison: Is it possible that somebody could have an innate strength, that didn't get reinforced or maybe was even seen as a deficit early on. And then later they could begin to nurture that and develop a strength that they thought they didn't have? How does that work?

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Laura: I think you can. I mean, again, in some ways, it's like the clay, there is a certain set of raw material. And what's fun about this assessment is there's enough complexity to it that you can do a lot with it. So, again, part of how it works is you take this online assessment, and there are 34 possible strengths. The basic assessment puts out five of those strengths that are your top five. But the assessment, if you want to spring for the full 34, will rank the entire set for you, and it's equally as fascinating. 

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Alison: I do, too.

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Laura: But the top five, and really your top ten, really, are your key elements from which you can draw all abilities to interact with your work, your contacts, your relationships. So it just gives you, for me, again, going back to that early assessment, I'm good with people. But in what way am I good with people, and what is my role? And the strengths give me more particularity to where I fit in the people world, if you will, there's a lot of people professions.

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Alison: Yes, and, so, as I understood it, as I learned it from you, of the 34 strengths they exist within, essentially, four different categories. I don't think we're going to go through all the strengths, although, let's, definitely, touch on them. But what are the four categories?

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Laura: Yes, so they call them domains, and the strengths fall neatly into these four domains. And, so, the first is executing, which is pretty obvious, it's getting stuff done. It's all those strengths that get you to move balls forward.

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Alison: What are some examples of those executing strengths?

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Laura: Yes, so the executing strengths, one of the ones I love that's in executing is called arranger. It happens to be one of my strengths. But it's the ability to, essentially, move things around. I'll read some of the key characteristics because it's better their words than mine. "You are a conductor." And I love that image of being a conductor. "When faced with a complex situation involving many factors. You enjoy managing all of the variables, aligning and realigning them until you are sure they are arranged in a productive configuration."

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Alison: Interesting.

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Laura: I consider it like running audibles, sometimes as an arranger. So you have your plan, but you also are the one that can make in-the-minute decisions like, "Oh, that's not working, let's shift this way just slightly. Why don't you go over there and you go over here, or let's do this first, and then we'll come to that." That's the arranger, classic example of an executing character.

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Alison: Which would make sense because as I got to know you, you were the retreats' coordinator. So you were holding all of the pieces, and you were that person that if something had to change, you could rearrange everything to make it work with the change.

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Laura: Yes, you pull the team back together, like, "Okay, I'm reading the room. The room is saying, I'm exhausted, we're going to take a break." I mean, something that simple to, "Okay, that exercise has gone too long. Let's move to this other one, and skip that one we had planned." That's an arranger role.

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Alison: So that's executor. What are some of the other common, maybe, strengths that people might be familiar with if they're in that more executor category?

Laura: One of my favorites is responsibility, and this one's so fun because the people who show up in this are the people, I mean, think about the person who has responsibility is the person you rely upon. Because the language is so good that they've put together, "Your responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership." So that's deep stuff.

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For anything you commit to, and whether large or small and you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion, your good name depends on it. And if for some reason you cannot deliver you, automatically, start to look for ways to make it up to the other person and so on and so on. 

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We all know people with that characteristic and know that that is real.

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Alison: And they're going to get the job done. Again in that executive space, they're going to execute because of that high value on responsibility, interesting.

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Laura: So if you have someone with responsibility, looking at it in the context of teams, those are the people who are going to just be tenacious about making sure it gets completed. And, sometimes, honestly, and this goes back to your whole theme is sometimes at great expense to themselves.

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Alison: Exactly, those strengths, we'll get there, but those strengths can definitely also become our Achilles' heel if we don't know. I have a high responsible in my family and I just have to shepherd her through, "It is okay, we can let this ball drop." And it is excruciating for her to do that.

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Laura: It's like a moral failure.

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Alison: It's a moral failure, yes, I can already see the ties here. We did the Enneagram last week.So the ties to the Enneagram One.

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Laura: Totally, yes.

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< Music >

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Alison: What's this next category?

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Laura: The next one is relationship building. And relationship building, again, I ran a social service agency. You'll find most staffing in a social service arena, I'm sure in the counseling arena are high on relationship building. Your strengths end up a lot in relationship building. 

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Again, like a classic profile given a lot of your roles, and you have a couple that I think you could speak to. One you have is empathy, another is positivity. Some of the strengths, I'll just be honest, I think, some of the words are harder to just intuitively understand. Empathy and positivity are what you think they are.

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Alison: Yes, that was a big one for me, empathy was my number one as I tested out. Well, I was a little surprised that it was number one, and it was actually helpful to me. Because like that high responsible, and I talk about this a lot, empathy has been with me, as you said, Laura, I can go back to childhood and I remember the kids in my class that were hurting from first grade. I knew who they were, I remember their names. It still breaks my heart that I didn't know what to do. 

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It was with me early on. It was also affirmed in me, of course, then I would go on to be a therapist. And as I talk about it, it can also become a little bit of a trap. Gosh, I feel the empathy, and also I have only so much bandwidth. And, so, these strengths, they're very real, and we have to learn to steward them and, then, the positivity is another one of mine. 

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And, so, that's interesting. The empathy, you bleed for other people, and then positivity, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, it's like you can see the positive in anything. 

You can look for the positive. And, so, you're believing in people constantly. You're believing in the best of what can happen. Which is great in my field but, also, you have to learn how to temper that a little bit because sometimes the best-case scenario doesn't always happen.

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Laura: Reality interrupts that. It is, you also have maximizer, which is in this category, and that is also a unique strength, as you do particularly personal. I don't think you have individualization, but individualization and maximizer are really ones that you see that people are becoming their best version of themselves. 

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So, again, I think, positivity can lead to that. But, obviously, our trauma-informed approach to things is also staying with them in the grief, and the pain, long enough to give valid affirmation and empathy to it. So, again, they are inherent in you. But that doesn't mean we don't have control over how they're implemented or engaged in our day-to-day. And as we get more fluent in the particularities of our strengths, we have more control over how we bring them into the world. And, sometimes, for different reasons, we need to temper some of them.

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Alison: Yes, I love that. I love just to pause here, for a second, the strengths approach, what it does is it help you, and you touched on this at the beginning. When I looked at those five strengths, I'm like, "Yes, this is really a picture of who I am at my best. "I certainly have to learn to temper it. And it doesn't mean I discount those bottom five, because I have looked a lot at my bottom five, and that's actually been very helpful to me. 

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Because it's not that I'm not responsible for those. But I think, correct me if I'm wrong, the strength-based approach suggests that leaning into your strengths and learning how to really steward the strengths is more productive than trying to become those bottom five things that are the hardest things for you to ever become. 

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It doesn't mean you don't have some responsibility for them. But if you're trying to fit yourself into a role that requires those strengths that are literally at the bottom of your list. Sometimes, I talk about you want to work with the grain of who you are. You don't want to be working against yourself. And if you're in a position, or a role, or a job, or a relationship where you are required to constantly show up at those bottom five of your strengths. You're working against the grain of yourself, and it's really hard.

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Laura: Absolutely, again, if you go back to one of the motivators for developing this was around job satisfaction. And if you start to move from the individual analysis to how you operate, particularly, in your work or with your team. The evidence is just in the realm of miraculous about what it feels like and the satisfaction level that happens, when your role in your work is aligned with your strengths, this whole thing just breaks open. 

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We've heard the work on flow, we've heard the work on geniuses. When we are aligned with the things that give us energy, it just keeps giving you energy. I agree that we need to know, I would call them maybe our blind spots, the things we just don't naturally pay attention to rather than calling them weaknesses. 

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One of mine is context, and as far as I understand context, often it shows up in people who really hold to the past and the historical connections. I don't have a very good memory and I'm just on to the next thing. And in the Enneagram I'm that type, I'm just going forward and, obviously, sometimes, it gets me into serious trouble. So, again, a blind spot is-

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And, then, when I'm working with groups, and just to fast-forward, one of the contexts that I work in is in disaster recovery. And in disaster recovery, most people are actually very connected to place and past. And when you lose everything, you can be all positive about the future, but they have not released whatever it is that binds them to the past. 

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And, so, I have to be ultra-sensitive to giving room for that. Even though, "My family home is gone, I don't care. It was bulldozed 30 years ago, I don't care." But I'm weird that way. That's an anomalous characteristic for most humans, they're very connected to place.

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Alison: Yes, I love how you're talking about it as a blind spot. Because now that you're aware of the blind spot. You're aware, "Oh, that makes sense. It's not in my primary line of focus, but I can be aware. I can be more sensitive to it, knowing that it's there, knowing that it's not going to be in my primary line of focus."

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Laura: Right, which leads me to the next domain, which is strategic thinking. And, although, I have a lot of strategic strengths, again, back to the Enneagram, I'm a gut type. So I'm always going to push into moving things forward. And strategic thinking says, "Stop for a minute, imagine that you might actually be answering or solving the wrong problem. Let's collect more information, ask more questions." 

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I always think about, my husband and I call it going to the ground floor. He loves going to the ground floor, which means dismantle everything and start again. And I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, we're doing this, again."

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But, man, if you're just a fraction off the right angle, as you're going to solve a problem, by the time you get there, you're so missed the mark. So we need to push into folks with strategic thinking. Or if we have strengths in strategic thinking, we need to bring them forward before we start executing.

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Alison: Yes, so true, wait, so you're more of an executor and your husband is more strategic?

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Laura: Yes, he's totally strategic, and, actually, mine is influencing. So not only am I executing, but in the fourth domain, I'm rallying the troops to move forward. I'm getting everyone excited. I'm the cheerleader and I've got the megaphone, and I'm like, "Okay, everybody, let's move to the right side of the room."

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Alison: I'm laughing because I hear you on that strategic one.

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Laura: Yes, well, it's so funny because when I started doing StrengthsFinder in the retreats that we did with Christians in the Visual Arts, and then I'm Leading Wholeheartedly. 

So the Christians in the Visual Arts, the retreats were called Doing Good Well. And we brought together young female artists of faith, and with the premise that a lot of their voices were getting lost in the mix.

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Whether it was in the church or in the secular context. That we wanted to give them a space to, again, give them some vocabulary and some claim over their unique contributions. That was the StrengthsFinder piece. We worked with Internal Family Systems to help them understand their internal psychological piece. And then we built some real practical skills on how they can, then, show up in their context. And, so, we would start with StrengthsFinder, and artists just are, notoriously, in the strategic thinking domain, I mean, just predominantly.

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Alison: Interesting.

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Laura: So the first thing they do when they get their results is they question two things. They question the entire assessment; they question their results. And, so, I figured this out after doing it a couple of times and I'm like, "All right, you people, I understand that, so question away. Just bring me all your, 'No, I don't like this, and this isn't working, and I don't think this is'" 

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And the way I would understand it is talking to my husband, who I adore, but he immediately goes into finding, he's an academic, strategic thinker. That's what you do, it's his craft. And it taught me to appreciate that, whereas before it felt very, I want to be honest, a bit annoying. 

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Like, "Why do you have to poke all these holes in it? Let's just go. Why are you getting in my way?" But now I see, oh, again, blind spot, I don't do that long enough, and I don't do it carefully enough. And, so, I'm learning to say, "Bring that and I'll hold myself down and don't do something, yet."

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Well, I want to get through these four categories. But this is just such a fun conversation, we're getting to the strength-based approach and everything in this series, and I love that we're having on this. It's not just about this individual, "This is who I am. This is the way it's going to be. These are my strengths; it's my way or the highway." They actually help us live better in community, and that's what you're saying. It's like if we're only looking at our own gifts and "Everybody should be just like me, and if you're not just like me, you're annoying, or that's bad."

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It's, no, actually, we start to appreciate what happens when we come together and we look at things from that larger perspective. We get to play our role. But my role is going to shine even more brightly when it's brought into partnership with someone that's going to help me pause, see the big picture. Make sure we're building on the right foundation, and then let all that empathy, and that maximizing, and that positivity shine.

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Laura: Yes, so the fourth domain, just to finish that structure, is influencing. And you have a couple of your top strengths in there, and I have three of my top that is really my domain. And, again, back to my lovely artist friends, to use an old phrase, they think outside the box. Which is exactly what we want our artists to do, and they create, amazingly, beautiful things. 

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So they often will be able to execute at that level. But where they really have blind spots is around what we might just call marketing. Or telling their story to another outside world, and getting people, essentially, to follow them. 

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And they need influencers to be their town criers, to be their bringers of others along. I always say to people, "If you want something that you'd love to get out into the world, tell me. If I like it, I will tell everyone I know." And I don't do that because it's my job. I do it, I now call it hobby. I love sharing cool things or connecting cool people to cool people, who are doing cool projects. 

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Which I think one of the fun strengths under influencing is what they call WOO, which is a tricky strength. You and I both have it, and it stands for this is unusual in the strengths vocabulary, but it stands for Winning Others Over. So the best scenario to describe WOO is you go into a party, in fact, I just did this. I flew to L.A., on Sunday, for a party of a really dear friend of mine, and I knew no one. 

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I knew one person at the gathering. And someone with WOO walks into a situation like that, and I just started with the husband of the one person I knew. Then I talked to the one other person I knew. And by the end, we're all sitting around a big table as if we were all friends, since high school like they all were, and making connections between one person and another. So in its best version WOO connects people. It makes people feel comfortable.

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I mean, nothing makes me happier, at my own parties, then you come in the door and I'm like, "Oh, Alison, I really want you to meet Joe." And then you guys get in a conversation and then I go on to the next thing, that just makes me excited. Obviously, the downside of WOO is it's a little flitty and it can be seen as a bit like you work the room and that starts to put humans in categories that aren't superhuman, more transactional. So I don't like that part of WOO, but, again, I think that's a good example of what influencing looks like in the strengths.

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Alison: So we have this idea of influencer, today. We think about social media influencers, people influencing, there is a sense in which it's influencing others. But in this context, what I like about what you're saying about it. What I relate more to with it is there's an ability to win people over in the sense of earn trust. There's ability to inspire. What are some of the other qualities under influencer? It seems like there's an ability to inspire, to encourage, to bring in, to gather, to connect, to earn trust.

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Laura: Yes, I mean, I have three of influence. So I have activator, communication, and WOO. And the more I sit with those, I see how they all work together. So communication is my top strength, which doesn't mean I'm a great preacher. It's not about production, it's about an incessant attempt to communicate, to make ideas clear. And to, in this sense, for the purpose of change behaviors, change thoughts, moving people together, moving people in a direction. 

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I love teaching, I love training. I'm obsessed with that because I believe that people can, actually, move and change. So an activator, again, is somewhat like arranger, but it's really more of a catalytic role, is another way of looking at that. But with activator and, then, I have arranger.

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Alison: Meaning you can make things happen. You can make things happen, then you can rearrange them and you communicate. So you're in what's your zone? What's your zone of work where you're, interpersonally, just thriving?

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Laura: Yes, again, last night, I was with 30 people, training them on fundraising and identifying who their best prospects were. So I'm using communication. I'm giving them tools, and I'm giving them a tool. Someone will ask a question like, "Should you ask for a specific dollar amount, or range, or just open ended?"

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And I say "Yes." And that's how the arranger goes because you're in a certain context, it's relational. You have a particular sense, you know your project, and here's the advantages of each way. So I'm able to say, "Yes, these are your choices."

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And, so, that's that fluidity. It's not like, "Okay, this is how you do fundraising." No, it's relationally bound, so your relationship dictates your path not transactional in that sense. So that draws on my perspective, which is adaptable, responsive. Although, I don't show up in my top five a lot, in relationship building. I'm very keenly aware of how we don't use people, we empower people, we give them agency, we're equal footing. There's dignity. Those principles of life run through how, most of the good days, I show up.

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Alison: Yes, I love that. I love how you get a picture of and for everybody listening, you can go take this test? You can purchase it online?

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Laura: Yes, you can just go on the Gallup website.

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Alison: And you get those strengths, I have everybody do it. Our daughter, right before college, she and her friend, I had them taking it just to get a sense of-

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Laura: Yes, gave it as graduation gift-

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Alison: That's cool because you do. For me, when I started doing this podcast, I was really surprised at it brought together my strengths because I have a maximizing strengths. I have that WOO strength, which for me is I love a lot of different ideas, a lot of different topics, and this podcast allows me to go broad. I can go deep and I can go broad. It allowed some components of who I am, some strengths that I have that I couldn't bring out in other places, and it was really neat. Just like you said, it's like you're going with the grain of who you are. 

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The maximizing of ideas, gosh, I can get these ideas out into the world in a much more efficient, more maximized, way than only seeing one person at a time. I still love to do that, too, but it's a process of learning. We don't all, immediately, magically, fall into the right line of work. I think about, Laura, and I'm curious about this, with how this all applies into our families, into our relationships, into our parenting, into our marriages. 

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Because that's another area where my husband and I, one of the exercises we did was we looked at each other's top five and then we looked at each other's bottom five. And that helps with some of even division of household labor.

If we are looking at me to be the structured, organizational, in our household, we are all just going to be frustrated, and it doesn't mean I don't try. But I'm not one of those people that the forks are always in the exact correct fork drawer. That was the household I grew up in. And, so, we got to work with that. We got to work with that, and here are the strengths. 

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And, so, we have a lot of conversations about this in our family and it's all play to our strengths. We all have to be sensitive to each other. How about you? How has this also shown up as a mom, in your family, and in your friendships? How has this helped you?

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Laura: Yes, absolutely, I think, clarity of who we are and how we show up in a space. Which I've discovered, as I get older, is harder for me to understand how I show up than I think. I show up with a lot of power and influence based on my strengths. But I have my internal persona is gentle and kind, but sometimes I'm not perceived that way. 

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So now that my daughters are full, functioning adults. I really find that I'm asking them more, and my husband, too, how I'm showing up and, particularly, when I have an impact on them that I can see as negative. I'm like, "What exactly just happened there?" Sometimes I'm really aware of how... I always joke I'm like a lion, I jump in. I'm also a Leo, if that has anything significance for your people. But I jump in, and then, oops, the claws came out, they're really pads. And in my perception they're pads that the nails come out sometimes. But for some, it's like, "Wow, she just shows up."

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Alison: Are you an Enneagram Eight?

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Laura: Yes, totally, an Eight. And some days I just wish, so badly, that I wasn't an Eight. Again, because I actually do care about humans, so I don't want to just stomp on anybody. But I'm just incredibly passionate, particularly, when it comes to justice issues and when something's right or wrong, I just can't help myself. 

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Yes, so it's helped me just try to get more clarity around myself. And then, definitely, in terms of understanding how my immediate family shows up as a unit. I mean, we're using lots of tools as we try to navigate this new, completely, adult version of our family. Things that maybe we suffered through, we're done suffering through, and we're saying those things out loud. 

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So one of my daughters has just incredible empathy. I mean, she shows up super high empathy, but in that like, maybe you can relate to this, so sensitive. And not in the sense of she reacts to all that, but she internalizes it all, and it's just not fair. So we dump on her in the sense of all that emotion that we all have in our big selves. It just hides out in her cellular level and, at 25, she's figuring out that. You were telling about that in terms of the body keeps the score. We got to be really careful that we don't store those things. 

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And, so, she's learning all sorts of new techniques to work with that and, then, just affirming that. Affirming that she brings that and that's a gift, but at her own personal cost, it's not okay. And both my daughter and my husband are very much on the strategic thinking. My daughter, who is the sensitive one, is more like I am in terms of how she shows up in the world. The other two are very cerebral and very strategic in their thinking. 

So it's very common, in conversation, for them to say, "No, I don't agree with that." 

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Or "It's this or that." And I have strong opinions too, and I'm like, "Whoa, wow." So we're navigating that, and in some ways, in a completely new way and we're all learning. But one of the fun things that we declared a couple of years ago was we're all after the same outcome, which is to build close, authentic, relationship. 

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And, so, we're going to navigate some of these things, that hurt or we've pained each other, in a way that's always pro relationship. And that's really helped, and I think having that outcome-centered approach really lends itself to working with strengths. Because you can move from a point of personal sense of who you are into vulnerability when you know that the outcome is that you're going to stay together.

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Alison: I love that. That's beautiful, and it provides a language, this strength-based approach. When you know, you have a sense of your different kids' strengths, your spouse's strengths, your strengths. And, so, when things go awry and it happens, I can imagine. You're in a heated conversation and it's tempting to go to "You're always judging me."

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Or "You're always disagreeing with me." Or some of those irritants that surface in the best of relationships. And we can back up and go, "Oh, this is you being strategic."

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"Oh, this is you being an influencer."

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"Oh, this is you being high empathy." It helps to just destigmatize everything. It gives a name for things and we can start to name again. It doesn't mean we don't still have to work it out, and we still don't have to learn how to navigate each other. 

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But it is, I think, it's Adam Grant who talks about giving people, what does he say? He talks about giving people a roadmap to how to treat you. The strength-based approach really does help with that. It's like, "Here's a little glimpse, here's a little picture of who I am. This is how I'm going to be. This is the strengths I'm going to bring to the table."

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Again, if I'm really high on strategy and analysis, I'm going to analyze every single thing. And that's going to be great sometimes and sometimes that's going to be hard. It gives us all this destigmatizing language. 

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< Music >

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Laura: I think this really plays out in the workplace. Whether it's in those of you who work in a particular office setting, like a cohort that just stays together, or those of us who are in lots of different contexts, or doing community organizing. I think we can understand what each of us brings and a little bit of our default settings. 

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Again, I don't think that gives a carte blanche to always show up like that, but it gives us some, again, shared language. That's why I always do it with boards of directors, teams of organizations. I've used StrengthsFinder in a cohort model of leaders who are being trained in a nonprofit setting. 

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Again, it helps us make affirmation more particular. It helps us invite other strengths to join our strengths, because it turns out, actually, we're not autonomous beings. We co-depend all the time, we're interconnected. 

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So if I need the strategics in my world to show up. I'm like, "Hey, we're having a strategic whiteboard session, can you all join me? Because I need you to poke holes in what I'm thinking." We share those strengths like they're assets. Like, "Alison, I need your empathy to show up. I'm, obviously, missing this situation, tell me what I'm not feeling, seeing, or sensing."

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Alison: You're so true all the time at work, we need all the different strengths. And when we have a category and we have a way of naming them, we invite people to shine, and what a gift. And, I think, that as a team leader or I was an executive director of a nonprofit, to know everyone's strengths. 

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And to be able to say, in a moment, in a staff meeting, to say, "Okay, we've definitely been camping out in this realm. I'm interested in what those of you with the other set of strengths might be that we're missing. I need us to stop talking, and I want you all to show up." And as the leader, I also have to lever down. I often look at it as a mixing board, and especially, as I get older. I got to pull my brilliances, as I call it, down in the mix so that others can bring theirs up. And I'm almost 60, and part of that is making sure that in a group setting. 

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If there are, particularly, young professionals coming up, that we give them all the room in the world to answer the question, just like those of us who have been doing this for 40 years. And that's a discipline for someone, 

like me, who has something to say about everything, is to stop talking. Communication being my number one go-to, I just will always default to talking some more or activating some more. Sometimes we don't need to activate anything, we can just sit.

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Alison: Yes, there's so much humility in what you're saying. Again, I think, about that h-factor quality, the honesty and humility. And, again, the honesty of I'm imagining now in a work situation where you have all strategists, and know people who are executing. And you bring the executors in the room and they're like, "We can't execute this." Well, then, we got a problem. 

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And, so, the humility to know whatever your strength is. Same with me, with the empathy, it is such an important gift. And there are times when I need to hear other voices say, "Yes, what that person has been through is really hard."

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And, also, "There is a couple of other lenses through which we need to look here." Which is the value of consultation, when you're in my field. It's bringing other people, and I've learned how to invite people in next to me who have different strengths than I do. Because I need that, I need all of the different voices. 

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Tell me a little bit, Laura, you're also really knowledgeable about spiritual formation. Tell me a little bit about how this model, how knowing our strengths, correlates with our spiritual formation, and our relationship with God?

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Laura: Yes, obviously, the whole model is, I think, so closely associated with the idea of the gifting of the spirit. And you did that lovely reading from, The Message, the other day, on your podcast and just that sense of how silly it is that there would just be an eye by itself. I love how Eugene Peterson does his version of that, and it's just a perfect corollary to the strength, none of these exist unto themselves. And, I think, that is one aspect of understanding how God has gifted us; accepting that, celebrating that, owning that. 

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Again, I think, this false humility, I have learned to celebrate and name my unique contribution. Because turns out that's the asset that I steward as a child of God and if I don't name it, I can't utilize it to its greatest ability. I know that, and having, again, been in enough context where I'm pretty sure had I not been there with my unique blend, we wouldn't be where we are, and I love that. That's just how God works. And that doesn't mean there's nobody else who's important. But I had the opportunity of running this nonprofit for six years, that wasn't the plan. 

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Working with those experiencing homelessness, and I'm watching the fruit of a lot of what I invested now that I've gone. And just yesterday I got this big pat on the back about how I had built credibility in the organization, and a donor made $100,000 gift. And he said, "You know, ultimately, I did it because of the credibility you invested in that organization." And I thought my unique blend of WOO, and activation, and communication. 

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It started with the strengths, so it's the first thing we did was to understand my staff, to affirm my staff. And working in that context, what I feel most proud about is I also took this to the folks who we were serving. And when you look at a person on the street, who so many people walk by and say "He or she is worth nothing." 

The things people say about folks living on the street, it's so appalling to me and so tragic. And instead saying, "No, you are a princess who follows a king. And we know that in the midst of all of that we see with our eyes, that God sees you with a completely different lens." And that is a God-centered positivity. That's a God-centered maximizer. 

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And that dignity is these are words we can find to help people recover who they are. Because the most tragic thing about trauma, mental illness, and all the things that folks experiencing homelessness are experiencing, is the loss of sense of self. They need to be restored. God does that, and God does it through us, and I can preach a sermon here about it.

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Alison: I love that. You just bring tears to my eyes because I so share that with you. And what are the inherent strengths in those person? I mean, my husband and I, as well, have been deeply involved in some addiction recovery centers. Serving folks who have been on the streets for years, and just finding the strengths there, we love it. And naming them, and calling them out, and restoring that sense of dignity. Because we all are made in the image of God, and we all bear some beautiful. 

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I love that, Laura, and I love what you're saying. I love that you brought your strength. What I love about what you're saying is you brought your strengths to bring in money, to bring awareness. To, literally, build a program that served folks. And, also, you brought your strengths, literally, into the dignity, in every single one of those human interactions. Including, in terms of with the people that you served, I just love that, you're an amazing woman.

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Laura: I think the piece that I am most pleased about is I believe this so strongly about how to use our strengths. That I also recognized when I was done making my unique contribution in that setting. And, I mean, again, from the beginning to invest in the staff around me. That was just, again, we were stewarding their lives, however long they stayed with us. But one of the leaders that was there when I got there is now the executive director. And a few years into my tenure, she said, "I think one day I'd like to be an executive director." 

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And I said, "All right, let's get busy." And working with her strengths, working with her blindsides, we prepared her for that role. And, so, when I sit and see her on the front page of the paper getting awards from the city and all these things, and getting that $100,000 gift yesterday, I just smile. Because she grew as part of that journey, and she is getting to make her contribution. And it doesn't take anything away from mine, nothing. In fact, I get a little extra little pat in the back, even for that, and it just feels like this is the body of Christ.

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Alison: Preach, this is it. When we are leaning into our strengths, and I love even the claiming of the strengths. I love what you're saying, "These are my strengths, I'm going to steward them. It's better for everybody." Laura, you are amazing. Tell everybody who's listening how they could find you? How they could work with you, what you offer? I'd love to hear more.

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Laura: Yes, so my business name is Good Well Consulting. And I renamed my business about eight or nine years ago. Because that word combo, Good Well, is really the crux of what I care about. I love working with people who are interested in making a contribution in the world, doing a good, whatever that purpose is. 

But I'm also, because of my executing strengths, I really care that we do that well. For some, like when I work with nonprofits, a lot of that's capacity building, leadership development, infrastructure development. Thinking how the long-term is going to need a certain set of baselines so it can flourish. So not building a locomotive on a toy train track, trying to square that up. 

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It shows up in individual coaching. Where I'm looking to help people who are trying to find their voice, their contribution in the world, or maybe they're coming into a new role. I work with a lot of executives who are stepping into the role for the first time. They're not really sure how to navigate those waters. And then I have a third part, which is what I call the academy, and I'm putting courses online and I do live training as well. 

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I just launched a course on how to be an effective board member. A lot of your listeners, I know, are either on boards of directors for nonprofits, or they're contemplating making a contribution in that way, stewarding their strengths in that way. 

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But what I find when I get in boardroom after boardroom, that assembling a group of individuals who are cool does not a team make. So, again, how do we use the strengths? How do we use other personal work to show up in a team, in a productive way, serving the organization's good? So that's a fun thing, you can find that all on my website goodwellconsulting.com.

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Alison: Do you ever work with churches, church leadership boards? 

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Laura: I do work with churches.

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Alison: I could imagine that'd be a ripe, just helping the leadership teams.

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Laura: Lots of faith-based organizations, churches, missionaries, teams, I've done a lot of work with all sorts. At this point, and 30 years in, I've worked with a lot of groups.

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Alison: You're the best, Laura. Laura, you're the real deal. I love everything you do. What is bringing out the best of you, right now?

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Laura: Because I live in the corner of the planet that has had some really severe disasters. We are rebuilding a county that we had the largest, most destructive, fire in California, in 2018. And because of where I was in the county, at the time of the disaster, running this nonprofit, and because of my strengths, I've been very prominent in the bringing together of people from each of the corners of nonprofits, local government, state government, and then just humans who are in recovery. 

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So I'm really pushing into opportunities to build up the capacity, the health and well-being of our area, and then also looking for opportunities nationwide to work in disaster recovery. I think I'm really passionate about that because it really speaks into the vulnerability that is just beneath the surface for so many humans, in our country.

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Alison: And that's bringing out the absolute best in you, I have no doubt.

Laura: Oh, yes, it's super fun.

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Alison: Thanks so much for being here, Laura, thanks for taking the time. We'll link to everything that we talked about in the Show Notes, today, including if you want to take that StrengthsFinder test, reach out to Laura. Do you do individual coaching?

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Laura: Absolutely, and that's on my website as well. If you need to sign up, it's right there.

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Alison: All right, thank you, Laura.

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Laura: Thanks, Alison.

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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.

What a rich conversation with Enneacast podcast hosts Jesse Eubanks and Lindsey Lewis about the 9 different types of the Enneagram. We talk everything from mistyping women to Jesus, Kevin Hart, and the Apostle Paul. This is a great episode to share with your family, small group, or friends-it's an opportunity for honest conversations about your areas of brilliance. . .and the blind spots we all have.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The 9 different types

2. Your Enneagram number as one part of who you are

3. The Enneagram and narcissism

4. Why celebration is a discipline we all need to practice

5. How to love types that trigger us

6. The difference between comfort and shalom

7. What type was Jesus? Paul? Peter? Tom Brady?

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

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Resources

• ‍The Enneacast Podcast with Jesse Eubanks and Lindsey Lewis
• More about Love Thy Neighborhood
• ‍Dr. Alison's episode with The Enneacast
• ‍relatebetter.com
• ‍How We Relate by Jesse Eubanks
• ‍Enneagram Workshops
• ‍When Narcissism Comes to Church by Chuck DeGroat
• "Idolatry happens when we take good things and make them ultimate." -Tim Keller
• ‍Resources for support

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Related Episodes:

• Episode 49: Personality, the Big Five Traits, and Why Are We So Obsessed With Personality Types?
• Episode 50: 9 Types of Intelligence, the Trap of Comparison, and How to Connect More Authentically with God
• Episode 51: The 12 Common Thinking Traps, Mind Reading, Mental Filters, and How To Stop Taking Things Personally
• ‍Boundaries for Your Soul Series

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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.
• Please visit christianapp.org/mentalhealthtsf to donate today!
• Go to fuller.edu/bestofyou to learn more about Fuller's MS in Marriage and Family Therapy program.
• 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

Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to today's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. So I have mentioned the Enneagram, on this podcast, numerous times and, almost, always one of you writes to me and says, "Can you please tell us more about the Enneagram?" And it is certainly one of my favorite and most well-loved psychology tool. So I thought it would be fitting to include it in this series. 

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And, so, I invited my new friends, Lindsey and Jesse, on to tell us all about it. They are the co-hosts of an amazing podcast called The EnneaCast. It's put out by their organization called Love Thy Neighborhood, which I'm really excited to learn more about from them today. Its mission is to disciple Christians to serve their neighbors, cultivate healthy relationships, and follow Jesus in their culture and context. You can check out The EnneaCast. It's a biweekly show that explores personality and the Enneagram, through the lens of the gospel. 

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I had a blast recording an episode for their podcast with them. I discovered a couple of kindred spirits on this journey of bringing spiritual formation and the Bible together, with all things becoming the best version of ourselves. And I am so excited to have Lindsay and Jesse on The Best of You podcast, today, to walk us through the Enneagram. Thanks for being here, guys.

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Jesse: Our pleasure. Yes, we had such a good time, we're just bringing the party over to your podcast

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Lindsey: Yes, just another chance to connect.

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Alison: You guys really have an amazing blend of just fun, and humor, and playfulness, and depth, a lot of depth, in what you're doing. It's a really neat synergy, so thank you.

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Jesse: Yes, it's touching, it's something that we really revere. People come on and they share deeply personal things with us, so there's a lot of tears shed. But also we will act like idiots and have a ton of fun. And, so, we really are trying to do this space where we're holding joy and sorrow together, both those things can co-exist.

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Alison: Exactly, and you're also both just so real. So you model, you provide the way for us to just become ourselves and share what we're really feeling, so, thank you.

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Jesse: Well, we're aiming, we're trying. We're doing the work, I mean, we're trying.

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Alison: I was thinking to myself, I was like, "Jamming the Enneagram into one-hour episode is going to be tough." But I do want to hear a little bit about how you each discovered the Enneagram and what it meant to you personally.

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Lindsey: Well, for me, I had heard about the Enneagram for a couple of years. I had actually taken a test many years before, with a counselor, and not followed up with the information. So then it became really popular while I was living overseas. And I was really resistant to it because I had taken many personality tests with our mission's organization. And I was like, "Don't we all have more to do with our lives than continue to naval gaze?"

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But, then, we unexpectedly found our self-state side, and somebody gave me a book, and I just thought, "Okay, let's just look into it." And within two chapters of the book, I was seeing the world in a completely different way, and it was something I really needed. It was how we always joke, "Why doesn't life come with a guidebook?" To me, it felt like the guidebook. I all of a sudden saw people in a new way, and had an understanding for how to navigate my relationships with them.

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Jesse: Yes, and then my story is one that might be familiar with some of your listeners. Which is I was on staff at a ministry and we'd spend all our time telling everybody about how Jesus loves them, and how you should become a part of the family of God, and we all just wanted to choke the life out of each other. 

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We were not getting along. We were super dysfunctional. We second-guessed each other. We bickered, we undermined each other's efforts. So we're presenting this picture of relational health, the beauty of the gospel, and the truth is that we were like airplane salesmen, and we hoped you didn't ask us if we knew how to fly. We just had no ability to actually do the work. 

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So some guys came in, two retired pastors and one of the tools they brought to help us with their mediation was this thing called The Enneagram. And it freaked me out, the first time that I took it, because it gave me such profound insights into myself that I had not been able to see before. Things that I was unwilling to take a look at. 

But it also gave me the ability to, suddenly understand why the people around me were acting the way that they were, and that it wasn't just to drive me crazy. And it wasn't just because they were immoral, and it wasn't just because it was from these much deeper places. And really the fundamental reality is none of us see the world the same. We're all approaching life different, and the Enneagram gave language for us to be able to talk about those things in ways that brought unity to us instead of driving us further apart.

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Alison: That's beautiful. So tell us, what is the Enneagram and why do you think it's so different from other tools that people may be more accustomed to?

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Lindsey: I'll give the short answer and then you can give the long answer. 

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Jesse: Yes, deal.

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Lindsey: Usually it's the opposite. He's got the wordsmith and I'm like "Here's five pages of an answer." But I really just look at the Enneagram, it's a personality tool that talks about the nine archetypes that we see in humanity. And it can be more useful than other tools because of its flexibility and movement. So it's not just telling you, "This is your type, okay, goodbye." 

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It's actually asking you to be curious about your life story. What's brought you here? What are those triggers that are activating you in your daily life, that you're completely unaware of? Like Jesse said, we're wearing these lenses that we don't even know we have on and we don't realize other people have different ones on, and that it's changing the way we behave and the way we relate. 

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And, so, I love that the Enneagram gives you movement and tools for this is an area where you could grow. This is an area where you could move out of your ego response and find a truer way, to take your white knuckles off the steering wheel a little bit.

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Jesse: Yes, the way that I often say it is that the Enneagram, it's a theory of personality that explores the patterns in the ways that we perceive process and present to the world. And that all of us have particular fixations, and the Enneagram really attempts to unearth what those fixations are, in part, so that it can invite us to begin to confront those trances and fixations that we focus so much on. 

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"Okay, this is how I'm going to get my security, my safety, my value." And begin to invite us into a broader way of seeing. And as Christians, when we apply the gospel to that, it's the invitation into what does the abundant life look like? 

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Well, at some level, that is definitely going to include that my way of seeing is not quite as narrow. That there's a broader way and that Jesus reveals that in the gospels, in His own character, and His own way of being, and that He's inviting us into that as well. 

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Lindsey: Mm-hmm.

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Alison: Yes, I like how you guys are describing it as there's movement, there's flexibility, and that was, for me, it's so different. We've talked in this series about different traits that have been researched in psychology that are fixed, and different types of intelligence. But with the Enneagram, there's so much richness and so much depth to it, as you guys are getting at, in that it reveals both strengths and the weaknesses. That are the very things that fuel us and that become our strengths. 

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The gifts we have to offer the world can be the very things that are our Achilles' heel. That's the stunning part of it because we all know that about ourselves. And that's why when you look into it, you're like, "Oh, it's actually showing me, this thing I pride myself on. But then there's the dark side of that that I try to hide." They're both right there in the Enneagram.

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Jesse: Yes, it makes me think of there was this TV show, on Netflix, called Kevin Hart Can't Stop. And, of course, Kevin Hart is the famous comedian, and he's insanely successful. He's got hundreds of people that are employed by him. And the same thing that makes him so charismatic, and funny, and entertaining, and such a great, successful business person. It's also the thing that, in the show is revealed, it's also destroying his life. 

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And, to your point, Alison, the Enneagram helps us understand what thing is my strength. But what thing am I expecting to do something it is incapable of doing for me, but I continuously expect it to be able to do those things. 

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Alison: That's a great example, that's so interesting. I want to spend some time going through the nine types. So as best you can give us an overview, let's just go ahead and run it.

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Lindsey: Okay, well, we will start with Type One. So Type One we call The Reformer, and these people are driven by this desire to be good, morally right, people of integrity. And what that looks like is they're honest, they're hardworking, they're ethical, they're conscientious, they're reliable. 

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But the unresourceful side, like you said, the other side of that same coin is that they can become judgmental. There's a good way and a bad way. They have very black and white thinking. They're rigid, even in their physical bodies, their shoulders are up. They're so diligently working; they're trying so hard. They become resentful because no one else is trying to be good in the way they are and demanding, critical of others. And the big thing for the one is that they have this inner critic that's just constantly driving them. Like, "Here's a problem."

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"This is wrong."

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"You're not doing it good enough."

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"You're bad."

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"You need to try harder." But then that comes out as also a judgment of others. And, so, people think, "Well, they can dish it, they can take it." And actually, they can't, they're very sensitive because they already have that megaphone going on in their minds. 

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Alison: That's such a good description. I have so many ones, very very close to me in my life, and that angst. And there's another way of putting it, the perfectionist, is that fair to say? That angst stuff, I don't think people realize that inner critic is just as loud as any criticism that is flowing out toward anybody else. 

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So it's a really beautiful and, again, as we've been talking about, fraught, there is the beauty in it. They bring so much goodness, so much of that loyalty. These are folks who are just doing it, and then that dark side of that resentment or that anger, that criticism, that can really trip somebody up. You put that so well, it just filled my heart with love for those ones that...

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Lindsey: Yes, me, too.

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Jesse: Yes, and, Alison, it's probably worth mentioning this, is that our working philosophy is that all human beings have all nine of these, that we're about to describe, as ingredients in our personality to greater or lesser degrees. 

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So as we say this regardless of whether we come across one you're like, "That sounds like me, verbatim." There's probably going to be a lot of other elements. You'll hear that and go, "Well, that also sounds a lot like me." And, to Lindsay's point earlier, that's one of the beauties of the Enneagram is this fluidity. This ability to go, "I'm a complicated person."

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Alison: I love that you said that, Jesse. We just did a series on the podcast on Internal Family Systems, which is the topic of my first book. And, so, we did a six weeks deep dive into this idea that we all are made up of parts. And one of the things that has helped me the most with the Enneagram is to think about my primary Enneagram number as the part of me that's closest. 

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But then I really do have relationships to all the different parts. Some are further out, some I need to bring a little bit more in and, ultimately, and probably you guys have arrived at this, too. I assume that Jesus is the ultimate representation of all nine parts. Is that the whole of all?

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Jesse: Yes.

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Lindsey: Yes.

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Jesse: Which is why He's unpredictable when you read the Gospels. Unlike every other character in Scripture or any story, there's an extent to which we can guess how the character is going to behave. But Jesus is totally unpredictable, He acts this way in this moment, this way in the next moment, and it's because He is much more wholly integrated than any of us are. And, so, yes, we say He's the fullness of all nine types, in their full expression.

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Alison: That's so cool, I love that.

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Jesse: Okay, so back to your question, you asked about Type Two. So Type Two, we call these folks The Helper. Some people like to call them The Be Friender, these are like nurses. I feel like these people live with scrubs on all the time, they just take care of people. So these folks are generous, they are supportive, they're encouraging, they're thoughtful, caregiving,

they're compassionate, and they are sacrificial. They will give you the shirt off their backs. They will clear their calendar. These folks love to give themselves to others that are in need. 

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However, when they're unhealthy they, actually, become intrusive. I mean, if you think of the mother on Everybody Loves Raymond, who lived across the street, in all her goodness just wanted to help, she just didn't have any boundaries. They become possessive. They can become co-dependent, where they seek out people with high needs so that they always feel needed themselves, to fill the emptiness inside. 

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They can become people pleasers. They need to be needed, and it can really shock people. They can be so warm, but if they feel underappreciated, they can become, quickly, very angry. And the number one struggle that folks that are Type Twos struggle with is just the issue of boundaries. Boundaries are just going to be an ongoing, lifelong, journey for folks to figure out where they end and other people begin. 

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Alison: That's so well put, just so many of those. I think there are also a lot of Twos in the therapy world.

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Lindsey: Yes, and, I think, a lot of women, depending on if you're below the Mason-Dixon line, and especially, if you were raised evangelical, that a lot of us have this as one of the characters inside of us. It's we were told, "This is who you're supposed to be." So you're either struggling against, "That's not who I am." Or you're over-emphasizing that part of you to some extent.

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Alison: And we talked about this a little bit when I came on your podcast, but a couple of thoughts on that. One is almost every woman, as a Christian counselor, as my clients would go through and take the Enneagram, they almost always test out a Twos, initially. Because we're so supposed to look like Twos, as Christian women. I write about this in The Best of You. I tested out as a two. I thought I was a two for a very long time, only to realize I wasn't. 

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And, so, I do think that's important for women who are listening. A couple of people have asked me about gender and the Enneagram and it's something I wanted to touch on, with you guys. And it doesn't just relate to the Two, I'm sure that men are socialized to be certain types of numbers as well. But just to always keep that open mind of what is that mask, in a way, that we feel like we're supposed to wear. That isn't really reflective of the true inner workings of our hearts. So I love that you said that. 

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Lindsey: That's good. All right, we'll go to the Three, this is our achiever. So these are people with a lot of energy, with drive, they're very efficient, they're goal-oriented, they're motivated, and they're also motivating. People are just drawn to them, and they're competent, and they're very adaptable. 

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They can go from this group of people to that group of people, and alter their personality to really make those people feel comfortable. I think you're the one who says, Jesse, that they're always creating the shortest distance between the other person and themselves. So it's like, "Whatever I have to do to make this a short bridge, I can become that."

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Alison: That's well put.

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Lindsey: Mh-hmm, good job, Jesse. 

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Jesse: Thank you. 

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Alison: I resonate with that.

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Lindsey: Yes, but the flip side of that is they're very chameleon-like. They're very image conscious, like what are they projecting out there? They can be out of touch with their inner authentic self because they're always morphing into these different personalities. And they can be inauthentic, addicted to positive attention and manipulative, they can use their powers for good or their powers for not so good.

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Jesse: Mh-hmm, they get lost in between the public role that they're portraying, at that moment. Whether that is, "I'm a competent, nonprofit leader." Or whether that is "I'm a business person." Whatever it is, but they get confused between what it means to portray success and then who they actually are. And, so, a lot of Threes have got to really do the work of coming home to themselves, and beginning to go, "Who am I?" And the big catch for Threes is that they become addicted to adoration.

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So the applause of other people have a very intoxicating effect on the Three, that it doesn't hold on other types. But for the Three, there's almost like they can get drunk off of it. It just feels like love. And, so, the three has to do the work of separating out the admiration of others, with genuine, actual, love from the people in their life that it matters. 

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Lindsey: I've been doing a lot of reflecting. I have really high Three, but when I initially tested, I, actually, on the test only had 20%, I just found my original results. Because my achieving was so much the one, so much being the good girl, doing it all right, following the rules, very rigid, all that. But I was reflecting on my life story and things, over the last year, and I just realized all these times in my life where I had that, whatever the image was. 

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So I was a cheerleader and that was who I was. At school, I was like, "I am a cheerleader, this is what I do. I have this role." And it was very attention-receiving. And then my faith didn't really jive with how that was going. So I left cheerleading, and then it was I have to create a new identity for who I am at school, and I did that. 

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And then when we moved to Louisville, I really wanted to be on the worship team. Because I really love to sing, it's passion, it's one way that I could lead as a woman in the church. And I worked really hard at that, and I became part of this core team. And then when we went overseas I had this moment, this day, a memory that I have where I was rehearsing for Sunday and, all of a sudden, it hit me, I think, it was my last Sunday. And I thought, "I'm not going to be a worship leader anymore. That's no longer my title and I wept. 

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I was so sad that I made a place for myself in that spot, but then I became a missionary. And, so, then I was a missionary, and that's a great title, and I was a little embarrassed by that one because I never felt like I fully lived into it. I never really achieved it. And then, unexpectedly, we had to come back stateside, and then I was no longer a missionary. 

And, I think, all of the ones, I was in my mid-30s, it was the right time for a midlife crisis. And it was, all of a sudden, it was enough. You can't pick one thing that's going to be you are this, that's not who you are.

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But it is, I mean, it's been seven years since then and I'm still cultivating what are those deeper, authentic, pieces of myself that remain, and I've found a few. But it's so automatic to be like, "Well, now I am this."

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"Well, now I am Lindsey, the co-host of The EnneaCast."

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"Now I am a mother to these children, am I doing that in a great way." And now that's my identity. And then you have a bad day mothering and now you're no longer that identity. And, so, it can be really tricky because some of those things we just naturally have things we do. 

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Alison: They're good things, even, and we can make an identity. And this is true of the Three, it's turning that identity into the thing that gives me worth, that makes me a success. "I am the best mom."

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"I am the best worship leader." And it's subtle because some of them are really good things.

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Lindsey: Yes.

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Alison: But I love what you're saying, there's so much self-awareness in that. That realizing you were just trading one identity for another. And at the end of it, it's like, "Wait a minute, can I just be enough as me and what does that really look like? What does that really mean?" It doesn't mean I won't be a great mom; it doesn't mean I won't be a great worship... but that thing isn't the thing that I'm striving for. 

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I think a lot about athletes, I don't want to go down too much of a tangent here. But I think about Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, I don't know, there's so much of that identity and it can propel this excellence. I think of the word excellence, that it isn't bad. Excellence is a good thing in and of itself, however, at what cost and what happens when that goes away. Do you crumble, to your Kevin Hart example, what's underneath that, at what cost? And I love Lindsay that you're painting that picture, that it's really easy to fall into.

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Lindsey: Yes, absolutely.

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Jesse: And, I think, we're getting into, Tim Keller uses the phrase, "When good things become ultimate things." And I think that the Enneagram gives us a pathway to begin to go, "What good gifts from God are present in my life, but in what ways have I made them ultimate? In what ways have I made them emotionally salvific?" I want them to be the things that define me as a person and God, in His mercy, often has to come and tear it all down. 

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Lindsey: Yes.

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Jesse: Because it's a reminder to us that we have been bestowed with value that has nothing to do with our performance. But often God has to let us suffer loss, let us suffer failure. He has to break the illusion, and that's a painful journey, but it's also the only way forward. 

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Lindsey: Mm-hmm.

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Alison: Yes, thank you for sharing that. That is so powerful and so resonant. Even the good roles, I love that. I can be the best friend, I can be the best mom, whatever it is can become, I love that phrasing, can become emotionally salvific. When in fact it's not the thing, at the end of the day, that's incredible. 

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< Music >

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Jesse: Well, let's talk about Type Four. So these folks are called The Originalist and they're driven by a really deep desire for authenticity. A desire to really live into the truth of who they are. They have a strong resistance towards just playing the part for the sake of fitting in, for the sake of whatever. But they want to be true to the truth of whatever's going on inside of them and who they are, so driven by authenticity.

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When these folks are healthy, that comes out in a lot of amazing ways. These folks are super creative, highly expressive, they are deep. So if you're hanging out with a Four, you know you're about to have some good conversation, you're going to go deep. They're authentic. They are intense, so when they show up you can just feel it coming off of them. 

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They have a heightened sense of beauty. So they walk into a space and they are paying attention to the aesthetics and the beauty of that place. And they are emotionally intuitive, they give language to other people, "It seems like you're experiencing X, Y, Z?" Fours are very gifted at understanding the emotional experiences of others. 

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Now when it turns dark, when it turns on its head and becomes toxic. When it goes the wrong direction, they become over-reactive. So something happens and they, emotionally, backfill that situation until it goes off like a bomb. So they overreact to a situation. They become temperamental, they become dramatic, they become snobbish. So I say that they become like the cool police, "Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's lame."

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"That's cool, that's lame." Stop pointing at me, Lindsey Lewis. They become dissatisfied and feel misunderstood, and one of the benchmarks of the Four is that they become addicted to differentiation. Whatever others are experiencing, whatever the common thing is in the room. They can't accept it as part of themselves because it feels like a threat to their identity. 

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"The only way forward, for me, is to be fully authentic, which means I can't be replicated. I've got to be entirely my own person." And they fixate on it, to the point that they can end up really turning a blind eye towards beautiful things in their life. Because there's lots of common things that are deeply beautiful. 

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Lindsey: They're like the pendulum from the Three. They're like, "We're going to go the opposite way."

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Jesse: Yes, they're like the fail-safe for the Three.

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Alison: Well, it's so interesting listening to you because they do sound like opposites. And, yet, both could be susceptible to that cult of identity in this for different reasons, and that's the whole thing with the Enneagram. It's just the motivation is different. 

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So the Three is trying to get that identity that makes them the best, or gives them success, or gives them recognition. Whereas the Four is trying to get that identity to make them unique, make them special.  But there's still a falseness, whatever the motivation is, there's a falseness to the pursuit if we're not careful about it, so interesting.

Lindsey: Yes.

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Jesse: Yes, and we didn't talk about this here, so we're not going to go too far down this. But it's worth saying that Types Two, Type Three, and Type Four are in a thing called The Heart Triad, and they are fundamentally searching for identity. There's a layer in which somewhere in the mystery of nature and nurture, they feel as though they lost an identity, and that they now need to go create one in order to have value and love among their community. So those folks are oriented around, "Who am I?"

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"What is my identity as a person?"

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Lindsey: Well, number Five, that is the beginning of our Head Triad, speaking of the triad. So this is going to have a much different feel. These people are looking for security and safety, more so than identity. 

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So for the Five, we call them The Investigators. These are our epic head types. They are driven by desire to be competent, knowledgeable, they want to know all about how things work. They want to know the intricate details. And when they're resourceful, they're scholarly, they're wise, they're very objective, they're not ruled by emotions. They're intelligent, they're very reflective, and they can be very witty, that dry sense of humor. 

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Jesse: There are a few places that are more enjoyable than sitting next to a Type Five, in a meeting. Because they will make incredible jokes and it's a one-time performance, and you need to be sitting right next to them when it happens, it's great.

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Lindsey: Yes, they're just going to, kind of, say it under their breath.

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Jesse: Yes.

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Lindsey: When they're not resourceful, though, they can become reclusive, antisocial. They're in their study on YouTube or Google, doing their thing. They don't really feel the need for relationships and they can act superior because they're so knowledgeable about things. And they become relationally detached, cold, and they have a scarcity mindset. Like "I need to protect my resources. As in my physical, my energy, but then also maybe my money, or my talents, or my time." It's very much a scarcity mindset.

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Jesse: Yes, so there's a relational stinginess, that can really overtake their life. And the lie that the Five, often, believes is that they're just being prudent. "I'm just not being emotionally over-reactive." And what happens, over time, is that they train themselves, subconsciously, they don't mean to into a space in which they try to turn their emotions off. They try to withdraw from as many relationships as possible. And they even try to get to where they, themselves, don't want to have needs. So they begin to neglect their own needs as well because everything is about resources.

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Lindsey: Yes.

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Jesse: And it's like, "Anytime I interact with you, you're using my relational fuel."

"Anytime that I have a personal desire for something, now I've got to go figure out how I'm going to take care." So their fixation is just around resources. 

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Lindsey: Yes.

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Alison: So interesting because we've been talking, again, in this series, about some of these like introversion. Some of these traits that are more, genetically by. Not that every Five is an introvert because I don't know that that's, necessarily, true, although, I'm hearing some components of that. 

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Lindsey: Mm-hmm. 

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Alison: And then we've been talking a little bit about different sacred pathways, different forms of intelligence, and how I'm just listening to you, I'm thinking of the Fives I love. There are a lot of ways in which some forms of, especially, evangelical churches aren't super tailored toward a Five, in some ways. Where there's a quiet, there's a contemplation, there's a need to be a little bit cynical, not in an unhealthy way. That there's such a need for us to consider all different types and not sideline folks. 

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My spouse doesn't want to go to all these social events and it's like, "Well, that isn't the benchmark of what makes one a good Christian." Someone who is more inclined toward being a Five may need to think, "What does that look like in corporate worship?" It might look a little different for a Five than it's going to look for a Two.

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Lindsey: Yes, I think Fives are naturally more contemplative than some of the rest of us, especially, The Heart Triad. They might never get to a place where they're going to be super expressive in worship. That there are spiritual disciplines that when they're really trying to get in touch with their heart, with their soul, and relationship with God. They can be contemplative masters while the rest of us are just barely eking out silence and solitude. Some of us, two minutes is too long and for them they can really go to that deep place within themselves. 

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Alison: I love that. That's what I love about my Fives, they just keep it real, what matters not what's for show.

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Jesse: Yes, so type Six are commonly referred to as The Loyalist. And, so, these folks are driven by a really deep desire for security. So we talk about the whole triad Ones. Six is one like times two, it just is a very pronounced in what drives them as people. When that comes out in a healthy way, I say that they represent the covenant of God. These are covenant people. When they say "Yes", they hold to that yes. When they say "No", it means no. 

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But they will make deep sacrifices for the sake of the community. They're faithful people, they're committed people, highly responsible. The original Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, they are ready for whatever comes. They are dependable, they're systematic, they are honorable people. They don't tend to have a lot of deception in them, and they're committed to security. They want our communities to be places of safety.

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So when we live in a country right now where there's unexpected violence, Sixes tend to be a lot of the personality type that are going, "What protocols can we put in place to keep our children safe?" So Sixes are proactive thinkers. But as we all know, when we are anticipating things that have not yet happened, it can really spin out of control. 

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And, so, for Sixes, they can become catastrophic thinkers. So they just think all the worst-case scenarios because they need to plan for all the worst-case scenarios. And then, over time, what happens is that that becomes their go-to way of thinking, where they almost become allergic to hope. Allergic to the possibility that there could be good days ahead. They become skeptical of other people. So their disposition, initially, is always to stand back and observe and the other people have to prove their loyalty. 

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They are anxious, they're self-doubters, they can be uptight, rigid, wary, and reluctant. And the thing is that with all of our types, perception is reality. And the big thing that the Sixes, their ongoing battle in life is just because it might be true it doesn't determine that it is true. And just because inside of who you are, as a person, you think the other person might have this other motivation. It doesn't actually decide that they do have that motivation. 

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So projection is just an ongoing struggle for Sixes that they always have to be mindful of, and really ask themselves, "How much am I thrusting another person into a role, when actually there's no evidence that that person is that way." And, so, they have to wrestle through that. 

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Alison: Yes, minding your mind, and we just did a whole series on this really minding what conclusions you're jumping to, that's so good.

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Jesse: Yes, I'll tell you this, though, my wife is a Six and if you got kids, having a Six spouse is pretty awesome when you go to the doctor. Because about nine times out of 10, my wife knows more than the doctor because they are researchers, they study, they check things out. They do not just let the paperwork decide things. They are going to make sure everyone has been, adequately, cared for, and they're not just going to get lost in just pushing that paper down the line.

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Lindsey: I'm guessing you don't run out of toilet paper, and Kleenexes, and all those things as well.

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Jesse: Very rarely.

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Lindsey: They're stocked and prepared.

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Jesse: Yes, I did, actually, a few years back I was like "We look the Beverly Hillbillies when we go on vacation. We really got to dial this back. So we have a little too much protocol going on vacation with us."

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Lindsey: That's hilarious, especially, when they're little, oh, you got a lot of protocol.

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Jesse: Yes, and in my wife's case she's got a Seven Wing, we'll talk about the Seven, in a second, but I say that there's regular Lindsay, so my wife's name is Lindsay. So there's regular Lindsay and then there's vacation Lindsay because she learns how to let it go. 

Lindsey: Oh, that's good. 

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Jesse: So not this Lindsey, this Lindsey is married to Drew. I'm married to my wife, Lindsay.

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Lindsey: Yes, well, speaking of the Sevens, the Sevens are our Enthusiasts. I say the Sevens are Peter Pan. If you think about all the perks of Peter Pan and all the pitfalls of Peter Pan, that is your Seven. So they are driven by a desire to enjoy life and to experience all that life has to offer. Whether that's reading every book or going to every resort, it's different for each seven, but they love that endless possibilities. 

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So when they're resourceful, they are so joyful, they're optimistic, they're very child-like energetic. They're optimistic about what you can accomplish, and what I can accomplish, and what we can accomplish together. They're imaginative, they're very quick thinking because they're just ready to go. 

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But the flip side of that is they can become unreliable and scattered. They want to wait for the best possible situation before they're going to commit. So they are like, "Well, I might come to your party on Friday, but if something better comes along I'm going to go do that, instead."

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They are indulgent, they can come across as very juvenile. Like that Peter Pan like "I won't grow up, I refuse. I don't want to go to school." And they're irresponsible, and then they can become demanding because they do not want others to infringe upon their freedom. To have all the joy and all the excess that life has to offer.

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Jesse: Yes, earlier, I just talked about Kevin Hart, but just in thinking about comedians, in general. Comedians, in general, probably, the highest type among them would be Type Seven. Now, the other thing that's common among comedians is addiction. There's a lot of overdoses that happen within the comedic community, and it's because the number one struggle for Sevens, they are the most sensitive to pain. 

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And, in fact, a lot of Sevens, and this is true, we will get complaints from Type Sevens, about our show, because they say "You're so negative about us." And we'll go back and we'll check the minutes, we'll check the notes, and it's, verbatim, the exact same as we've done for everybody else. It's that they feel it with a much greater intensity. They are terrified at an existential level of being trapped in pain, and that's why there's a tendency to over-indulge. 

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So too much of a good thing is almost enough for the Seven. It's a journey for them to learn how to live in reality. Without running off to the next exciting adventure in their mind by distracting themselves or distracting the people around them. So a lot of times if we do workshops we get to this, and Sevens, it's hard for them to not make jokes, to lighten the mood, because to them it feels cruel what we're doing. 

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Lindsey: Yes, I've heard a lot of teachers say, too, that as children or young people, that the Fours and the Sevens can often look really similar. Because they're these people with the big emotions, the big highs and the big lows. And somewhere, like you said, nature and nurture, we don't really know, it's like the forest land in the deep end of the pool 

and they decide "This is where I'm going to stay. I'm really comfortable with pain." Anything that's not dark is inauthentic. And then the Seven say no, "We're going to completely put that away, we refuse to look at it."

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Jesse: They're on the end with the water slides, and the squirt guns, and the pool floaties.

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Lindsey: So those two can have a hard time with each other. A Four and a Seven, together, trying to work through something, but really they are what each other needs, to achieve balance

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Jesse: Because one brings the gift of lament and we need that gift, and the other one brings the gift of celebration. And a lot of times what we see Christian radio is all about the Seven energy, it's celebration all the time. And Four is bringing energy that challenges some of that, but we also know we should not just sit, perpetually, in grief.

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Lindsey: Yes.

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Jesse: We need to learn the discipline, this sounds strange to say, but the discipline of celebration, and Sevens bring that into the room and say, "We need to feast because good things are happening."

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Alison: That's right, and sometimes we need to take a break. We need healthy escapes, I always say, we need healthy pleasure, we need healthy comfort. They can bring that to us, that's beautiful. You guys are amazing, it's super helpful. 

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< Music >

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Jesse: Well, we're going to round things out with the last two. So this is actually going into what I refer to as the body triad, some people call it the gut triad. These folks interpret the world through bodily gut instincts, street smarts, and it's at an instinctual level. And these folks are searching for freedom, autonomy, the ability to make their own decisions and live by their own convictions is really key for these folks. So these are types Eight, Nine, and One. 

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So Type Eight, these folks are called The Protector. These folks are driven by a deep desire to be able to protect themselves from injustice and to protect other people from injustice. They have a strong orientation around distribution of power and power dynamics, in a relationship. And when they are healthy and using this in healthy ways, these folks are strong. The rest of us are running on 1/10, they run on 2/20.

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They need less sleep, they can go longer, they can do more. They're freaks of nature in that regard, they can just do so much. They are natural leaders because of their disposition. Their bodily chemistry, they tend to be broad-shouldered. They just stand their ground more, when they're there you know they're there. They're commanding, they're prophetic, they're assertive, they're self-confident, they're intense, tons of energy. 

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When they're healthy, and this is always an interesting one, when they're really healthy, a lot of type Eights become therapists. And when they're healthy, they are the exact opposite of the stereotypes of the Eight.

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Alison: I heard Dan Allender say he's an Eight.

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Jesse: He is an Eight. We had him on the show, and he's a great example of when an Eight really takes on empathy and joins in another person's pain and suffering. They learn how to harness their own strength. Instead of running from their own pain, they begin to make peace with it. And, so, strength doesn't become the solution to everything. 

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So when they become unhealthy, these folks become aggressive, they become domineering. They become bulls in a China shop. There's no reverence for other people's tenderness and there's no reverence for their own. Because tenderness is anti-strength, and strength is what will win the day. 

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So they don't do a good job when they feel slighted or attacked by others, they become vengeful. And because Eights are often very good at asserting themselves, it turns into an arm wrestling match and they do usually win. There's a pleasure in fighting. There's a pleasure in arguments. They can take it on, almost, recreationally. And the biggest thing is this, if someone has told you this over and over again, in your life, consider how much Eight you have. And here it is, "I don't feel heard by you."

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"You don't listen to me." When an unhealthy Eight gets going, their energy is so blinding to them that it's impossible. It's Mount Everest for them to think that the other person's point of view has any validity, and that the other person isn't just whining and complaining. So the Eight has got to learn how to harness their strength. And my pastor always says, "Meekness is not weakness, it's controlled strength." And that's the journey for the Eights.

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Alison: It's so interesting because, to me, what I hear in some of the unhealthy is classic features of narcissism. But I would recommend, there's a wonderful book When Narcissism Comes to Church by Chuck DeGroat  a wonderful friend of mine. And he actually talks about narcissism, the faces of it because the Eight is the stereotypical, I think the Threes in the Eights. But he says, "Mm, actually, it shows up in just subtler forms in other types." It's just the most stereotypical form in the unhealthy Eight. Is that fair to say? Would you agree with that? 

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Jesse: Yes, it tends to be that Eight and Seven energy, both. Because the Seven, when they're really unhealthy, they have a narcissistic view, that's about, "Well, how does this affect me?" And, so, when it merges with that Eight's appetite, Eights just have this big appetite for intensity, especially, like "Let's go skydiving, and go whitewater rafting, and go run the meeting, and start a new business."

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Lindsey: Eat a whole cake. 

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Jesse: It just their appetite is just so massive. And, so, the big journey for the Eight really is in childhood they often had to be bigger than they actually were. Something happened where they weren't big enough to handle the problem but they had to become. So sometimes people had severe illness, they were hospitalized a lot as children, sometimes, they grew up in families where there was a lot of fighting. 

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And, so, what happened is that, that child ate, had to sacrifice their own childhood innocence to be bigger than they were. And what happened is that the byproducts of innocence are things like tenderness, things like vulnerability, things like gentleness, those are the things that come out. And because the Eight sacrifices in their childhood, those things tend to be underdeveloped. 

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So the journey for the Eight is to go back. When you see an Eight around a baby, or you see an Eight around a puppy, or you see an Eight around some situation where they perceive innocence in the other. You see that come out in the Eight, but the Eight has to also learn they deserve that as well. That same kindness and tenderness, and then out of that a sweetness can begin to emerge that is such a gift to everybody.

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Alison: Beautiful.

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Lindsey: Like I told you at the beginning, my original story with the Enneagram was learning that people had these other lenses. And the hardest number for me, at that time, were these type Eights. That I was so focused on being appropriate in every situation. Always being the good girl, being very restrained, keeping my anger in. And then here are these people just living life without a seatbelt. 

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And I really thought, "Oh, those people are, literally, just choosing to be quote-unquote "Bad people". And when I read about The Eight, in an Enneagram book, I cried because I just understood. And a lot of people struggle with that, with The Eight, if they don't have an aggressive energy about them. That it feels like "Well, why do you get to come in here and suck out all the oxygen in the room?"

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"Why do you get to always be at the head of the table when the rest of us are waiting for someone to give us something." And to understand where the Eights are coming from really helps me appreciate, and then want to dig deep and find some of that Eight within myself. 

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Maybe there are times where you could take initiative, you could be more assertive. You could care more about justice and speak up, that we can learn so much.

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Jesse: And we need to be mad about some things. There are things in this world that deserve our anger, and it is a holy, and good, and appropriate thing to be mad about those things.

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Alison: Isn't it hypothesized that Martin Luther King Jr., was probably an Eight?

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Lindsey: I've heard Eight and I've heard One. 

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Jesse: Yes, I've heard both of those, too, yes.

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Alison: And then I wonder, just listening, I wonder if Paul, the Apostle Paul, who knows, I mean,  that's just speculative.

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Jesse: Paul is long-winded, I'm going One.

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Lindsey: I also give him the One, yes, because he's all about "Don't do this. Don't do this. This is the way." Follower."

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Jesse: Eights tend to be pretty to the point and sometimes I'm like "You know Paul, I know the Word of God." I understand, but come on man.

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Lindsey: I could see Peter. I could see Peter being an Eight. You know like cut off the ear.

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Alison: That's a good point. 

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Lindsey: "I'm just going to speak my mind." 

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And Jesus is like, "Whoa, no, that's not it."

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Or "Yes, that is it." He was very impulsive. Okay, well, we've talked about the pendulum swing between the Three and the Four, even though they're in the heart triad. Well, I think this is an equal pendulum swing in the gut triad between the Eight and the Nine. 

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So you have someone who's constantly stirring the waters, and then we come to The Nine and these are The Peacemakers. They want the waters to not have a single ripple internally or externally. These people are driven by a desire for peace within themselves and within the world. A wholeness that comes from a harmony of humanity.

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So when these people are healthy, they are seeing all sides. They can listen to an argument and say, "Oh, that makes sense." And then they hear the other side and they're like, "And that makes sense, too." And the two people arguing are like "Wait, what? You can't agree with both of us."

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And they're like, "No, I can." And they're easygoing, they're friendly. These people are flexible and calm. They're very receptive, they're great listeners. But the flip side is, is they can be passive to a fault. Listening without ever, actually, saying what they think or knowing what they think. They're stubborn, but it's a silent stubbornness, often, of digging in of heels. 

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They are conflict-averse, so even when there needs to be some of that healthy conflict, they will resist and they'll procrastinate. Partly because they have a hard time prioritizing because they see the value of all the things that need to be done. 

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And, so, it's hard to choose what I'm going to do in this moment, and then they can become lazy. That it's like, "Well, I don't know what to do so I'm going to just do a quick social media check, or I'm going to play game on my phone or take a quick little nap." And they can be really indecisive about deep things. About "What are my desires? Where do I want my life to go?" And indecisive for the people around them as well, about their goals and where things are going. 

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Jesse: Or even, "Hey, where do you want to go to dinner?" And if you've ever immigrated to a new country, it takes less time to do that than it does for a Nine to decide what the dinner plans are. 

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Lindsey: It's true, they can end up really sleepwalking through their entire life, and that's not good.

Alison: And so pleasant to be around. 

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Lindsey: They're so wonderful to be around, yes.

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Alison: And when you love a Nine, just to be really mindful of not taking advantage of that illusion. I think this is true of the Twos, too, not taking advantage of their helpful nature. But learning to love a Nine and a Two in a different way. But trying to learn to, actually, invite them to speak their mind, to be a little bit walking into conflict. Because it's so easy, they're so nice to be around, you can just take advantage of that, almost, and subtly reinforce what they actually need to work through. 

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Lindsey: Yes, I always say if you, I actually learned this the hard way because my husband is a Nine. And when I was pregnant with our secondborn, I had lots of cravings. I always have cravings. I'm always like, "I know exactly what I want to eat. I know where I want to go." But I'll be nice and say, "Oh, well, where do you want to go?"

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Jesse: Which you don't really mean?

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Lindsey: No, but for the majority of our marriage, he doesn't care, I get to go wherever I want. But we were on this Enneagram journey, so he's trying to cultivate some desires and starting with the easiest, the lighter things. And, so, I really wanted pizza and I gave him three options because that's a great way with Nines. Like "Do you want this, this, or this?"

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"Does any of these sound good or not good?"

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And he was like, "Not pizza." And it took so much, because I was pregnant so I deserve to have my pizza. But I was like, "No." The one thing that you can do, if you're loving a Nine in your life, is when they do speak up a preference, you give it to them."

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Alison: Yes.

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Lindsey: You don't have to make a big deal about it. But you just do it because they need the practice. 

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Alison: That's right. 

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Lindsey: And they really don't mind. If I had said, "Oh, I really wanted pizza."

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He'd be like, "Oh, yes, that's fine, I like pizza, it's good." But that would've been a step backward, in him trying to cultivate an assertiveness to his own needs and desires.

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Jesse: And I always say there's two sides to this. So for those that are not Nines, but in a relationship with a Nine, understand they need a long runway. They need a longer runway than most people because it takes them a while to figure out where are we going. What are the words I'm looking for? There's a meandering, kind of, style that they have. Don't cut off the runway. 

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You got to give them the runway, and that means the rest of us have got to hold back our energy to give them the space they need to get there. And, also, to the Nines, it is wrong to make other people live your life for you. And that's the thing that so many Nines end up settling for is, "Well, I'll let everybody else make all the decisions." And that's a huge burden to put on others. 

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And the fundamental belief of the Nine is, "I don't have what it takes. Everybody else has it, I don't have it. It doesn't matter, I can't change outcomes, I can't influence where things go. I don't have the energy, the strength, the clarity." And all of that is not true. 

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Lindsey: Yes.

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Jesse: Nines are such a gift, but it does require the Nine to exert themselves. And that will require the Nine to wake up out of the trance, that so many of them are in. The cheap version that Nine settles for is comfort. The real thing they want is Shalom, and Shalom often requires a struggle towards ultimate peace. 

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And so many of us just settle for this synthetic, junkie, version that is we wake up one day and we went, "Oh, my gosh, I literally just wasted away these different days that were so important." So to all the Nines listening, your presence matters. Aim for Shalom, don't just aim for comfort. 

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Alison: I love that. You guys are amazing. This is so rich and I hope, I know my listeners are just going to be wanting more, and I can just hear the wheels churning. "Well, what does this mean?"

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"What if I live with this type?"

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"What if my kid is this type?" So how do people find out more? Tell us where we can find you, and learn more about how to use this in our lives.

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Jesse: Well, so there are a few options. So the first thing is this is that Lindsay and I do co-host, together, a podcast called The EnneaCast. And, so, wherever you get your podcasts you can go and check that one out. And, so, it's Ennea, like Enneagram, and then cast. And then the other thing is this is that, literally, this week we are actually in a process of launching a brand new website called relatebetter.com. 

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And that is going to have a bunch of different tools with the ultimate goal being this, our conviction is that the purpose of life is relationships. Jesus says "Love God, love other people as you love yourselves." Which is to say everything in the totality of our life comes back to that. That's what we're going to care about on our deathbeds, it's what we care about when we go to sleep every night.

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And, so, our new website is going to slowly add increasing amounts of tools to help people, hopefully, experience better relationships. So we'll kick things off with a whole bunch of Enneagram stuff and wave one of those tools. And then we've got some life mapping stuff that's coming down the pipeline, and we got some surprises coming. So whether you're a therapist or whether you're somebody that is just, "I just want to learn how to have more relational intelligence." We want to help you with that, so go to relatebetter.com. 

And, then, if you want to know about our parent organization, it's called Love Thy Neighborhood, and we say we're like the Peace Corps with Bibles. And, so, you can go to lovethyneighborhood.org. We also have a podcast also called Love Thy Neighborhood, and if you're baptized NPR that's our show. And, also, I do have a book called How We Relate: Understanding God, Yourself, and Others Through the Enneagram. 

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So if you're looking for an approach to the Enneagram, that is deeply infused into the character of Jesus, into the heart of the gospel, that is this book. It's the book I wish I had when I first came across the Enneagram. So you will definitely encounter the gospel, in addition to Enneagram theory.

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Alison: You were both referring to that a little bit and I was like, "Oh, I need to take a look at whatever you guys are looking at." It was your book Jesse?

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Jesse: Yes, and I wrote it for all folks. So a lot of Enneagram stuff, sometimes, is pretty high brow and you've got to have a certain acumen. This is a book, literally, written for blue-collar folks all the way up to people that are trained psychologists. It is a very accessible book on purpose. 

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Alison: What about our teenagers; young adult and kids? 

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Lindsey: Mine is reading it right now. 

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Alison: Oh, cool.

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Lindsey: Yes, she read a little, tiny, primer and wanted more. And, so, I gave her Jesse's book and she's 13, she's almost 14, I guess. No, she's 13. She loves it, it has a lot of graphics in it, images, and she can really understand it. The language is accessible to her. She's really loving it and I'm loving it because I've been restraining myself from telling her, her number for all these years. She goes, "I think I might be a four."

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And I was like, "Oh, really? You think that, maybe?" 

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Alison: Oh, I do the same. I just, I cannot keep stuff back from typing everybody in my family. 

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Lindsey: I know.

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Alison: That's great, well, that's a great resource, thank you so much. And is there anything else?

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Jesse: Lindsay and I also lead workshops and, so, we lead workshops everywhere from you can come to our office and we have public workshops that we do. We also do things for church communities and we also do things for corporations. So we, actually, do work with a Fortune 500 company, and we modify our workshops in those contexts to be appropriate for a diverse audience. 

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But we offer a free one-hour study, at the end, for anyone that wants to stay where we talk about the character of Jesus and what He does with all these giant existential questions. So, yes, you can learn more about our workshops as well also by going to relatebetter.com. 

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Alison: Cool, so you'll go into churches and do workshops on this? 

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Jesse: Yes.

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Lindsey: Mm-hmm. 

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Alison: Very cool, awesome. You guys, it's just so rich, I can't say more. First of all, I just think that Enneagram is so rich, and then when you bring it together with a Christ-centered approach and make it a tool of spiritual formation, as you guys are doing, in such a deep, and nuanced, and life-giving way, it just brings real change. 

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Not only, again, to your life, it's not just naval gazing, to your relationships, and I love that you guys are doing this. Thank you so much for taking the time. This is one of our longer episodes, but it's just so rich. Everything you say, all the words you're saying, I'm just hanging on. You have such a great way with this. Thank you for taking the time to be here. 

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Lindsey: Thank you.

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Jesse: Well, it's our pleasure, thank you so much.

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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. 

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While you're there, I'd love it if you 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.

Do you struggle with taking compliments? Are you a mind reader? A minimizer? Or do you tend to take things personally? If you answered yes to any of these, you do not want to miss today's episode. We're discussing 12 common thinking traps, what psychologists call cognitive distortions. These are ways of thinking that trip up every single one of us. The messages you tell yourself have a direct impact on the health of your relationships, so this is a great one to share with your family or friends.

‍

Here's what we cover:

1. 12 common thinking traps

2. How to avoid toxic shame spirals

3. The problem with mind reading

4. How to stop taking things personally

5. Why we all need to learn how to take a compliment

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

Want to receive free bonus content? ⁠⁠Sign up for my free weekly email here.

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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.

‍

Resources

• ‍The Best of You on Youtube
• ‍2 Corinthians 10:5
• ‍The Best of You (Chapter 4, Chapter 6)
• More about Dr. Aaron Beck
• Episode 39: Boundaries for Your Soul—How to Navigate Your Overwhelming Thoughts & Feelings
• Episode 50: 9 Types of Intelligence, the Trap of Comparison, and How to Connect More Authentically with God
• Episode 49: Personality, the Big Five Traits, and Why Are We So Obsessed With Personality Types?
• ‍Resources for support

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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 glad you're here. We are in a new series on my Favorite Psychology Tools, and I've loved hearing from you about what this series has meant to you. That you've been sharing it with friends. With even your kids, with your spouse, as a way of having conversations about your differences in a healthy way, and I love that. I love that this podcast can be a way for you to spark conversations about some of these topics, with the people that you love. 

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So before we dive in, today, I want to remind you that I send out a short email, every Thursday, with bonus content related to each episode. Almost, always, I think of something I missed or want to expand on, and I include that in that weekly email. It's free and you can subscribe to it on my website, dralisandcook.com. You'll see a free newsletter button right there, or you can check the link in the episode show Notes.

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So in this series, so far, we've been talking a lot about our differences. Differences in our personalities, and different types of intelligence. Different ways of using our minds and our personalities, to connect with God in our spiritual practices. And if there's one theme that I hope you are really grasping, so far, in these episodes, is that you develop a posture of curiosity about yourself and the way God made you, which is such a fun adventure. 

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Such a great way to look at life and get curious about the ways that God made other people, and the ways that they're simply different from you, and beginning to take some of this strength-based approach. 

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This is an approach, in psychology, that's often referred to as positive psychology. Where instead of focusing on diagnoses and mental illness, we begin to focus on different personality traits, differences between us that are just simply part of who we are. And while it's important to talk about diagnostic categories and where people are stuck in pathology or stuck in problematic ways. 

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It's also helpful to focus on our strengths and where we're simply looking at differences among us. Both are important, both matter and, in particular, when we start to focus on these personality differences, differences in gifting, et cetera. We begin to move from shaming ourselves or comparing ourselves to other people, and instead, we start to focus on becoming the person God wants me to become.

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That comparison trap is just so awful and so terrible. We wind up shaming ourselves or criticizing and picking apart other people, and it just leads to nowhere good. It's so freeing, as you begin to understand yourself. You're able to compare yourself less to others. You stop worrying about what they're doing better than you, what they're like, what you're not doing, and you start focusing on how to grow into and build on your own strengths. 

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You start to appreciate and value what makes you unique, which is a healthy form of taking pride in who God made you to be. So in order to do all of that, it requires a certain amount of cognitive health. In order to avoid so many traps such as comparisons, shame spills, and toxic messages. We have to mind what we're telling ourselves. 

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We have to mind our thoughts. We have to think about what we're thinking about, this is called metacognition. That's the fancy term for thinking about what you're thinking about. It's about becoming aware of what you're telling yourself, of what you're saying to yourself, of what you're believing inside, sometimes, beneath conscious awareness. It's about taking "Captive every thought," as Paul said, and making sure that what you're telling yourself aligns with what God wants you to see in yourself.

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In The Best of You, in chapter four, I call this "Looking at yourself through the mirror of truth, through God's mirror, and it starts with paying attention to your thoughts. And, so, today, I want to walk you through the most-common thought traps or what in psychology we call cognitive distortions. 

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These are distorted ways of thinking that keep you stuck. Cognitive distortions, which are really known as thinking errors, are patterns of biased and inaccurate thinking. And these patterns, that's the key word there, it's not just one thought that flashes into your mind and then you discard because you know it's not true. It's a patterned way of thinking, where you really slipped into a way of thinking that is not healthy for you, and it can lead to negative emotions. It can lead to self-doubt, it can lead to self-criticism, it can lead to shame, it can lead to negative behaviors. 

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You might start showing up in your relationships in certain ways based on lies or based on distorted ways of thinking, that simply are not true. It is tragic when I see this happening. Where people are believing a set of lies that are actually causing them to sabotage what is happening in their relationships. And I'm going to give you some examples of this, we all are susceptible to this. 

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So this is something that as we, again, look at our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. This is minding the mind, minding our thoughts. Really being careful to pay attention to what we're telling ourselves. Cognitive distortions involve errors in the way we perceive and interpret information. 

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So a classic example is your teenager is sullen, grumpy, they seem like they're in a bad mood, and you tell yourself, "They hate me. They're mad at me because I asked them to clean their room." When really what they're thinking about is something that happened at school that day that had, absolutely, nothing to do with you. But you're convinced, whether consciously or subconsciously, that their mood is completely related to you. 

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And, so, you change your behaviors based on what is, in fact, not true. And it gets really destructive if we don't catch ourselves and make sure that we are telling ourselves what's true or getting information that we need to investigate the things we're telling ourselves. 

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Cognitive distortions can lead to distorted or irrational beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, and they're triggered by a lot of factors. They're shaped by our past experiences, where if you've been abused or criticized, over and over, by a caregiver. You may be susceptible to some of these faulty thinking patterns because that criticism gets programmed into your mind. And, so, you filter everything you hear through that critical lens. This is something to become aware of as you start to heal. 

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These cognitive distortions can be triggered by some beliefs that we hold, even some of our religious beliefs. We can start to filter in ways that aren't quite matching up with reality. They can be triggered by personal biases that we've held and we haven't checked. These subtle biases that step in, where we have these ideas about how people are. 

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Again, maybe, we inherited these from our family of origin and we haven't really checked them out against reality. We haven't become good scientists who are "Taking every thought captive," as Paul said. And holding them under the lens of objective criteria to test ourselves. "Is that really true?"

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I cannot tell you how many times I will ask clients that, let alone myself that "Is that really true?"

"Where did you hear that?"

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"Who told you that?"

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"Where did you pick up that belief, that idea, that attitude about yourself or about that other person? Let's test it. Let's weigh the evidence, let's unpack it." And, almost, always, especially, these negative beliefs we hold about ourselves. Almost, always, the person will realize they never really investigated the source of a deeply held belief, oftentimes, self-defeating, that they've been telling themselves. 

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Cognitive distortions were first identified by psychologist Aaron Beck. Who is considered to be the founder of cognitive therapy, and cognitive therapy is one of the most widely researched, most effective, most common forms of therapy out there. It focuses, exactly, on this very work of identifying and changing negative, unhelpful, patterns of thinking. And, especially, identifying how those negative, unhelpful, patterns of thinking are influencing behaviors in harmful ways. So it's pacing apart what's going on in your mind?

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What are you telling yourself? 

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What are you believing? 

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What are you thinking that is leading to these behaviors that have become destructive? In your relationships, in the way you treat yourself, in your parenting, whatever it may be. So I'm going to walk through twelve common cognitive distortions, that we all deal with from time to time. 

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And I guarantee you, you are going to see yourself on this list in more ways than one. And if you do, as you're listening, if you are saying, "Oh, my gosh, I do that. Oh, that is me." That is a gift. That gift of awareness is the first step toward meaningful change. We cannot change what we are not aware of. 

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So my goal, in this episode, is to raise your awareness of some of the ways you might be subconsciously, habitually, without even realizing it, telling yourself things that may not, in fact, be true. And we're not going to be able to root all of them out today. 

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But to become aware of what you're telling yourself, of the things you think, of the things you believe on a day-to-day basis. Especially as they relate to your primary relationships, is life-changing. And at the end of this episode, I'm going to give you some tips on how you can begin to incorporate this practice into your daily time of self-reflection, of your daily prayer, of your daily mental health practices. 

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Because minding your mind, and tending to your thoughts, as with anything, takes practice, just like building any muscle. When you start to go to the gym and you start to work on a muscle, it's hard at first, but over time, as you practice, you begin to catch yourself more quickly. 

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And you might even still do it, you might even still say, "Oh, there I go, I'm completely mind reading right now. I'm completely telling myself that I know what that person's thinking when I have no idea what they're thinking." And you can name it and much more easily stop that from influencing your behaviors in negative ways.

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Here are twelve, common, thought distortions that we all face. Number one is all-or-nothing thinking, also known as black-and-white thinking, and it means you consider everything in black-and-white terms. From one extreme to another, without considering the shades of gray, the nuances, the middle ground, where so many things, especially, when we're struggling and tempted to all-or-nothing thinking fits. 

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Usually, when we're in the middle of a struggle, things are very gray and murky, but we don't know how to live there. And, so, we tend to go to one extreme or the other. 

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And, so. here are some examples. 

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"I'm either perfect or I'm a complete failure."

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"They either love me and think I'm amazing, or they hate me and think I'm the worst person in the world."

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"I'm amazing as a mom, as a friend, as a wife, I am on it. I am amazing or I am just the worst." You just go from one extreme to the other, and a lot of this is normal to feel this way. This is that link between the way we feel and what we're thinking, and it's one thing to feel this way. To feel like "I feel like a complete failure." Even as, simultaneously, you know that's not true. That's what we're after. 

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You may not be able to completely change the feeling, that's present when you're doing all-or-nothing thinking of like "I know it's not true, but I just feel like a miserable failure." But the "I know it's not true" is very important. To say "I have to own the fact that I feel this way." And, simultaneously, "I know it's not true. I know that mistake I just made in parenting does not make me the world's worst parent." And, the hanging on just a little bit to that truth of "I had a bad moment" versus "I am a failure" is all the difference between a shame spiral and a bad moment.

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This is so critical because if you really believe, inside, when you make a mistake, "I am a failure." That is a vicious, horrible, way to live. You just start to pile on layers and layers of shame on yourself.

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But as you begin to parse through the feeling of, again, I'm using this example of, "I'm a failure." And the belief is just right there, side by side, going "I know I'm not a failure. I know it's just a bad moment. Two things can be true, I can feel like a failure in this moment and, simultaneously, I know every parent has terrible moments. Every spouse has terrible moments. Every colleague has terrible moments, it's okay."

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You start to talk yourself back into that balance. Where there's some painful feelings there, but there's also some equilibrium. There's some truth-telling and that's what we are after, as we identify these cognitive distortions. We want to dig them out like weeds buried deep in the soil. We got to get them at the root and pull them out. 

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So that when there is some hard stuff, those weeds are not crowding us out and telling us lies about what's happened because the stuff is hard enough. The thing that's happened is going to be hard, but what we tell ourselves about it really matters. And if we're telling ourselves lies, if we're telling ourselves a thought distortion, which is that "You are either perfect or you are a failure." It's only going to make it worse. It's only going to pile on the shame. 

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Number two is overgeneralization, and this is where you draw sweeping, widespread, conclusions based on maybe one or two isolated incidences. It's a really sneaky distortion and we're all susceptible to it. A classic example is that you receive one C on a test. Overall, you've been a pretty good student, you've done pretty well. But you get that one C and you generalize that one incident to "I am terrible at science."

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"I am a terrible writer."

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"I am  terrible at math."

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And people do this, we have one bad experience in a class or get one bad grade and just write yourself off in that field for the rest of your life. Or somebody laughed at you once, this happened to me once. Somebody laughed at me once when I sang and I thought, "Well, I'm just a bad singer." And I'm actually not a terrible singer but I just generalized. I was like, "Well, that one incidence must lead to a sweeping truth about who I am."

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Another example is you might generalize from a painful situation that happened. "One of my friends betrayed me, therefore, all people will eventually betray me." This is a really tragic byproduct of childhood trauma where if a parent betrays you, it's really easy in that young brain to generalize. To assume all adults are eventually going to betray you. We can even generalize to God, as children, "Well, if these people, who were in authority and were supposed to care for me, treated me this way." Generalize that to God. 

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This is a really normal way of making sense of complicated things. There's no shame in doing this, but we do want to become aware of it. And, you combat these by testing the data. "Wait a minute, that was one bad grade. Do I like science? Do I like music. Do I like singing? Do I want to write it off forever?"

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"Wait a minute, that was one person who was really awful to me."

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Let's look at the evidence, "Are there other people?" And you begin to gather data. You begin to embark on a process to find out what's really true. You can look at statistics, sometimes, and we can all sit around and guess what we feel, what might be subjectively true. But let's look at the data. What are the data out there? 

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Another classic case of this is people are terrified to fly. And then you look at the stats, and you realize it's actually far safer to fly than it is to drives. That's the actual fact. But we generalize based on a fear that we have during one bad flight, that all flying is terrifying, therefore all flying is unsafe. When, in fact, the data tells us a whole different story. So this is, again, minding your mind really paying attention to what you are subtly telling yourself and subtly believing. 

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Number three and four are two sides of the same coin. Three is mental filtering, and this is when you focus exclusively on the negative aspects of any situation while ignoring the positive. So you've got this mental filter in place where you just filter out the positive and you only see the negative. 

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So, for example, you might dwell only on the negative comments you receive from a romantic partner, or from a teacher, or from a work colleague, or a boss. Even when there is evidence that they've, actually, also given you affirmation and given you praise, you just can only see the negative. 

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Now, closely related to mental filtering, discounting the positive, this is number four. These two are very closely related. But disqualifying the positive means you acknowledge the positive. You hear it, it comes in, and then you just reject it. You just throw it away, and you figure out a way to completely pick it apart and disarm it. And if you think about these two categories, if you think about people who it's really hard for them to take a compliment. That would be someone who's really good at discounting the positive. 

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No matter what you say, they're going to say, "Mm, no, that's not really true."

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You say, "Oh, you look so nice today."

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"Oh, no I don't, I just woke up."

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Or, "You did such a good job of that."

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"Oh, no, it was nothing."

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"No, really, that other person did all the work."

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That person cannot accept positive feedback from you, and it really is a barrier to connection. It's a barrier to authenticity. Because taking in a compliment, taking in praise, or a positive from someone requires us to be vulnerable. There's a humility involved in saying, "Oh, thank you, that really meant a lot. I can receive that from you." Receiving praise from someone is a skill. 

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And, then, likewise, the person with the mental filter who doesn't even see the positive. That mental filter only sees and takes in the negative. You might think of someone who's really a pessimist. Someone who finds whatever the negative is and just goes there, and some of this is habit. Some of this is a protective mechanism. 

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There's a way in which this person is getting something by just staying so focused on the negative. That if they were to have to entertain the possibility of something positive. They might have to open up to hope, they might have to open up to change, and it could be really painful. It could break open something inside of them.

So, again, there's no shame. And if you see yourself, in these, or if you see someone you love in these, please tread lightly. Don't go trying to pull off the filter, it will not work. It's likely there for a reason, but gently begin to name it. "That's interesting, I notice you tend to gravitate toward the negative. I wonder what that's about? Tell me about that." And that person may not be able to respond, in that moment, but you're just gently getting curious. "I notice this." Or the person who always discounts the positive, who cannot receive a positive from you. 

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"I just noticed that I just said something complimentary to you and it seemed like it was hard for you to take that. I'm just curious about that. I wonder what that's about?"

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And you can even say that rhetorically without requiring them to answer. Because this is tender stuff, this is vulnerable. These are coping strategies. They're there for a reason. These ways of thinking, these cognitive distortions, we've developed these, over time, for a reason. These are attached to parts of us, to go back to the series that we did on Boundaries for Your Soul. But these parts of us have taken up these ways of filtering out the positive or rejecting every compliment for a reason. 

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So we don't want to go trying to rip these all to people. What we want to do is get curious, come alongside ourselves, "I wonder why I do that. It's so hard for me when someone tells me something positive, I just want it to go away. I just can't take it." Or it's just like moth to a flame with negative news. "I just want to grab that negativity; I wonder what that's about?" Get curious, don't shame yourself, don't shame others. Get curious, as you consider all of these twelve examples that we're going through today. 

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This is one of my favorites, number five, mind reading. I pride myself on being a little bit of a mind reader. I know what people are thinking. I know what they're feeling, and this is the flip side of the gift of empathy. Sometimes we do, and sometimes we do have a pretty good sense of what other people are thinking and feeling. 

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Some of us are pretty good about that. It gets back to that interpersonal, intelligence, we talked about in episode 50. And we pride ourselves that we're pretty good at picking up on subtext and cues from other people. But I promise you, even if you're pretty good at reading other people, you will sometimes be wrong, and you do sometimes have blind spots. So mind reading is making assumptions or interpretations without sufficient evidence. 

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We jump to conclusions about what's going on, usually in another person, without really knowing what they're thinking or what they're feeling in that moment. Sometimes you might be right, if it's a kid you know really well, a friend, or a spouse, you probably can anticipate what's going through their mind. But you are not always right, and this is why I always say it is so important to just ask. 

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One of my favorite phrases to say to people is, "I'm imagining that you might be feeling this."

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Or "I imagine that you might be thinking this, is that right? Can you tell me more?"

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To open up a conversation, giving them a chance to let me know if I'm accurate or not because I'm not always accurate. When we mind read without being consciously aware of it and consciously checking ourselves, with humility, to realize that we are not ultimately mind readers. We can change our behaviors based on things that are not true. This is that example of a teen is grumpy at dinner, and you assume it's because of something you cooked, or something you did, or something you asked.

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You might even discipline your teen when really they had a bad day and it has nothing to do with you. And, so, you've got to say, "Hey, I notice, it seems like maybe something's on your mind. Is everything okay?" They might brush you off, they might not answer, but at least you checked it out. 

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Now, an extreme example of mind reading is when you attribute something to someone that is not based in any form of truth. For example, you're out to dinner with friends, and they offer to pay the bill. And you assume that they did that because they think you're a failure and can't hack it on your own, and you attribute something to their actions that is not, in fact, true. 

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Closely related to mind reading, another form of jumping to conclusions, number six is fortune telling. This is when you make predictions about the future based on little or no evidence. You predict something and hold it as the truth. You really fixate on it without really doing the work to gather information, to see if you're basing that on actual evidence. 

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Here's an example of how this can influence your behavior. And, again, these are tricky, these are sneaky. A lot of times these are subconscious. But you'll hear someone say, "I'll never find love." because they've had a couple of really bad relational experiences. Right after something really hard happens, we might feel like "I'm never going to find love."

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Or "I'm never going to find a job I love."

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Or "I'm never going to find friends." But the reality is, odds are you probably will. If we look at the data, most people tend to find a friend or two. But if you're telling yourself, "I'll never be someone who finds a friend."

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Or "I'll never be someone who finds love."

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Or "I'll never be someone who finds a job." That becomes a little bit of what we call these self-fulfilling prophecies,where if you believe it strongly enough, you can start to will it into being, and this isn't a magical thing. 

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This is if you really believe you're someone who can't find friends, your behaviors will start to align with somebody who doesn't know how to be a friend. As opposed to saying, "Wait a minute, I've had a couple of bad experiences. I think I can find friendship; I think I can find belonging. How can I align my actions in ways that allow me more of a possibility, more of a probability for that to become true?"

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Number seven is emotional reasoning. I've been alluding to this throughout. It's believing that your emotions are accurate reflections of reality. This is a tricky one because emotions are important. They have important information for us. They're important cues, that stuff is happening. But it doesn't mean they always tell us the truth about a situation. 

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In The Best of You, I talk about this in chapter six, where I talked about facts, faith, and feelings. You have to hold them in balance with each other. Your feelings are not always facts; they are a piece of data that you have to hold in tension with the facts of a situation. Almost all of us have bought into this particular distortion. And it's, essentially, when you say, "I feel it, therefore it must be true."

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Now, the subtle nature of this is you feel it, and that is true. It is true that you feel it, but it doesn't mean that what you feel is true. And, so, for example, going back to that all-or-nothing example when you say, "I feel like a failure." I believe you, that you feel like a complete failure in this moment. That doesn't mean you are, in fact, a failure. That's the difference here. The feeling is true in the sense that you feel it, and we need to deal with that because it's important information. But it does not mean that it is, in fact, true. 

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You might feel suspicious of somebody's motives, and that might be true. It might mean that they have poor motives. It might not be true. There's a leap between that feeling of suspicion and what is, in fact, true. You might feel like someone doesn't like you, and that might be true, or it may well not be true. 

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Again, this gets at that mind reading. You may feel like you know what they're thinking about you. But you don't actually know what they're thinking about you, until you ask them. Until you gather data. And this is just such an important one, deeply important foundational, in our daily practice of staying aware of what is in our minds. 

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Our feelings can really overtake us. "I feel this so deeply, it must be true." And just always holding that in tension with, "I feel this so deeply and I'm going to journal about it, 

and I'm going to try to unpack it, and I'm going to try to understand it." While, simultaneously, always holding that little part of you that says, "What is true?"

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Again, with curiosity, you may not arrive at the solution to this today. And this is the thing about minding our minds, it takes work. It's a discipline. It takes practice.I'm a big journaler. I journal every morning because it takes me a few laps around the track of my feelings, to arrive at what's actually true. 

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Sometimes it takes me a few days, sometimes it takes me months, and it takes some patience. The Fruit of the Spirit of patience, the Fruit of the Spirit of self-control. To take the time that I need to take about a feeling that I'm having. To bring it into tension with what the facts are, to bring it into tension with what God is saying to me, to arrive at conclusions that dictate my actions. 

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We are complicated beings, and it takes some work to pay attention to what we're paying attention to. So that the way that we behave in the world is grounded on wisdom, and rationality, and sound practices. 

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Number eight labeling, I talk about this a lot on here. We don't want to label people. We don't want to slap a sticker on ourselves or other people. We want to name patterns of behavior. Labeling is applying a negative label to yourself, to someone else. Based on a very singular incident, a singular character trait, just an unfair representation of the entirety of that person. 

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This is really an extreme form of overgeneralization. It's saying "That person didn't come through for me in the moment, therefore, they are unreliable. That's an unreliable person because one time they didn't come through for me."

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Now, if that person, continually, over time, never comes through for you, and is always letting you down. Then it might be fair to say that person has shown me unreliable patterns of behavior, I can't count on that person, that's wisdom. 

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But to make an attribution of that's an unreliable person, that's an irresponsible person, that's a lazy person, that's a critical person, whatever the label is. Without really getting a chance to see the whole of who that person is and, again, we probably more frequently do this to ourselves.

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Probably more frequently are we inclined to attribute a negative label to ourselves. "I'm lazy."

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"I'm irresponsible."

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"I'm stupid."

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It's just not true. The whole gestalt, the whole big picture of who we are does not support that unilateral labeling, and it's not helpful. It doesn't actually help us be the person we want to become. 

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Number nine catastrophizing, another really common one. It's assuming the worst-case scenario is inevitable, in any given moment, when something bad happens. We all have friends like this, some of us are like this. Some of you have kids who are like this. Where no matter what happens, it is the worst thing ever. "My life is going to fall apart because I did not get the grade that I wanted."

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"My life is going to fall apart because I didn't get invited to that party."

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"My life is going to fall apart because I didn't get that invitation."

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"My life is going to fall apart because I didn't make that deadline."

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Whatever it is, we extrapolate it to the worst-case scenario. We can even do it to our mental health. "I feel anxious, today. Ah, I am an anxious person. I'm going to feel anxious for the rest of my life."

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Number ten is should statements, another really common, unhelpful, thought pattern, and we do this to ourselves so often. Should statements are statements that you make to yourself about what you should do, what you ought to do, what you must do, what you should never do. 

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We can also do it in the negative. We can apply them to others; "They should not be doing that." There's always a tone of judgment in there. Shoulding is often linked to judgment. "I should really be better at this."

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"I should be a better friend."

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"I should be a better parent."

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"I should never lose my temper."

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"I should never get angry."

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"I should never feel sad."

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"I shouldn't feel this way about this other person."

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"I shouldn't feel this way about myself, about God, about church about...." Whatever it is, we should ourselves to death. "I should do this."

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"I should do that."

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"I should do this." When I started paying attention to my shoulds, this was about ten years ago, I consciously started to pay attention to shoulds based on the help of a spiritual director. I could not believe how life changing it was and how I drove myself with shoulds. Often linked to an inner guilt tripper, "I should do this." And, so, often it was squeezing out the actual better choice, the life-giving choice before God. 

When we hang on to should statements about ourselves, we live in the guilt trap that we cannot live up to. And we often don't end up making the wisest decisions. When we cling to should statements about others, we are always going to be disappointed. We're going to risk being judgmental. We're going to risk being critical in ways that are not necessary. 

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Number eleven is personalization, another common one. I guess all of these are common, that's my conclusion. Because every single time I get to one of these I'm like, "Yes." This is where we take responsibility or blame for events or situations that are beyond our control. Now that sounds abstract, what this really looks like is taking things personally. And this is a tough one that is so important to get on top of, especially, as a parent or in a romantic relationship, where things just have to come to the surface. 

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Fundamental differences of someone being annoyed that the dishes are in the sink, or someone being annoyed about the way you brush your teeth, or someone being annoyed that you're talking too loudly on the phone, while they're trying to study, and it's not personal. It's not actually about you. It's just something that is outside of the two people that is the cause of irritance, that two people, together, need to work through. And when we take it personally, we make it even harder to work through to a healthy conclusion or a healthy compromise.

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And, so, there are a wide spectrum of ways this can come up. From the simple ones, like I said, of just taking it personally when our spouse says, "Hey, could you not leave the cap off the toothpaste."

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And we go, "What? You think I'm a bad person? You think I'm unthoughtful?"

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No, it was a simple request of, "Hey, could you please put the cap back on the toothpaste?" There's no personal attack in that. There's no personal judgment in that. That's a simple example but it's very real, and these things can drive us crazy in our relationships. To bigger things where you believe that you are the cause of everybody else's feelings. This gets back to the mind reading, but you mind read in such a way that it's always your fault. 

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So let's say you plan an event and someone didn't have a good time at it. You assume it's your fault. It's your fault that every person there didn't have the time of their lives because you didn't attend to every single detail perfectly. You take it personally when, in fact, maybe that other person didn't have a good time for a million other reasons that have nothing to do with you. 

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So this is a tough one, because sometimes it is personal. Sometimes it is personal, and a lot of times it's not. Research from psychology would tell us that we do better for ourselves if we assume that it's not. The less we take things personally, the more effective we'll be in our relationships. 

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And, finally, we've arrived at minimizing. Minimizing is so common, and it's a way of downplaying the importance or significance of an event, a situation, or a behavior. Often to avoid complicated feelings about it. It can often happen when we've been hurt and we minimize it, "Oh, it's nothing, it's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

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When, in fact, there really is a hurt there. There really is something that happened` that hurt, and maybe we don't want to make a big deal about it, but we do need to acknowledge it. And, again, this is a lot of work that happens in the privacy of our own heart, and I do a lot of journaling related to this. Because I'm a big minimizer, and I've learned that it doesn't really serve other people when I minimize things. 

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But what I've had to learn to do is write it in my journal and be like, "Yes, this hurt me." And, then, really, think through "When, and if, and how I need to say that or raise that to the surface." One of the things I like to do, in my own life for this, is just use a simple phrase, I'll say "Ouch". Which is just an acknowledgment of, "Yes, ouch, that hurt." I don't need to have a big conversation about it, but I'm not lying. I'm not saying, "No, it's fine."

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I'm saying "Ouch, that was a bruise."

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Some indication that there was a hurt there. Now, the truth is, sometimes, it's wise to minimize in the sense of if we're doing it accurately. If we're saying "No, it's really no big deal." But this gets at the honesty. That H-Factor we talked about in the episode on Personality, episode 49. 

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The more we're honest with ourselves and the more we say, "No, it's really not a big deal. I really don't mind this." Comes out of knowing and trusting ourselves that we will say, "Actually, that one does bother me."

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"I do care about this one."

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"I do have a preference on this one."

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"I do need to talk about this one." We build trust with ourselves, as we get really clear about when we're minimizing in an unhealthy way. Versus when we're being really honest and having a lot of integrity and saying, "It's really not a big deal." This is an important one for us to work out in the privacy of our own hearts. 

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Gosh, as we close today, I feel like I could have, probably, done a complete episode on every single one of those. So we will come back to these. They're so important. We're just scratching the surface today. Just begin to pay attention, to become aware. Talk to other people about this. You might share this with a small group, with friends, with a friend circle, with a spouse, in your family. 

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You can use this episode as a way of saying, "Hey, let's talk about this. I think we're doing this in our family. Let's work on one or two of these."

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"In the context of our family, we tend to take things personally, let's work on that. Let's talk about that."

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Use this as a springboard for conversations with the people in your life. And, then, also, use this as an opportunity to grow in daily awareness. 

I'm a big believer and every morning I take inventory,I think about how I'm doing mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, it's an important daily habit for me. I understand different seasons of life are different for different people. There have been seasons of life where that's been harder for me. 

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But I would say that's an ideal place every morning just to take inventory, and I do that simple MEPs exercise. And I start with the M - what am I thinking about? 

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What am I telling myself?

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What am I feeling? 

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Because sometimes those things are hard to parse out, and I just jot a few sentences about it. Sometimes a word just to grow in awareness, and then you invite God into that. "God, help me, help me notice when I'm deceiving myself. When I'm fooling myself. When I'm shaming myself. When I'm shoulding myself, when I'm susceptible to all-or-nothing thinking. When I'm jumping to conclusions, when I'm mind reading. Just help me pay attention to what I'm telling myself." And if you don't have time to do it in the morning, throughout the day—iIf you're driving around kids, when you're in the carpool pickup lane. When you have a few moments at the traffic, turn off the radio, turn off the podcast, and just check in with what you're thinking about. Where's your mind? 

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What are you telling yourself?"

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When you're in the shower, when you're cooking dinner? Where are moments, regular rhythms, throughout the day, things that you do every day that you can train yourself to say, "This is a time when I turn off the radio, I turn off the podcast, I get off the phone, and I just check in with my own mind." And ask the Lord to be with you in that. To help you pay attention and attune to what you're thinking about, and help you align what you're thinking about with what's really true. Just start there. 

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You don't have to clean it up overnight, but just start paying attention to what you're thinking about and align yourself with what is good, with what is true, with what is beautiful. So that you can begin to become a better, truer, version of your God-given self. 

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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.