Science-backed tools.
Spiritually-based wisdom.

Today on the podcast, I'm talking with my friend and teaching pastor at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, Alli Patterson, about her new book, How to Stay Standing. In this powerful episode, Alli shares her own story of hitting rock bottom when the scaffolding of her life collapsed, and how she rebuilt the foundation from the ground up.

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We discuss the following:

1. How tiny decisions can lead us toward devastating realities

2. What kept Alli from making eye contact for over 6 months

3. How shame sneaks in, even when you know you've been forgiven by God

4. The power of telling your story in safe places

5. 3 practical ways to build a strong foundation6. How to take risks on God

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Organifi -Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Hiya Health- 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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Resources

• Get 46% off Boundaries for Your Soul & The Best of You here.
• Order Alli's new book, How to Stay Standing
• The Soul of Shame, by Curt Thompson
• Episode 35: Change is Hard–Why We All Need to Detox From Unhealthy Dependencies From Time to Time
• Matthew 13, Parable of the Sower
• James 1:22-25
• Resources for support

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone. Welcome back to today's episode of The Best of You podcast. I am so excited, today, to have my friend, Alli Patterson, on the show. I met Alli almost a year ago. She is a wife, a mom, a writer, and a teaching pastor. She serves at a large church in Cincinnati called Crossroads Church. And she's passionate about equipping others to know Jesus, especially, through the pages of Scripture. 

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She's written a new book called How to Stay Standing: Three Essential Practices to Building a Faith That Lasts. I got my hands on this book, and just from the get-go, from the go, Alli is just honest, she's open, she's real. She pulls you right into her story, and right into these practices that she's learned to help you stay strong in your faith. So I am thrilled to have Alli on the podcast today. Hello, Alli, and welcome.

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Alli: Alison, thank you for having me, it's really fun to be with you. I feel like I've gotten the pleasure of knowing you personally, and now we get to actually do something together, professionally, which is so fun. 

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Alison: It's like a continuation of the conversations we've been having. When I was reading your book I was like, "We operate on different sides of the same coin." I go in more into the psychology piece of standing strong, with a biblical background. And when I read your book, I was like, "Oh, you go into the biblical basis for standing strong." 

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but with a real genuine nod to psychology, to what it means to be human. You're not bypassing your humanity, at all, in this book, and I really appreciated that and respected that. So thank you for this gift. 

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Alli: Thank you for saying that. I think as I've watched, and read your book, and watched how you interact with your faith, through mental health, and true emotional honesty. It's really been inspiring for me to watch you do that because I have felt encouraged that, "Oh, I don't have all the words that you use for it, but God has taken me on a similar journey." And to some places that you, actually, do such a great job helping other people get to. 

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And, so, I wish I had known you 25 years ago, you could have helped me a lot. But I know that God will continue to use you like that, and so often. And, so, I'm like, "I'm paying attention." Because, so often, I think what you're doing is helping people have language for things that we know are happening in us, and around us. But we can so much better engage in them with ourselves, and with God, when we actually understand what's going on, and I think you're just wonderful at that. 

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Alison: I love that, thank you. Yes, the naming, and I saw that in your book. I remember when I first started reading it, I texted you and I was like, "I get it." Because you've been saying to me, "Alison, I think there's a synergy between our work."

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I knew that on a human level, but the minute I started reading your book, I was like, "I get it. I see it. I see exactly what you mean." And it's like you're coming at it from a different angle, but you're absolutely trying to put words on this experience of being a human, who is trying to consistently turn toward God. 

So I'd love to get started, Alli, today, just from the start, right from the get-go, in the book. You say this thing that I thought was just so well-stated in How to Stay Standing. You start out by saying that you had, quote, "Cracks in the foundation of your life." And then you say something that I thought was so interesting, this was speaking of your early 20s, I believe that, "You'd built a framework for a great life, but you didn't have the foundation to support that framework."

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So I'd love to go back in time, for a moment, to that time, and, obviously, hindsight is 2020. There's a lot you know now that you didn't know then. But what do you mean by that? Well, it sounds like you had the scaffolding. You knew some of the right things, but the foundation wasn't there. And they were even cracks in the foundation that was there. 

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Alli: I think, as I look back, and I think about the cracks that later became problematic for me, they were, primarily, internal. They were primarily things that maybe only I really knew were happening in me. And therefore, for some period of time when cracks in your character, let's say, for instance, I knew that often I would avoid conflict. I would avoid conflict to the point where I would compromise honesty or integrity, in order to avoid conflict. 

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So that would be one example of an enormous crack, that is going to be a problem. But at the time, I just didn't see where that was going to lead. So that would be one specific example. Another one, for me, which is really the base of what I was standing on, at that time in my life is, what I now have words for, I was very driven by performance. 

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I was very driven by what I could accomplish and what goals I could meet. And I really thought of myself through the lens of what I did or what I could do, and that was a huge crack. Because we all come to the end of ourselves, at some point, or we have experiences that tell us, at some point in our life, that we actually are not enough, we cannot be enough for ourselves. And I was pretty convinced, in my early 20s, that not only did I have the right tools to build a good life, which in many ways I did, and I was very blessed in some of those things. 

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But I was convinced that I was strong enough to put together a life that worked. And I don't think I would have used those words at the time. But when it came right down to it, what I was most trusting in was me, and my ability to be smart enough to work hard enough, to make the right connections. To just do whatever I needed to do to put together a life that worked. And, unfortunately, that does work for some period of time. 

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Alison: Yes, at the time, would you have considered yourself a Christian? Was this something that was operating under the surface or?

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Alli: So I was raised in a church-going family, and I had a very genuine, I would call it, when I first came to a personal faith in Christ, I was 16. So I was right in the heart of learning what it is to be myself, and on the verge of adulthood, and all of that. 

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And I had these couple of years where, as I look back on it, what I think happened was God gave me this gift, I call it a little oasis from 16 to 18. I had this wonderful community, a true faith, a very genuine conversion to a follower of Christ, and then I went to college.

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So I had this little bubble, and I've often thought back on that time and thought, God gave me quite a genuine experience of what it felt like, and looked like, to truly follow Him and experience Him. And in so many ways when my life, in my 20s, as I was doing it, man, I was adulting with the best of them. 

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I was at a great job. I was traveling. I was newly married. I was making money, all this stuff that you would think would work, when it all started to fall apart. I had this little experience with God, with a very living and genuine faith I fell back on because I was desperate. So I reached out for Him when things started to fall apart, for me. 

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Alison: Yes, so what I'm hearing you say, as far as the foundation goes, you did have a seed. You had a seed of faith, you had something there. 

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Alli: I did.

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Alison: Now, I'm curious, to work with that metaphor. So would you say you set that aside, to start building on a different foundation? Or would you just say you did that little kernel or that rock? You did have a rock. You did have something there, but it wasn't strong enough to be that foundation. And, again, if I'm trying to tease out what was conscious? Did you, consciously, was it slow like, "My faith is still there, but I'm not really building that deeper foundation?"

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Alli: Yes, so if I go back to your seed metaphor, what I would say is I never had roots. 

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Alison: Okay.

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Alli: I never knew what would develop roots. I had this experience where I grew very quickly, and I never rooted, so Jesus tells that parable. And I received the Word and I grew, something sprouted very quickly, and it was very real. 

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Alison: Yes. 

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Alli: And then I went into a space, in my life, where I didn't have anyone helping me. I didn't know, "Hey, when you go away from that community, the one that was helping you, you need another community of Christ followers around you." I didn't know. 

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Alison: Yes.

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Alli: And that's one of the... the title of my book is called How to Stay Standing, and in some ways, I have this burn in my heart. Because I think there are things that if we have people alongside of us, who can just say, "Hey, did you know that if you don't have friendships developed in your life, that are moving the same direction you are, that's not a neutral thing. It's actually going to pull you away from God." I just didn't have anyone telling me some of those things. 

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Alison: God, it's like you were consciously saying, "I'm going do this." Because sometimes we hear these dramatic, that's what it's so interesting to me about your story. It wasn't like this, "I'm going to do it my way, God." It isn't like a prodigal son story. 

It's slow. You didn't have the tools to know how to keep that foundation strong underneath you. So you ended up just, almost, slowly, little by little, moving in this direction of self-sufficiency, of self-reliance. Of doing things in your own strength, and also you mentioned not having those skills of navigating relationships in a healthy way not knowing how to. 

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Who does learn that? I think about that to myself, I'm like, "We don't learn to adult, and we don't learn how to deal with conflict." And, so, you find yourself in your 20s going, "Oh, my gosh." And, so, then, presumably, the structure started to collapse because that foundation wasn't strong. So tell me a little bit about that.

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Alli: Yes, so you're totally right, in how you characterize that. I would never have called myself rebellious against God, angry, or I never made the decision to walk away from my faith. I would have considered myself a good person, and I just did it the way I knew how to do it. That's what I learned, and that's what worked for me and, so, that's what I did. Which is why as things started to fall apart it shocked me, it really shocked me.

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So in my early 20s, I was working at a big corporate job, probably, bigger than I should have been in my early 20s. And I was really enjoying traveling a bunch, and making money, and having a big career, and all of that kind of stuff, and it was fun, and I was good at it. But also, I was very naive in how I was building relationships. And, at that time, I got into a relationship with another man, and I ended up having an affair, very early days of my own marriage. 

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When I say the day before, I would have told you, I would never do something like that. Like never did I think of myself as somebody who would even be open, to doing something which was so clearly out of bounds. Even in my own morality, so clearly wrong.

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Alison: Yes.

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Alli: And I think that's where all of my illusions ended about who I really was. And as I had this moment, and I described this moment in the book, but it's such a poignant moment in my life. That I found myself looking in the mirror, and I was trying to look at myself. And I think maybe for the very first time, in my life, I actually saw who I was and I had to be honest. "I'm not a person of integrity, here's who I have become. How did I get here from a person that was strong, and smart, and thought of herself as good? Where in the world did this happen?"

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Alison: Yes.

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Alli: And in lots of work with me and God, and a couple of other wonderful people He put in my life. I really realized that your foundation is solidified in tiny, little decisions you make every day, or you fall into the cracks of those decisions which are getting wider and wider every day. 

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And that is, again, beneath the book, is strengthening your foundation and standing on something firm it's not a one big decision that you make at any point in time, it is a continual set of daily choices. And the good news is they're always available to us. 

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God is always happy to meet us exactly where we're starting from, whether we're collapsed on the ground, or whether we're just realizing, "Oh, I've been doing something on my own. I wonder what it would be like to include God in this part of my life." And that's really even now as a parent I see that helping lay foundations in other people, in your children, is the same way. 

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You could let things go. Sure, you could let something go, you could even call it like, "Hey, he's a good kid, we'll just let it go this time." Or you could take the time that it takes to dig down and actually lay a piece of the foundation. And, so, I find it very much a daily work of living a life that can stand firm. Because all of a sudden it doesn't unless you've been tending to it. 

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Alison: Yes, I love what you're saying. I talk a lot, on the podcast, about how any decision we make is usually the result of about a thousand, tiny decisions prior to it, and that's what I hear you saying. It's not one day you woke up and said, "Oh, I'm going to do this today." 

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Nobody does that, well, very few people do that. Instead, I love that awareness, it's okay, "I got here through a thousand tiny steps." And, like you're saying, the good news is I can start taking, now, tiny steps in the direction I want to take; toward God, toward building this healthy foundation.

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So in that moment, Alli, I want to ask you, did you experience any shame? Because one of the things we talk a lot, on the podcast, is how shame can sometimes keep us in hiding. It can keep us from that healthy foundation. 

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So how did you, in navigating that self-awareness, that, "Oh, my gosh, who have I become?" What was that process? And then to where you are now, which is this teaching pastor, a mom, a wife. I believe you ended up repairing with your husband, correct?

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Alli: Yes. 

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Alli: So we get there. But what was that process for you? You still had a choice to make in that moment. When you were like, "Who have I become?" You could have just given up. Shame could have taken over and you could have continued to hide. How did you dig your way out? It wasn't just about a foundation; you had to start digging your way out of something. How did you do that? 

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Alli: Absolutely. So there are two processes, and I didn't write specifically about this in the book, but I'm so glad that you asked. I really see a process of forgiveness as something very different than a process of removing shame. I think those are highly related but different processes. 

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So I knew, fairly, quickly that God, when I asked, and I came to God and I said," I need your mercy, please forgive me. I want to do something different." I was pretty convinced pretty quickly that I had God's forgiveness. And then I went through a process of seeking forgiveness from the people that I had hurt, in the process of that. So the first way out toward forgiveness, for me, was a brutal, honest confession.

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Alison: First with God? Would you say first with God?

Alli: First with God.

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Alison: I love that you immediately turned toward God. Because, again, I think, shame in many instances steps in and goes, "You can't go to God, you've done this terrible thing." And somehow inside of you that seed, what I love about this is that seed that was there, even if it was a seed. You knew, "Oh, I've got to turn toward God." I love that. 

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Alli: Yes, I need Him.

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Alison: Yes.

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Alli: He was the only thing that I actually felt that I had, and I don't even know why I thought I had Him. I wasn't actively pursuing God. But something He had planted told me, "This is my way out of this." 

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And, so, I first went to him in brutal confession, and the second thing I did is I went to my husband. And I think that the repentance, truly, the repentance, the turning around. You're going to stop where you are, and you're literally going to change direction, the only way I knew how to do that was to start telling the truth, and it was brutal. 

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And as I did that, that began the path toward forgiveness with my husband. But also, then, where I would describe shame coming into the picture is, primarily, in my external life. Because this sin is the cardinal sin, it's the bad one and, also, you don't hear very many women talk about this. So it's this extra measure of, "How could you?" And very shaming things. 

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And, so, I took on this layer of shame to the extent that, Alison, I would not look anyone in the face. And I didn't realize I was doing it at first, but I'm big on eye contact. That's how I like to connect really with people, in the form of eye contact. I like face-to-face communication. And I think that the Holy Spirit pointed out to me at some point, that it had been six months since I had made eye contact with anybody in my life.

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Alison: Wow.

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Alli: I was so deeply ashamed. And it was at that point that I realized, "Oh, this process of removing shame is something a little bit different than believing you're forgiven."

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Alison: Oh, interesting, yes. 

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Alli: Because I believed I was forgiven by God, and I was, at least, in the process of pursuing forgiveness with my husband. But I describe shame as the enemy's last-ditch effort. You know that you're forgiven, and you're trying to pursue healing, and you're trying to pursue wholeness. His last ditch effort to keep you oppressed in a heavy, heavy layer of shame. 

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Alison: Yes, I agree with you.

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Alli: Because then it keeps you from owning your story. It keeps you from talking about it. I still have to fight that instinct, 20 years later. Shame is this deep instinct to hide.

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Alison: Yes.

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Alli: And every time I talk about my story, now it's like a little jump over a stone. It used to be I would have to crawl up a brick wall and throw myself over because I was so deeply ashamed. And I finally began to realize, "Okay, this will not lead to the life that God has for me." Because I was turning toward God and I have a smile on my face because He almost began to entice me with, "Hey, there's something a lot better than what you're living. If you would come closer, I could show you what that was."

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So as I started to pursue God, shame just began to be totally inconsistent with the life that He has for me. And, finally, I had to realize, "Oh, my gosh, when I do tell my story when I do interact with people, their shame goes away. There's a freeing effect on others." And that began to be just too good, it was too good to pass up. 

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And, so, I started to realize that shame... a counselor that I saw, said that, "Three times, if you tell your shame story three times, there's a significant loss of impact upon you. That if you can bring yourself to three times telling a new person your story, that you're so ashamed of." A safe person.

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Alison: Yes, a hundred percent.

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Alli: She was of course giving me guardrails for you don't just talk to people about your stuff, not just any old person. "But if you can get to three, the grip significantly loosens." And I never forgot that, and that was very helpful for me, as I began to realize, "Okay, getting free of shame is something totally different."

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Alison: Yes, I love that. Thanks for pausing there because I know, listeners, we talk a lot about shame. And we talk a lot about the things you're saying, "Turning toward God." And I always quote Curt Thompson, in his book The soul of Shame, he calls it "Evil's vector" which is what you're saying. It's the way the enemy wants to keep us, and what I love about what you're saying is you knew you had God's forgiveness. You even had your husband's forgiveness, and shame still-

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Alli: Would not let go.

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Alison: ...and exactly what you're saying, we know it to be true, that shame thrives in isolation. So tell me, Alli, so now you have your husband's forgiveness. You have God's forgiveness. You're working through your own shame, but then we get back to this foundation. 

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So how do you then, because also I can hear people listening, or if someone's been through this, or I see this in my own practice, "So great, I've got all this forgiveness. Great, now, I'll just go back to doing the same thing I was doing." We forget so easily. 

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Alli: Yes. 

Alison: So how did you build this healthy foundation? How did just change your day-to-day, decision-by-decision way of being in the world? That's what's harder, in a way.

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Alli: That question is exactly what I write about in the book. Because what I discovered during this period of time, where everything felt like it was crumbling down around me. And I reached for God, I genuinely did. And I began to uncover what I, now, see as three, very simple, daily things that I started doing during that time. And I just didn't know, "Oh, my gosh, this is going to be helpful. This is actually going to rebuild something."

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And, so, that that is what the book is based upon. The first one is, we've already discussed, it's coming to Jesus. And if you look at coming to Him in Scripture, if you look at the people that he would say came to Him. Or His invitation when He says, "Come to me." Which He says a number of times. 

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This act of coming to Him is wholehearted, it's mind, body, and soul coming. It's laying everything down at His feet. It's the moments where you look in the mirror and you tell yourself the truth. It's the moments where you confess something you didn't think you would ever say out loud, because you know that He wants you to.

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It's the moments where you come to Him in joy, and you want to share your joy and thank Him in gratitude. It's these genuine moments between you and God, and you can't fake that. You're either coming to be with Him relationally or you're not. And you and God are the only two that know the difference. 

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Alison: Amen.

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Alli: And, so, the practice of coming to Jesus starts this whole thing. But the middle one is where I will never stop saying this for the rest of my life. What I accidentally did during this period of time in my life, which started to rebuild a foundation, was I got deeply into His Word. 

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Alison: Mh-hmm.

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Alli: I had for weeks on end, I took some time off work, and for weeks on end, I had a husband who didn't want to be with me. I didn't have any children. I had lost a bunch of friends, it really was me and God. And I started reading His Word again, and I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't a Bible scholar. I was just a person with a Bible, that was it. 

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And I would talk to Him, and I would read His Word, and I would try to understand it. And that really is the second one, which is to hear His Word. And the reason I get so excited about this one is because you really start to hear His voice. 

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God begins to be real to you, in moments when your Bible is not sitting on your lap. Because the word of God is alive, and active, and present. Because Jesus is the Living Word of God. I mean, that's what we even call Him. So as we fill ourselves with the written word, the Living Word comes to life around us, and in us, and through us all the time. 

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So, Alison, I would get these ideas of things when I wasn't reading my Bible. And I would just be like, "You know what, I think I need to go do that thing." And I would just do it. I was at the point where I had nothing to lose. If I thought it was even, maybe, God, I would do it. Because I had nothing to lose. 

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And, now, I look back on those moments where I truly didn't have anything to lose, and I was willing to experiment. I was willing to say, "I think this might be you, God, I'm just going to go with it." And, so, that brings-

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Alison: Mh-hmm, can you give me an example? 

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Alli: Oh, sure, like, there was some stuff in my house that I had gotten during the time of the affair, and it was still there. And I was like, "Why do I still have these things? They need to go." And I just had this constant feeling like, "I got to get rid of this stuff." It was just a few random things. It was like a pair of earrings, and a book, and it was just some random stuff.

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Alison: That reminded you of that period.

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Alli: Yes, that represented that period of time, whatever. And I just, again, I felt this little nudge, "Get rid of that stuff. Just get rid of it."

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Alison: Yes, it sounds almost like you went through this process. Because, without going into the details, what I hear is that there was a season, there was a period of time, where your husband was upset with you, and you were on your own.

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You went through this own self-with-God deep dive, where you're saturating yourself in God's Word. And this is the language I would use, and through that, through completely immersing yourself in God's Word, in the ocean of the word of truth, of Jesus, you came into contact with the best of who you are. The person that God really wanted you to become. 

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And, so, that wisdom, what I'm hearing is the beginning of like, "Why would I have this stuff?" It's not necessarily what we hear from God, but what I'm hearing is there was this impulse, this thing inside of you, which I would say comes from that Spirit-led place inside of you. That's now feasting on goodness, that's feasting on God. That's going, "Why would I want this stuff in my house that reminds me of this? I need to..." It was a very practical, concrete, way that you were detoxing, that you were cleansing. 

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Alli: I had this other moment where I got in my car, after work one day, and there was a Christian radio station on and I swear, Alison, I have no idea. It was almost like I nudged the dial before I got out of the car in the morning or something. I had never listened to this radio station before. It truly was like a flip of the dial when used accidentally, and it would. I know that's usually not how we tune our radios anymore.

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Alison: I'm with you.

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Alli: It was on a Christian radio station and it caught my attention. I had never listened to Christian music before. And in that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit. Again, I felt God's presence and He was like, "You need to fill yourself with something different." And from then on I couldn't help but hear, "What else would I be filling myself with?"

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It was like, "Oh, songs about bad relationships and terrible childhood, and awful breakups, and terrible sexual scenarios." And just you name it, whatever all the songs are about. And just in that one little moment, I felt like He grabbed my attention and went, "Why don't you just try filling yourself with something else? Why don't you just try filling yourself with something that's the truth, my truth for you." And that was very much how I would practice hearing His Word during that. 

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Alison: Yes, it's a practice of hearing.

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Alli: Yes, and then slowly it began to seep out of me. I always tell my kids, now, "Whatever you put in it's eventually going to come out, it just is." There's no way around that kitchen logic. What you put in there is what will eventually come out. But the last thing, which really served me well in a space where I didn't have anything to lose. And this is where the final practice, I talk about my book, I think is where a lot of people bail. 

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I think a lot of people will genuinely come to God. I think a lot of those people are willing to hear His Word, and believe it's the truth, and the last practice is where a lot of people bail because we do have things to lose, we do have lives. And the last thing is we actually have to do it. 

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We actually have to follow through on what the Word says to do, and it requires a lot of courage. It requires sometimes loss. It requires sometimes things that we're afraid of, and confessing the affair is a great example of that because I knew I needed to confess. Because nothing could ever be real without it. I couldn't live in that dissonance. But try confessing that, you know, what you're putting on the line. You know what you're putting on the line. 

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Alison: Oh that had to be so scary. 

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Alli: You know that you're putting everything that you said you cared about, and you're putting everything on the line. So, luckily, God loves it when we practice in smaller ways, too. We don't always have to be confessing affairs. But in order for your foundation to actually get firm, you must not just hear the Word, you actually have to do the word, and that's, I think, where a lot of people bail. And there's nothing magical about what I'm saying in this book. 

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What I'm doing is I'm repeating the words of Christ. Because He calls us to hear His Word and follow through on it. Not just be "Hearers of the word but doers of the word," I think is what James writes. And that is where, actually, I look back on my story and I think, "Man, it was a gift to be in a space where I had very little to lose. Because I was willing to be courageous because I was desperate." And, to be honest, it seems like a gift now. 

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There are listeners who will listen and go, "I am desperate." And, to you, I would say this is actually a beautiful place to be. Because you have the advantage of you can go all in on something, that other people will hesitate about.

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Alison: I love that. I agree with you, that's the gift of the hitting rock bottom, in a way.

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Alli: The broken.

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Alison: Yes, I hear you. As painful as it is and I don't wish it on people. But it is this weird gift of a radical invitation, to completely change your life in the way that we should all be changing our lives every day. Which brings me to this question of, how do you continue to do this work when the stakes aren't that high? 

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So, now, you're a teaching pastor, you're a mom, you're in a church. How do you keep yourself from going back to that, "I'm a good person." Again, it's more subtle, you would never theologically go there. But just that, I'm going to see it myself that bent toward entropy, that bent towards the path. How do you keep yourself, now, that you've built? Now it's been, I don't know, 20, however many years-

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Alli: It's been 22 years or something, it's been a really long time.

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Alison: ...that you've been living on a solid foundation, and I still think there's an invitation there. So there's the person that's at rock bottom and that's hard.

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Alli: No doubt.

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Alison: And there's that person that's "Mm, I'm doing okay, how do I keep solid?" And even just sometimes, I think, kind of passivity, or the path of least resistance, which still isn't doing this work. So what are you doing in your life? 

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Alli: Okay, here's what I do, I'm so glad we're talking about this. Because the same thing that will rebuild you from the deepest, darkest hole is exactly the same thing that's available to you today if you're doing great. And what I would say is you need to take risks on God. You need to take risks on God. 

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If you cannot name the last risk that you took on God, on His Word, on what He says, on who He is, on what He does. Then that is, ultimately, a succinct way to say, "This is your everyday invitation." 

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And you could be doing great right now, and there will still be a risk on God in front of you. And if you take those risks day after day, and we can talk about what some of those are. If you take those risks, day after day, you will end up on a solid foundation. 

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Alison: Interesting answers. So give me some examples, I'm curious about this, about what you picked. 

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Alli: Okay, here's one you could take this week, actually, take a day of rest. I know very few people that do that, and it's a weekly invitation that we have to trust that God will keep things moving. That He has your back, that you don't have to be a slave to your work. 

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That no one is going to hate you if you don't answer them on social media for a day. No one is going to deny their friendship with you if you turn your phone off for a few hours. But we don't actually live like we believe God. 

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Instead, we go, "I don't know, I'll try to take a nap on Sunday." This is the daily, the weekly invitation that we have for a day of rest, is a great risk to take on God. 

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I'll give you another one, money. What are you doing with your money? Are you actually giving generously? God gives us a 10%, a tithe standard. I believe firmly in the tithe because I don't even think that's mine. I think a tithe is God's, He asked us to return to Him what is His. And are you actually doing with your money what He has asked you to do? 

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Are you taking that risk on God? 

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Those are two, I think, that we are so used to thinking about as rules that we don't look at them in the context of our relationship, it's actually a risk. 

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Alison: I like how you're reframing that. It's not the legalism of it, it's not the rules of it. You're actually saying how we continue to build that foundation is to take a risk on the promises of God. It might also be having that hard conversation with somebody.

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Alli: Definitely, oh that's a good one.

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Alison: It might be saying no to somebody. It might be believing God that the lies shame is telling us, and going and telling somebody about that struggle that we're having. But I love how you're reframing that as not because of the legalistic, it's because we're betting on God, in a way. And we're keeping ourselves, there's a way in which you phrase that when you say, "Take a risk on God." It helps me, it's energizing. It's energizing our faith versus sliding into that slippery slope of whatever. 

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Alli: Here's another great one, I try to do a lot. If I think of a positive word for someone, if I have an encouragement for you, I just believe that you need to hear that and I tell you, immediately, if possible. 

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And if I lay my calendar, in front of God, and I pray over it, and there's something that feels weird about something on my calendar for the week, I get rid of it, immediately. And I say to God, "I believe this is you, if I get it wrong, who cares?"

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That's why I smile when I talk about this because this is when you find out what you need to know about God. Because I think, Alison, just like people, we deserve to trust God in a way that we know He's there. I don't think He wants to be some Santa in the sky. Where we have to close our eyes and go, "I just hope you're really there."

I actually think He wants to give you a set of personal experiences with Him, where your questions about Him are answered. Where you get to interact with Him in a way that convinces you of who He is. He is so good and so gracious to us. That He will personally convince you of Himself, and He does not need to do that. He does not need to do that.

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Alison: It's so interesting because we say these words, "It's a relationship." But if you think about any relationship that stays vital, that stays alive, a friendship, a marriage, you have to work at it. You have to come back and say, "We need to do a date night. We need to take risks. We need to keep the vitality in it." And why would it be any different with God? I love that. 

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I know sometimes I'll go through a period where I maybe I feel a little less connected to the vitality of that relationship. And inevitably, one of the things I'll do, I'll make a list of questions that I can't figure out the answers.

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What am I supposed to do with this part of my life? Or how am I supposed to...? And I'll make a list of questions that I'm like, "I'm going to just keep..." It's like the persistent widow, "I'm going to keep going to God with these questions."

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Rarely, for me, do I hear a like lightning bolt in the sky. But, inevitably, if I keep at it, if I chip away, and I read, and I point myself toward trying, inevitably, God shows up in some way, usually, in a surprising way. 

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But I hear that what you're saying. I like that idea of it's never how I expect or sometimes it is, but it always makes me laugh. There's always that inside joke with God, it's like, "Oh, right, there you are God." But that's the fruit of the long game with God. 

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Alli: Yes.

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Alison: You take those risks, strategically, and I love what you're saying. You're saying something that's really nuanced here, it's not that we're testing God. It's not that we're expecting God to be a genie in a bottle. It's, "I might be wrong, I might take this risk." And maybe God is like, "Actually, that was stupid, you shouldn't." But then that's going to course-correct too, it doesn't matter.

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Alli: Yes, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. Here's the beautiful thing when you say to God and I've done this, this is how I talk to Him sometimes. And I will say to Him, "Hey, I think this is you, and I got to move on this in the next three hours. So I'm going to do this thing and if it's not you, I'd really appreciate you intervening before then but I'm going. At 3 p.m. I got to go." 

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And, so, I will deal with Him the way that I would with anyone else, trusting that, number one He can intervene anytime, anywhere He wants. And number two, if I get it wrong, guess what? I'm going to get the same set of information about God that I would have gotten if I got it right. 

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Alison: Yes.

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Alli: What I'm going to do is I'm going to meet God in the middle of whatever goes down here, and that's what I want. 

Alison: That's right.

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Alli: That's what gets you to the foundation. 

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Alison: That's right, that's the relationship. And you'll also, my guess is, you're going to, for the most part, stay within your wisdom. And we're not saying go and buy a lottery ticket.

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Alli: Yes, we're not talking about Vegas roulette kind of risk here. We're talking about a risk where you go, "I know your character. I understand your Word, and to the best of my ability I am going to follow, and here's what it looks like and I'm just going to move." 

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And many of us drop off at that point because what we've been taught to do, as good Christians, in many cases is, "Wait for confirmation." We're going to pray and we're going to wait." I am pro waiting, if that's the season that I'm in. There are seasons of waiting, there are times when waiting is appropriate. But I would say most of the time, where you interact with God is as you go, and we are so afraid to get it wrong. We are just so afraid to get it wrong. 

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And I'm telling you when I've screwed it up, I've learned to laugh. And I've learned to appreciate the wisdom that I get in those times I take risks, and I'm like, "I guess that was just me." I wrote about a couple of them in the book. 

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Alison: You're touching on, it's so interesting, Alli, again, this is sort of where you and I are two sides of the same coin. Because this is where in The Best of You, in chapter 10, I write about this idea of spiritual co-dependency where we want to hide. We want God to give us big bold letters in the sky, and really what I'm trying to say it's a partnership. 

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We step out with God and that's what you're saying. It's like, "I have some wisdom, it's a little bit scary." It's living courageously from the best of who God's made us to become, bringing God with us, though. 

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I have a quote that says, "God directs a person in motion." And that's what you're saying, that's the taking a risk part, taking a risk on God. And what I love about what you're saying is it might be taking a risk. I'm thinking about, there are times where to be honest with God about how scared we are, or about how crummy we feel about this thing we have to do, that kind of thing. 

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There are so many ways that works out, but I love what you're seeing there is a lot of movement. There's some pragmatism to it, there are some actions, some concrete steps. And, again, what I sense in you, and I can see it in your face, and I can feel it oozing out of you is this freedom.

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And that's like there's freedom, it's like, "I can't lose. How can I lose? Because, regardless, I'm going to learn about God, I'm going to learn about myself." And that's the fruit of that solid foundation that you're talking about. 

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Alli: The picture of maturity, to me, in a Christ follower is the ability to use freedom. Because, ultimately, God calls us to be free and He tells us to keep in step with His Spirit, 

and He wants us to use His wisdom. And what He wants us to live, and work, and move, and be in relationship with you as you live in the fullness of who He is. 

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And so, for me, the perfect picture of maturity in Christ is actually the ability to use the freedom that you have in Christ. And because part of that, it goes back to the second practice, is we submit to His Word. Because freedom does not look like you do whatever you want, whenever you want. 

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Freedom is somebody who understands there is a God who loves me, and who has a way that He has designed life to work. And if I willfully step outside of that I can use my freedom like that, or I can use my freedom to actually bind myself to Him. 

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And then in that, I get to do some incredible things that I never thought possible. Because then I get His life, and I get His power, and I get His love for other people. And I get to do and be things I never thought I could do or be. 

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Believe me, Alison, when I was 23 years old, crumbled up in a heap, I never imagined I would be courageous. I never imagined I would describe myself as a true Christ follower. Again, I thought I had given up that right to even call myself a Christian. I thought I was totally unworthy and definitely marked for life. 

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And I will say to your listeners, who are anywhere around that space, I know that there have been people that have come to you and they've actually told you those things. And it makes it that much harder to believe that you could ever be something else, and I'm telling you, you can absolutely be something else. And not only that you have a God who's anxiously awaiting your restoration. 

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And, so, I love being able to, in a very simple, practical life-giving way, say to other people, "Hey there, there is a living God, and there's actually a way that you can interact with Him that will make your life strong and make it work."

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Even if that means periods of pain, and periods of weakness, and periods of failure, and all of that kind of stuff, too, you are with Him in it. And, therefore, your life has a strength, and a gravity, that you can never access without Him. That is my deepest heart for this book is to make the way plain, because I don't think it's hard. I think when we come to Jesus when we fill ourselves with His Word, and we actually do what it says. 

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Suddenly, you become someone new, and you look back over your shoulder and go, "What in the world? I'm different than I used to be." And I don't know anyone with a faith that I love and respect, who even if they use different words, doesn't actually practice these three practices. 

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Alison: Yes.

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Alli: That doesn't actually do these three things. 

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Alison: I love that, Alli, it's such a great message, you do such a good job of weaving this realness into it. This realness of your own life. It's called How to Stay Standing, tell our listeners how to get a hold of the book, and how to Get a hold of your resources? Some of the things that they can find when they look you up. 

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Alli: Yes, so you can find How to Stay Standing anywhere that books are available. There will also be an audiobook, so if you don't like to read visually, you'll be able to get the audiobook as well. And if you go to my website, it's theallipatterson.com or you follow me on social media. I often post other Bible studies I've created, free resources like prayer guides, audio guides. 

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I love creating resources to help you connect with God through Scripture. I love doing short studies that are really easy to digest and easy ways to connect with God, through Scripture and prayer. There are lots of things that are super accessible, if you check out my website or follow me on social, there's always stuff there.

Alison: Your energy and your vitality is just super infectious. And there's a living witness to what you're describing with words, so I appreciate that. I appreciate you coming here. And I want to just close, Alli, with these questions that I ask all my guests. What or who is bringing out the best of you right now? And what needs or desires are you working to protect?

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Alli: Okay, similar answer on one front to both. What brings out the best of me is when I carve out time to be alone. I desperately need silence. Sometimes if I sit in the quiet, I feel silence is healing. It ministers to me in a way that nothing else does, and that brings out the best of me, and I do have to fight for that. 

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As you might imagine, I'm a mom of four kids, and I have a job, and I have a book, and all kinds of other things going on with that. So I have to fight for that, and I have to protect my need for that. And I've learned to stop apologizing for that. I will not apologize for needing that. 

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And who brings out the best of me? For sure, right now, it is my husband and my four kids, because I cannot look at them and not be grateful to God for what He's done in my life. I mean, as you might imagine, my marriage has had bumps because of our early days. It is not an easy road; we have not traveled an easy road. You don't go through a story like that, and get out unscathed. 

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But when I think, "Wow, I love him and we have fun together, 23 years later, this is incredible." And the kids are just the fruit of that as well. And, so, I think when I am around them, I'm usually bathed in gratitude for it because I'm very clear that I didn't actually deserve it. That it all came to me by the grace of God and He is responsible for that. So that's how I feel when I'm around them. So they're my favorite humans and they, definitely, bring out the best of me. 

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Alison: I love that. Again, the gift of rock bottom is gratitude, and when we turn toward God and allow Him to reshape and reclaim our lives. So what a beautiful way to end.

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Thank you so much, Alli, for just sharing your story, sharing your wisdom, creating these resources. I so appreciate you and all that you're putting into the world and look forward to just all the ways you're going to minister to and bless so many people. 

Alli: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I treasure our friendship, so I really appreciate you. Thank you

‍

Today on The Best of You Podcast, we're talking about detoxing from the false beliefs that keep us stuck in unhealthy patterns of relating to other people. These hidden messages are sneaky. They might sound true in the moment, but they keep us from the healthy two-way relationships we need. I also answer your questions, and provide sample scripts for communicating in healthy ways with other people.

‍

Here's what we discuss:

1. Examples of toxic thinking

2. How it contaminates our relationships

3. An example of toxic thinking from the Bible

4. How to re-frame toxic thoughts

‍

Plus, I answer your questions:

How do I communicate with other people about what I'm going through?

Can spiritual bypassing become a form of numbing?

‍

Thanks to our sponsor:

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

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

• For more on The 7 Red Flags of Friendship and Spiritual Bypassing, see Chapters 8 and 10 of The Best of You, by Dr. Alison Cook
• Episode 1: What Is Narcissism Really?
• Episode 2: What Should I Know About Gaslighting?
• Episode 35: Change is Hard–Why We All Need to Detox From Unhealthy Dependencies From Time to Time
• Episode 36: An Update on My Social Media Detox & How to Create Boundaries With Toxic Distractions, Numbing, & Unhealthy Coping Tactics
• 2 Samuel 11-12
• John 14:15-17
• Galatians 5:22-23
• Philippians 4:7
• Resources for support

Today's episode is a real-time update on my own social media detox and how what started as a pause revealed a deeper need. I also lay out a practical framework for you to use in sorting out the distractions, numbing, or unhealthy coping tactics in your life and how to replace them with the life-giving, soul-nourishing things you actually crave.

‍

Here's what we cover:

1. What my own detox revealed about my use of social media

2. A roadmap for how to pinpoint areas in your own life that might need a detox

3. Healthy ways to escape, soothe, or find comfort

4. What is the difference between a fast and a detox?

5. Can I find a healthy balance with certain distractions?

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

• Organifi -Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today.
• Brooklinen-Visit Brooklinen.com today and use code BESTOFYOU to save.
• Hiya Health-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.

‍

Resources

• Also in this series: Episode 35: Change is Hard-Why We All Need to Detox From Unhealthy Dependencies From Time to Time
• For more on how to "Start with Yes" see Chapter 6 of The Best of You, by Dr. Alison Cook
• So Worth Loving
• 1 Corinthians 10:23
• Matthew 4:1-11
• My Tech-Wise Life, by Andy Crouch
• The Tech-Wise Family, by Andy Crouch
• Psalm 16:6-8‍
• Resources for support

‍

Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Best of You podcast. I am so glad you're back and that we get to continue this conversation, about how to detox, specifically, how to detox mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When we've cluttered up our lives with sometimes even good things. 

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So, today's episode is a first for me, but I need to share with you a real-time update on my own detox, from the last few months. It directly relates to this topic, and I want to share that update with you as an example, as an illustration, of what can happen if you decide to remove something, from your life, that you suspect might be causing, unnecessary, clutter, noise, even toxicity in your own nervous system, in your own mind, in your own heart, in your own soul. 

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So I've got a real-time example from my own life, and then I'm going to give you some really practical resources and tips for you, as you seek to, potentially, detox from something. And, more importantly, move toward the life-giving, nourishing good things your heart, mind, and soul need.

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All right, so here's my update. Sometimes a detox is a brief timeout to reboot and reset, and then you pick that thing back up. 

So it's an opportunity to hit the reset button so that you can gain clarity or wisdom, about how you use that thing. But then you pick that thing back up from a healthier place; with moderation, with perspective, with healthier boundaries around it. 

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However, sometimes a detox reveals a deeper dependency, that it's going to need a more substantive shift. It becomes less like a reset, like a pause, "I paused, I got some perspective. I got some clarity. Now, I'm just, basically, going back to my life as it was, but it was really helpful to have that time away from that thing."

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It's less of that and more like a shift. And when I think of a shift, I think of a ship, like a big ship, out on the ocean where it's been going in one direction. And ever so slowly and ever so steadily, it actually needs to shift the entire body of that ship to move in a different direction. 

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And this is what I mean by a more substantive shift, that suddenly this detox revealed a dependency. That actually once you remove it, it's going to change the whole way that ship had been going. Such that even if it's a tiny degree, it's not like it's doing a U-turn, it's just changing a couple of degrees to the left or the right. 

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It requires a more substantial change all the way through, again, your mind, your heart, your soul, and your nervous system. And you may not have even known it going into that detox. You're going to need, completely, different boundaries with the thing from which you detoxed. And that, it turns out, is what the case is with me. As I mentioned in last week's episode, episode 35, I started a detox from social media in November of 2022, about six weeks ago. 

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This was an information overload detox. I was noticing that when I went on social media, nothing really good was coming from it. Instead, I was just noticing this clamor, this din in my heart, soul, and mind. 

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So I took the time off, as I discussed last week, and really did notice a change. Noticed a slowing down, a calmer nervous system, just a lot of health that came from that time away. And I was super grateful for it, but I still wasn't considering the possibility that I wouldn't go back on. I just assumed that once the six weeks were up, I would resume my regular practices with social media. That had been the plan. 

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So last week I scheduled my first post. It was in conjunction with the last week's podcast episode. I scheduled it through a third-party app that I use. I work with two amazing women through an organization called So Worth Loving. They design my words, it's my words but I am terrible with design, as I've mentioned on this podcast. 

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I'm great with words, not so great with making things pretty. So they take my words and make them pretty and post them through this app. So I don't have to go on social media to create the post and schedule it. 

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So I'd scheduled the post, and I knew that it was coming out on Thursday. I had deleted all of my social media apps off my phone. 

And every day, leading up to Thursday, knowing that post was going to come out, I could not bring myself to put those apps back on my phone. I just couldn't do it. Nothing in my body wanted to do that. So the post went out Thursday morning, many of you saw it, but I still had yet to download the apps and go back on social media myself. 

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Now this created some tension inside of me and I want to pause here, just as a side note. A lot of people, especially bigger names and brands that have hundreds of thousands of people following them. A lot of those people pay other people to post for them. They may use a service to post for them, it's very common. That's not an uncommon thing. 

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Typically, you might think you're interacting with a celebrity or even an author, but a lot of times it is someone else. And some people disclose this by noting, in the comments, that they're writing on behalf of the person, that they're part of their team.

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Sometimes you don't know. There's nothing wrong with that per se. I've just never done it that way. I've pretty much done it myself. So if it's me on there commenting or interacting with you, it's me, and that feels important to me. That's a part of me feeling authentic. So it felt very weird, to me, to have a post out there and not actually be on the app. 

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And, again, it's a minor thing, I don't think anybody has a problem with that. But, to me, that brought up some tension inside because that's not how I've ever done it. But I could not get myself to download those apps. I just didn't want to go back on. 

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It was fine with me that the scheduled post had posted. I wanted people to know about the podcast episode. I want to use that as a place for people to know about the work that I'm doing. I'm excited about that. I want people to listen to the podcast. I want you to share it with friends. I want it to be available to people. I believe in it. But I just couldn't get myself to download those apps. 

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So, finally, I decided to test it. I went in through my browser, on my computer, instead of through the app. So this is actually a way that I had created, sort of an obstacle for myself. I'll talk about that more later in the episode. But when you have a square on your phone. Your phone is with you all the time. It's just so easy to click that square, you're immediately in that portal. There's no obstacle to it. 

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But by not having the apps on my phone, I had to go to my computer, log into my browser, put the URL on my browser to get the feed up on my screen. It's a lot harder to do, and that's one of the ways that I have created boundaries with it in the past. 

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So I used my browser to log on, on Thursday, to test it out. Talking myself through it, this inner tension, a part of me being like, "I need to be on social media, I said, I was going to go back. But do you really have to go back? Why do you have to go back?" 

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There was all this inner noise inside of me. And the first thing I saw was a picture of a friend. Someone I love, someone I have only positive feelings toward. 

And I instantly noticed my nervous system amp up. It felt like a hit of adrenaline, and all that noise started to swirl back into my mind. The clamor, the comparison, the criticism, the competitiveness, just the noise.

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And I just immediately got back out, I couldn't continue. I tried it again, later that day, this time I saw someone whose podcast I listened to. I don't know this person in real life, I love their podcast, listen to it almost every week. But just seeing the post on social media, it was like my whole nervous system just froze. It's like, "I can't do it. I'm out."

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Something about just the level, the sheer level, of noise, of information, of data. The dancing swirling lights of all that comes with the Feed, with the social media Feed, just obliterated that sense of calm in about 30 seconds or less by just simply looking. 

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And other deeper voices started to emerge. "I don't want that."

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"I don't need that."

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"Why do I need that?"

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"Do I have to have that?"

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"Do I have to be here?"

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"Why can't I just say no?" Now, spoiler alert, my word of the year, this year, is no. I need to give myself permission to say no to things. It's not a word I like to use. In fact, I have friends who tease me that if I say, "Maybe" that means no. I hate saying no. So I'm learning how to say no. All of this was stirred up inside of me, Thursday.

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And as much as every part of me was like, "No, I don't have to do this." Other parts of me were nervous. When you're an author, you're supposed to show up online. You're supposed to have a presence. 

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But where was that pressure really coming from? It hasn't come from you all, my listeners. Every time I've talked about boundaries I've needed to set or every time I've posted about needing to take a break from social media. The people who follow my work, you all, this community, people who are on my email list are nothing but supportive saying, "I get it."

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"Me too, I've had to go off social media."

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"Good for you, do what you need to do."

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Nobody in my real life or in this community has given me pressure to be on social media. But somewhere in my mind was this idea of "This is what I'm supposed to do. I'm an author, I'm a podcast host, I should have a presence on social media."

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And I began to realize that this particular detox was not a simple reset. This was going to have to be a shift. It was going to create more change than I originally thought. And I began to think about new boundary lines. 

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Now, this is real-time, this happened in about three days, but I began to take my own advice. I talk about it in chapter six from The Best of You, "When you realize you're going to need new boundary lines, to start with, 'Yes'". And the big question that I needed to be able to answer yes to is what can I say yes to?

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I want to stay connected with people. I want to stay connected with the people who follow my work. I want to stay connected with friends. I want to stay connected with colleagues, with other thought leaders who I enjoy. I want to stay connected. That was a clear yes. But on the other hand, my body is saying, "No, I cannot do this scrolling." And it really was very clear. It was just the dancing, blaring lights of all the information overload that I had to say no to. 

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So over the course of the few days, what became very clear to me, and it was really a result of the whole two months, was, oh, my goodness, what I learned was, I love this podcast. I love hosting it. I love preparing for it. I love engaging your questions that you send me through the Doc, through comments, through emails. 

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I love the private book club community we just started on Facebook, it was life-giving to me. I enjoyed logging on. It was easy for me to set healthy boundaries for it. I have some help doing it. It didn't feel like information overload. I love reaching out to friends I've actually made online, personally. I have other ways that I can get to those people. I could still stay connected in all of those ways. 

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None of those things stirred up the same noise, the clamor, the dancing lights of too much. It wasn't the people or the community. It wasn't the ideas, it was the scrolling Feed, that never ending dancing, blaring lights, ping, ping, ping, so much overload to my system. 

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It's just too much for the way God has made me. It's too much for the way my nervous system is wired. There are good things about being someone who's highly sensitive, highly intuitive, highly empathetic. Highly responsible to the information I take in. Those are good qualities, and they are not super conducive to a really active social media Feed. It's too much for me. 

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My body wasn't saying no to the good aspects of connecting in various ways. But it was saying no to the cacophony and clamor of noise in my Feed. Of getting all that information in one blast, without any boundaries. On when I could receive it, and pace it, and be fully present to the information I was receiving in a way that honors both the other person and honors me. That allows me to show up, authentically, in the way that God made me. 

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I had lunch with a friend, over Christmas, and she said it much more simply. She's not someone who's on social media a lot, but she said one day she realized, "I often have this ugh feeling in my mind, heart, and soul. And when I took time to trace that, ugh, feeling back, so frequently, it went back to something I saw on social media. Either something that just triggered me or something that I now knew that I didn't have any ability to help with." Yes, that was me. 

There's a lot of hard things in life we've got to learn to respond to wisely, that we don't have control over. This was something I do have control over. So I'm making a shift, the shift in real time is that you'll see posts from me, on social media, from time to time, much less frequently. These posts will relate to this podcast or things I've written that I want you to know about.

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But I won't be hanging out on my Feed personally. 

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This simple boundary, it's small but it's something that will, exponentially, improve my own emotional, mental, and spiritual health. 

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Healing work is almost always boundaries work.You figure out what you want to say yes to. And that backs you into the very clear thing that you can set a boundary with, to keep your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health intact. 

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[00:17:10] < Music >

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[00:19:43] < Music >

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Alison: I want to walk you through a map for how you might engage your own work of detoxing. Especially in this technology information stuff category. Just this stuff that clutters up our hearts, souls, and mind. Last week I taught you to ask yourself the question, "What is the cost?"

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Whenever you are trying to make a change in your life, what is the cost?

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This week, as you think about getting specific about how to slow down your nervous system. How to detox or declutter some of the noise in your life, that is keeping you from calm, clear, grounded, brave ways of showing up in your everyday life. I want to give you a framework; number one, name it. Name the thing that you suspect, at this moment in time, is keeping you distracted, cluttered, even in some unhealthy ways of coping. 

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Now, when you name something, you do so without shame. You name it without shame. For me November, early November, it's social media, I see it. Every time I hit that app, nothing good happens. So name it without shame. 

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Get really granular about it. Is it the app on your phone? Is it a habit of buying things? What is the portal into this clutter, this distraction? This dependence on something else that's taking you off or away from this beautiful life God has for you?

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Imagine that ship, that's just a little bit off, maybe, it's not even a U-turn. But it just is a little bit off, what's that thing? Just take a moment, reflect on it, pray about it, and name it. What is that thing that is stirring up any of those three Cs of clamor, of comparison, of criticism, of yourself or others, of competitiveness in an unhealthy way inside of you?

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Number two, frame it. So we're going to name it, then we're going to frame it. And when I think of framing it, I think of the four sides of a picture frame. We're going to try to get the big picture here, to get some context on this thing. And the four sides of that picture frame are four question words. Number one, why? Why do you depend on it? 

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Maybe you're bored, tired, sad, needing a legitimate escape. Maybe you're feeling stressed, overwhelmed. And, so, it's so easy just to grab that quick fix, instant feel-good thing. Why do you depend on it? 

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Number two, when do you turn to it? That'll also give you a clue to your why. Is that at night; when you're tired, when you're lonely, when you're stressed, when you're worried? When are you turning to it? So there's the why and the when, and see if that'll help you frame this thing that you're wanting to detox from.

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Number three, how? How do you access it? Is it an app? Is it technology? Is it a phone? Is it a store that you go into? Is it a friend that you call that isn't actually healthy? We're going to get into that next week, unhealthy relational dependencies. 

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How does this come up for you? 

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Is it a location? 

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Is it a group that you're a part of? That you're just noticing stirs up a clamor, a cacophony inside of you, that isn't helpful to you. 

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And number four, this is key, what healthier option might be available to you? Because, as we discussed last week, these things, these distractions, these numbing devices, these coping strategies are serving a purpose. We need something, and parts of us have learned to rely on this thing to meet that need. But there might be a better way to meet that need.

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For example, over the past two months when I was not on social media, my body started to shift, almost, imperceptively to me. I've noticed it far more in the last week. When I've realized I don't want to be scrolling because I've discovered, oh, my goodness, so much more life-giving beautiful, healthy things for my system, instead of scrolling mindlessly.

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I began to recover a joy in books, imagine that reading a book before bed. Good movies, I hadn't watched a movie in so long and a really good, beautiful, well-told story that could transport me for an hour, 90 minutes, when I needed to decompress. When I needed my mind to log off in a healthy way, I could lose myself in a story through a movie, through a book, that actually gave me that escape that I needed.

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I began to remember the way that I used to rely on thinkers, from time to time. By getting their book, or by listening to a podcast, or watching a documentary. I can pace the information intake in those ways. I could both hear and be heard, with friends, when I picked up the phone versus engaging them through social media. And I began to think about, and I want to offer this to you today, three primary categories, for this question of what is a healthier option available to you? 

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The first is beauty, movies, art, nature, music. These are all forms of beauty. We need beauty. We need to be transported into other places in our minds, sometimes. Animals are another thing that can be beautiful, I've put animals under nature. Those of you who get outside with animals, with horses, with dogs, whatever it is, these nourish us and they give us healthy escape. 

Category number two, connection, talking to friends in a healthy way about what we're feeling, about what's worrying us. Finding a group, it's hard when you're lonely. It's hard to get out there and do the work of finding a therapist, finding a support group, finding a small group. But maybe that's the good work that our hearts, souls, and minds need. 

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And then category number three, rest. Because so much of these distraction, and numbing, and coping things, that sneak in, come in when we're tired and we need rest. And scrolling through a Feed is not giving my soul, heart, and mind the rest that I need. 

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And I don't know what it is for you, but I do want to say this rest is not just sleeping. It's not just taking a nap. It's quiet. It's a calm nervous system. It's awareness. It's noticing what feels restful to you. It might be a slow walk. It might be dancing, moving your body in a fun, creative way. There's a million things it could be, when we slow ourselves down enough to pay attention.

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So we're naming the thing that we need a break from. We're framing it; why we use it, when we use it, how we use it, and what might be a healthier option instead of it, at least, for a little while. And then number three, we're going to tame it. And by taming it, we go into action. We've done the pre-work, we've thought about it, we've named it. We have these coping tactics for a reason. So it's going to take a minute to see, and discover, what those good things are that you need.

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So, now, it's time we've backed into it to remove the item for a specific period of time. Now, if you've relied on this thing for a while, go slowly, maybe just start with a day. Say, "I'm going to see what a day is like, and I'm going to do this differently." Just one day.

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Maybe you start with one week. Just one week, "I'm going to see what my life is like without this thing I've named. And I'm going to experiment, and notice, and ask myself what feels different, what feels good?" It takes a little bit to notice that. And then at the end of that set period of time. You're going to ask yourself, "Is this something I can use in moderation, in a healthy way?"

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Or "Is this something I need to continue to take a break from? This might be something that isn't healthy, for me, at all, and I'm going to need more time away from it."

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As Paul says in Corinthians, "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything is edifying." This is about learning moderation, and this is also about discovering the deeper root of comfort, of pleasure, of real nourishment that our souls crave.

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It's about uncovering those cheap substitutes and uncovering the goodness that we all need. It's going to be different for all of us. It's going to be different for all of us. For me, it happened to be the dancing, blaring lights of social media. It may be something different for you. 

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Now, I want to close today by responding to a couple of your questions. Number one, Michelle asked, "What is the difference between a fast and a detox?" And this is a great question. I'm so glad you asked it. 

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A fast is really a spiritual practice. It's a giving up something to remind yourself to turn toward God. Jesus fasted from food for 40 days in the wilderness. He took away a good thing, a good source of nourishment, as a way to grow spiritually deeper and deeper in His dependence on God the Father. 

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So when we fast, we tend to model after Jesus. Typically, it's food, different people have different ideas about that. But the idea is you remove something, primarily, to seek prayer and seek greater dependence on God. So there's an overlap there. 

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We want to include God in this process of a detox. Absolutely, this has been a deeply spiritual journey for me. But a detox is a little bit different; you're identifying something that's a distraction. A source of numbing, an unhealthy dependence, an unhealthy way of coping. In order to discover a healthier way of finding the comfort, the beauty, the connection, the real rest your heart, soul, mind, and body need. 

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So a detox is about learning to realign yourself, your whole system, so that you are moving in the right direction. Imagine that ship, that is just subtly gotten off course and it needs to reorient itself in a healthier, better way. 

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Another question that came in from Lisa, "When I think about detoxing, I think about cutting something out of my life entirely. But what if the thing isn't actually bad and is possibly even a good thing. But it's the way the thing is being used that is causing the problem."

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It's a great question, Lisa gave the example of exercise. I know folks who can depend, in unhealthy ways, on cleaning. But it can really become a distraction for people, some otherwise good things. And I would just offer you some thoughts on moderation. 

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One of the tips I would offer you is this idea of just getting into that framing. The why, the when, the how. The why, the when, and the how you're using that thing? And then what's something you could turn toward instead? 

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So let's say you do the exercise, or you do the good thing, or maybe you're on social media. And you do that for the prescribed amount of time that feels healthy and right to you. But then you're still tempted to do it above and beyond that for XYZ reasons. What's something else you could do instead? And that's going to depend a lot on that, "Why". 

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Is it because you're tired? 

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Is it because you are sad? 

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Is it because you are worried? 

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Is that why you're turning to that thing more than you should? And if that's the case, think of those categories. What are other outlets for this worry, this stress, this tiredness, that I'm feeling that helps me to connect myself into God. Connection, do I need comfort? 

Do I need the comfort of a listening ear?

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And then rest; do I need to actually downshift my nervous system instead of up shifting it? 

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Do I actually maybe need to take a slow walk? To invite a friend to walk with me so I don't overdo it?

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So, again, getting back to that framing so that you learn what is at the root of it, and what is something you could replace that impulse with? So, as we close, I want to offer you just a couple of practical tools. I recommend two books by Andy Crouch one is called; My Tech-Wise Life: Growing Up and Making Choices in a World of Devices. 

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And the other is his book, The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place. Those are two great resources if you are struggling with information overload, and need to set some healthy boundaries with it. 

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I also want to just close with the words of the psalmist who said, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night, my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." 

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Take the Lord with you into this journey and the boundary lines will fall in pleasant places. I am amazed at what God has done in my life through a simple decision I made in mid-November. There's more to it that I haven't even scratched the surface of it, on this podcast episode. 

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God honors our small, brave steps. He will honor a small, brave step you take to move away from what distracts you and toward what brings you the good things, the nourishment, the comfort, the delight, the joy, the real nourishment, your mind, heart, soul, and body crave.

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[00:36:02] < Outro >

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Alison: Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Best of You. Be sure to check out the show notes for any resources and links mentioned in the show. You can find those on my website at dralisoncook.com. That's Alison with one L- cook.com.

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Before you forget, I hope you'll follow the show now so that you don't miss an episode. And I'd love it if you go ahead and leave a review, it helps so much to get the word out. 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 on The Best of You Podcast, we're digging into the hidden dependencies that creep in and keep us from the good things we need. The New Year tends to be a time of hope. We sense the possibility of change and are energized to set goals. But so often we move forward without first addressing the hidden dependencies that thwart our best efforts.

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Here's what we discuss in today's episode:

1. Why we all need to "detox" from time to time

2. Examples of "good things" we can start to depend on in unhealthy ways

3. The role of pleasure, comfort, and healthy escape

4. The essential question to ask yourself before you consider introducing any change

5. What I learned by going offline for 6 weeks

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp -Go to www.betterhelp.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 10% off your first month!
• Organifi -Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today!

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

• Detox - " a regimen or treatment intended to remove toxins and impurities from the body." (Merriam Webster Dictionaries).
• The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis
• John 12:24-25
• Ecclesiastes 3
• Too Much Information, Too Little Time: How the Brain Separates Important from Unimportant Things in Our Fast-Paced Media World
• The surprising, science-backed value of boredom at work‍
• Resources for support

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone and Happy New Year, and welcome back to The Best of You podcast. I'm so glad you're here to join me this 2023. I love the new year. I love the opportunity to look back and also look ahead. 

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Personally, I'm coming off of almost two months of being completely offline. I started with going off social media, but it really led to so much more awareness in my own life. Which led me right into the series that we're going to launch today. Three Ways That You Might Need to Consider Detoxing Your Heart, Soul, and Mind. In order to create space for the good things you crave. 

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Before we dive in, I want to remind you that I am hosting a free, six-week book club. Based on my new book, The Best of You, it starts Monday the ninth. We'll go through two chapters a week.

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You'll get daily prompts to discuss in community, with hundreds of others, hundreds of you have already signed up. 

And I will be joining you live each week with bonus content, as well as to answer questions. So you can find all the information you need to sign up in the episode show notes for this episode or at my website; dralisoncook.com/book.

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It's going to be a great opportunity to go through the book together. In fact, if you'd like to read the book with your friends. If you have an existing book club, or small group that you want to bring into this private community with you. My publisher has set up a special page, just for this group, where you can get two free books plus, free shipping, when you buy three. 

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So that's, essentially, five books for the price of three. That's 40% off the price, and you'll find the link for that deal in the episode show notes, or when you go sign up at dralisoncook.com/book.

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All right, let's dive into Three Ways to detox your mental, emotional, and spiritual health. So as I said, this topic is coming directly out of my own life, these past few months. I've really been sort of systematically decluttering aspects of my life since mid-November. 

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This is a practice I've circled back to, regularly, in my own life over the last decade. And I want to share with you some of the things I've learned. So to start off with; what is a detox? Well, Merriam-Webster, the dictionary, defines a detox as, "A regimen intended to remove toxins from the body." Now, typically, this term is used in the context of a substance dependence. 

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So for example, if you're someone who has struggled with any sort of dependence on alcohol or a drug, you know what it's like when you finally remove that substance. Or maybe you've loved someone that has gone through something like that, it's really hard. 

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Your body has learned to depend on that substance. So when you remove it, your body starts to want it even more. You need a period of time to allow your body to adjust to not having that substance anymore. As you, simultaneously, are developing healthier ways of coping. 

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Because, here's the thing, whether it's a substance or whether it's another distraction. And I'm going to get into the other ways that many of us, who don't deal with substance abuse. But deal with other emotional, spiritual, and mental coping tactics and distractions, whatever the source of it is, we cope for a reason. 

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Even when we use unhealthy strategies. Even when we rely on things that aren't good for us or might even be harming us in subtle or not so subtle ways. So this idea of a detox is a metaphor, for I'm not going to be talking about substance detoxing. That's a different podcast episode. 

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I'm talking about what happens, in our lives mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, when we start to depend on unhealthy ways of coping. Change, any change is a two-front approach. It involves number one, disentangling from the old way of coping. The way that's not serving you anymore. While, simultaneously, number two, introducing new ways of healthier and more, truly, nourishing coping.

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We all need to cope, but we slowly, and subtly, can pick up some of these old ways that don't serve us and that aren't healthy for us anymore. Let me give you some examples. 

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All right, these are the most common ways that I see in my life, and in the lives of the people with whom I work, and in the research that I've done. That we slowly start to depend on unhealthy ways of coping. 

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Number one, we can turn to food as a way to numb our feelings.

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Number two, we can escape or distract ourselves through the incessant accessibility we have to entertainment, to social media. To all of the, readily, just at a touch of a fingertip, ways that we have to access other worlds on our phones, any devices that we have. 

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Number three, through what we often call over-functioning. And by that what I mean is using your, quote-unquote, high-functioning skills. Such as pleasing others, meeting needs, getting your task list done. 

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All of these quote-unquote high-functioning ways can become distractions. They can become unhealthy coping tactics. Where we start to depend on this hit that we get from helping someone else, from getting through a to-do list. From getting the work done and avoid the real nourishment that we actually need. 

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And number four, another really quick-fix distraction that we can start to turn toward is overspending. It's the credit card, it's the things. Whether they're inexpensive things or expensive things, whatever it is. Where we can clutter up our lives with that quick hit of a thing, that comes in and just makes us feel a little bit better in the moment. 

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Now, listen, none of these things are bad in and of themselves. That's why this is hard. We need good food. We need to escape from time to time through entertainment. Social media can be really helpful, if you're going through a season of loneliness, and it's a way to feel more connected. 

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Pleasing others, meeting needs, getting the work done, good things. Even purchasing things, creating order in your home, books. There's all sorts of ways, if you're artistic, there are ways that these are all serving a good purpose. 

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However, in this day and age of instant accessibility, we can get what we want whenever we want it. These things have a way of creeping in and starting to clutter up our hearts, minds, and souls. 

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We do need pleasure, we need creativity, we need comfort. We need to escape from time to time, again, these are not bad things. God designed us to experience pleasure, enjoyment, delight in the world around us. 

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But what I'm trying to tease out in this series is this. We have to become aware of the ways that even good things can become false substitutes, for the actual real nourishment we need.

These old ways of coping, of numbing, of even trying to comfort ourselves in the moment can be surprisingly sneaky, and surprisingly persistent. And this is why regular seasons of detox are needed. 

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C. S. Lewis has a wonderful quote, where he talks about desire. Because at the root of so much of these activities is desire. We want to feel better. We want more energy. We want to feel closer to other people. We want beauty. We want to create something good, these are good desires. And here's what C.S. Lewis says about when desire gets contaminated by too much of these counterfeit, these imposter substitutes. 

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"We are half-hearted creatures," Lewis says. "Fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies, in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." That's from CS Lewis.

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And I want to reiterate that there's no shame in this. The mud pies that we've settled for, whether it's the food, or the social media scroll, or the buying of things, there's a good thing at the root of that. 

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And, so, we want to be gentle with ourselves. This series is not about becoming machines of rigid self-denial, that is not the goal. It's actually about learning to detox what's not working, what's a counterfeit, what's a cheap substitute. In order to discover the true nourishment, the true comfort, the deep-down good pleasure that your heart, soul, and mind actually were designed to enjoy. 

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This is a process, not a one-time event. And it gets at Jesus' words, in John 12, which I unpack in chapter two of The Best of You. This idea that dying to ourselves or denying ourselves, is not an end in and of itself. 

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It's denying old ways of doing things that aren't serving us anymore. That aren't giving us the life that God, actually, wants for us. So that we can move toward the new ways, the good things, that we all need and that we were designed to enjoy. 

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So why is it important to detox from time to time?

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Well, the truth is, as humans, we move toward entropy. Parts of us move toward health, we move toward healing. Other parts of us, easily, can begin to move back into those old, convenient, easy ways of coping. 

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We're human; there's no shame in this. We have a bent toward health. But we also have a bent toward picking up those distractions. Those unhealthy ways of coping, those unnecessary drags on our systems. That feel good in a moment but that do not lead us to the overall trajectory of health that we long for. 

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This idea of a detox has been going on for centuries. In fact, we've got built-in rhythms in our calendar year, for periods of time to abstain, or remove, or take away things that aren't serving us so that we can focus on God. So that we can focus on the good things that we need.

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One season is this new year. This is a season where we tend to set goals. We look for a fresh start. We try to execute on that dream, that goal, or that new habit. Another time of the year is Lent. Lent is that time between Ash Wednesday and Easter, when we tend to pull back from something, to deprive ourselves from something, in order to depend more on God. 

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And then there's a third season, the season of Advent, and this is the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's another time when we tend to slow down. It gets darker around us, and it's a time to remember to quiet our souls.

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So these are just three different seasons. Whereas you engage this practice, they're seasons to pause, to pay attention, and to notice what has started to clutter up your heart, soul, and mind. And therefore is keeping you from the good things you need.

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And I think of the passage from Ecclesiastes three where Solomon reflects on this idea that, "There is a time for everything. And a season for every activity under the heavens. There's a time to be born and a time to die." Solomon says. "A time to plant and a time to uproot. A time to tear down and a time to build. A time to weep and a time to laugh."

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Now that list goes on, but I love this idea of a time for all things, and, particularly, as we think about the new year. We think about this time to build, usually. 

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This is the season when we want to build, we want to plant, we want to get healthier. We want to start that creative project. We have energy, we want take better care of ourselves. We want to start setting those healthier boundaries. This is that time of year when we're ready to go, we're ready to build. 

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But what I have learned is that unless we are also engaging those other seasons. When it's time to tear down. When it's time to uproot, if we don't address and uproot the hidden reasons, the hidden coping tactics, the hidden ways we've started to distract ourselves, to numb ourselves. If we don't detox from those things first, we won't get very far on the building, on the good things, that we crave.

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< Music >

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Alison: I want to propose to you, today, a very simple but profound question to ask yourself, to get to that route. Before you dive into that new goal, this new year, prepare yourself by answering this question; what is the cost? 

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These distractions, these coping strategies, these will surface as you consider that question. Here's an example of what I mean. Let's say you want to start exercising, it's the low-hanging fruit of New Year's goals. You want to start exercising great, but what stands in your way? 

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What's the cost of achieving that new goal? 

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If you say yes to exercising every day, this new year, you are going to have to say no to something else. There's a cost to that goal. You're going to need more time, for example, which means you're going to have to take that time from somewhere else. 

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You might need financial resources for that goal. Which means you're going to have to take that money from somewhere else. You might need to have a hard conversation with a spouse or with your family, about the space that you're going to need to make this happen. You might even have to inconvenience someone else. 

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Suddenly you're in this land of the cost, these old ways you've been coping. The ways you've been putting your time, your treasure, and even some of your talents into other things that aren't, necessarily, bad. But that are keeping you from this goal you really want to achieve. 

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As you consider the cost of this longing, this desire, this goal that you have, you'll start to notice where you might have some unhealthy or misplaced attachments. Parts of you are really excited. You're going to, finally, launch this new project, take care of your body, get healthier boundaries. But other parts of you are still stuck in the old ways that you've been coping. And you'll start to notice it when you ask yourself about that cost.

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"I don't want to take away time from that thing."

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"I don't want to disappoint those people."

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"I don't want to give up that coping tactic."

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What is it that you're going to have to shift out of, in order to move into this good thing, you need? This is what it means to count the cost. And as you count the cost, you're going to back your way right into the possibility of a detox. You're going to have to let go of, release, something you've been depending on. And it's going to create a little bit of a pinch even as you move toward this good thing you crave. 

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Now, in this series, I'm going to cover three areas of detox that, typically, come up when we want to make a good change. 

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Number one, we clutter up our lives with information overload. And what I mean by that is all the instantaneous access we have to ideas, to people, to entertainment. To massive amounts of information through the internet, our phones, and social media.

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Number two, we clutter up our lives with things. Now, I like to call these shiny objects. Your shiny objects might be one thing, mine might be another. It might be food, it might be buying things, it might be clothes, it might be expensive things, it might be cheap things. Whatever it is that you just fill up your space with, that gives you a hit. A feeling of relief in the moment, but that is cluttering up your heart, soul, and mind. 

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Number three, we clutter up our lives with harmful relationship patterns, with unhealthy dependencies on other people. We can start to thrive on the helping, the drama, the busyness. The pseudo connections that we've started to depend on that keep us from the real connections we crave. 

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Now, if you listen to that list information, things, and unhealthy dependences on other people, you can see why this is tricky because these are all good things. And they are also three areas that can sneak up on us in unhealthy ways.

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So for the last part of today's episode, I want to just touch on and give you an example of detoxing from information overload. There's some research that's been done, and many of you may have already heard this. 

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But an average person, living today, you and me, are processing so much information. It's the equivalent of 16 movies a day, through our TV, through our computers, through our phones, through social media, through the news. Through everything that's available to us instantaneously. 

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Every year, this increases about 5% more than the previous year. And just to give you a check on that 500 years ago, the amount of information that you and I absorb in a day, 

would have been what a highly-educated human would've consumed in a lifetime. It's just unbelievable what we digest and what bombards us every single day, in terms of information. 

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So I want to give you an example from my own life. In mid-November, I just knew that I needed to detox from social media. I knew I needed to take a break. I could tell there was an information overload in my life. My mind was just going and going, and I couldn't really get that spacious, centered, feeling that I need to be healthy spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. 

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And social media was the low-hanging fruit of detox. It was like, "It makes sense. I can tell I'm using it too much. I'm depending on it more than I like, and I just need to go off it. It's the holidays, it's advent." So I decided to take six weeks off. 

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And it was so interesting what I noticed. Because the first few days I was just aware of the quiet, of the absence of noise. Of sort of the flashing, dancing circus that my Feed had become, of bright lights, it's a positive Feed, it doesn't matter. 

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It was just all these good things, even good memes, helpful things that it was just too much. I couldn't process it all. And I noticed how much data I had absorbed about people I don't even know. It was so interesting that I knew things about other people's lives, people who weren't actually in my day-to-day life. And, so, over the first few days I just noticed that. It was just that curbing of the impulse to check my phone and noticing the quiet, and it took a minute. 

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Now, listen, it wasn't hard, it was just a couple of days. Some areas of detox are harder because it mostly felt good. It was just like, "Oh, man, this is what it feels like, again, to reconnect to my own inner life."

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But I began to notice that that checking of social medias had also bled into just checking of my phone. The instantaneousness of responding to a text versus taking my time to think through how I want to respond to someone's text.

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Even a friend, even a family member, all of the quickness. All of the information whirling around had led to this compulsive need meeting and compulsive like, "Got to get back to people." As opposed to taking my time to think through the best way to respond.

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I began to bask in that quiet, as I gave myself permission to slow down the information. To maybe not even read the text that comes in until I had the bandwidth to read it. To maybe not open the email until I had a moment to, actually, process it. And my whole nervous system began to calm down over the course of a few days. 

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Now, over the course of a few weeks; new, and good, and exciting things started to come in. I started to notice the ways that I hadn't been paying attention to the cues my body had been sending to me. I scheduled a few retreat days of silence, to really spend time journaling and listening to my body, to my emotions, to God. 

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I began to notice my creativity, my imagination, start to kick back in. Our imaginations kick in, frankly, when we're a little bored, there's good research to support this. If you're a little bored, you're on a walk, you're not sure what to think about, your imagination kicks in. 

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But when we're constantly checking our phones, checking the news, checking the latest headline. We're not creating that spaciousness for those good things, for that imagination. For those slow walks where we happen upon a thought, or a longing, or a desire, or an insight. That there's no other way we could find if we're not in nature. If we're not quieting our souls, if we're not quieting our minds. If we're not listening to the noise of quiet. I needed to hear my own thoughts, not everybody else's.

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Now, listen, there's a time for everything. There was a season when I went on social media where it saved me. I was so lonely, and you might be in a season like that. Where you are disconnected from relationships, from community, for whatever reason, and there's a way in which social media is keeping you connected to the world. And I want to honor that. There is a time, there is a season for that. 

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But for me, this was a season to pull back, to let go, to release, to detox from the amped up nervous system. The compulsivity, the accessibility, the fast, hustle, I needed to detox from that. And remind my heart, soul, mind, and my nervous system what quiet feels like. 

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What it feels like to be outside, taking a walk, hearing the crunch of the snow under my feet. Seeing the stars, as the twilight starts to descend. Feeling the tears well up in my eyes as a quiet moment overtakes me, and I am awe-struck by the beauty of God's creation, all around me. To feel the wild surge of aliveness, as I simply connected to myself in the presence of a loving, so real God.

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To feel those moments of connection to the people in my everyday life. To slow it down enough to stay present. When we don't set aside seasons to detox, from the fast swirl of information all around us, we get out of balance. We lose sight of the quiet and the goodness that comes from moments of simply being present. 

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Even if it means being present to some of the hard emotions that are inside of us. Numbing, distracting, constantly filling our minds with the noise and the din of the swirling dancing lights, of the internet, of our phones, of social media. Keeps us from the wild, purposeful, sometimes, scary, deeply important life God created us to live out in the here and the now, in the present moment. 

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We miss out on the joy and sometimes the messiness of relationship, and of good work. We miss out on the love and the tenderness that comes from connecting deeply to the Creator of our souls in prayer. And we miss out on the healing and the restoration that comes when we face the weariness of our hearts, souls, and even our bodies. 

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As you consider the swirl of information, the things that might be cluttering up your space or the unhealthy relationship patterns. I want you to consider the following questions this week. 

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What's one good thing you want to bring into your life this new year? 

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What's the cost of creating space for that good thing? 

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And as you consider your answers, to those questions, I want you to remind yourself of this. "Over the next week, I'm going to practice this new, good, thing that I want. And I'm going to be gentle with myself as I notice the old way I have to release."

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And then just stay curious in that tension between old and new. Stay compassionate towards yourself, as you notice the good thing you're moving toward and the old distraction, the old numbing, the old way you are gently learning to release. In order to create space for the good things you crave.

So many of us have had negative experiences with power. It feels like something to fear, something bad, or something to avoid all together.

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But what if God wants us to step into our power in a healthy way? And what if understanding the power we have is at the core of building healthy connections with other people? Today's episode on the podcast is straight from my heart and from my own tenuous relationship with power.

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Here's what I cover:

1. What is power?

2. Why we think of power as bad

3. What healthy power looks like

4. The problems that arise when we do not claim our own power

5. Different ways power is abused

6. Why women in particular tend to avoid their own power

7. The paradigm-shattering example of power in the birth of Jesus

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Organifi -Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today!
• Download Abide Sleep and Pray Meditation and text my promo code BESTOFYOU to 22433 today to get 25% off!

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

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

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Resources

• Learn more about 6 Painful Parenting Patterns and 7 Friendship Red Flags in The Best of You, by Dr. Alison Cook
• To learn more about the parts of your soul, check out my book with Kimberly Miller, Boundaries for Your Soul
• Power - "the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events." (Oxford Language Dictionaries).
• Resources for support
• Philippians 2:1-11
• Matthew 7:6

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Podcast Episodes Referenced:

• Episode 1: What Is Narcissism Really?
• 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

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone, Merry Christmas. Welcome back to The Best of You podcast. This is our last episode of 2022, I'll be taking next week off. But I am so excited to be here with you today to wrap up this series on managing perceptions versus authentic connection.

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I have a topic today that I think feeds right into the Christmas story, and the topic is power. And, especially for women, there are so many ways we have a tenuous, tricky relationship with power. Both our own and the power that we see all around us, especially, when it's been misused, which seems so prevalent, especially today. 

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Before we get into the episode, I just want to thank all of you who filled out this survey. Hundreds of you took the time to fill that out and gave me such helpful information, as we think about the next year ahead. Several of you mentioned, in the survey, that you wanted a place to find the resources mentioned in each podcast episode.

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Well, I have such a place, so I wanted to take a moment and just remind you that every episode of this podcast has a page on my website. It's dralisoncook.com/podcast. All of the resources, books, Scriptures, and even the quotes mentioned in every podcast episode are listed on that episode's podcast page. We also provide a full transcript of every episode for you. 

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So if you want to go back and read an episode transcript, you can do that. So please check out those resources at dralisoncook.com/podcast. Secondly, take a moment to subscribe. 

As I said, I'll be taking next week off, but we're going to hit the ground running in the new year. With some exciting new episodes, as well as new ways to connect. New ways for me to engage with your questions on the podcast, as well as in some other new ways that we're excited to announce.

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So please subscribe to the podcast, if you haven't, because that way you won't miss an episode. It'll pop up right in your feed every Thursday morning. You can also sign up for my free weekly email. It goes out every Thursday and I often share additional insights. Other things I've thought about related to this week's episode. 

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So it's a great way to stay in touch. I also announced new specials or new content I'm offering there, and you get three free E-books when you sign up for that email. So take a moment, you can go to my website, dralisoncook.com and sign up for that weekly email. I'll also put the link in the episode show notes. 

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So today is our last episode of this series, on managing perceptions versus authentic connection. And we started off this series talking about the many ways we tend to manage perceptions. Which means we try to get other people to see us in a certain way instead of showing up authentically, being real, being the person we really are. It doesn't mean that we don't have our guard up, in a healthy way. We don't just go show all of who we are just to anybody, trust has to be earned. 

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But even when you're protecting yourself in a healthy way. Even when you're going into a relationship knowing, "I need to be careful here." You can still show up, authentically, instead of trying to get that person to see you the way that you want. And this last episode gets into this idea of power. And power really underlies all of these ways that we manage perceptions because we're trying to get power. 

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So while this is an episode in and of itself, it also ties up in all these ways. Whether you are pleasing, producing, performing, perfecting, whatever method you use. What we're trying to do, these parts of us that do these things, these parts of us that perfect, please, perform, produce even power-over, which is the more overt one. They're always, "We're trying to get power. We're trying to get people to see us in a certain way." And that brings me right to where I want to start. 

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What is power? 

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We tend to think of power, often, as a bad thing. We tend to think of people who power-over as dominating, controlling. People who misuse power and, again, we have so many examples of a misuse of power. That I really think that we've begun almost to equate power with something bad. Power is someone who hurts other people to stay in control, to keep their own power. 

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But here's the thing, here's how the dictionary defines power. "It's the capacity to direct or influence the behavior of others, or to direct, or influence the course of events." So power is the capacity we all have to influence others. Think about that for a second.

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If you're a parent, you have power to influence your child. It's scary and there should be a healthy fear when we think about power. I want to be clear about that. Healthy power goes hand-in-hand with a healthy fear and trembling, because we are fallen creatures. We will misuse the power we have, we are not God. 

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God has power and God does not misuse His power. God only uses His power to influence us, to influence the course of events for good. There's also an enemy. The enemy of our souls only misuses power, only influences us, influences the course of events for bad. That's the enemy of our souls. But God only uses His power for good. 

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Now, somewhere in there we, humans, are a mixture. We are a mixture. We can use our power for great good and we can do harm, because we're fallen humans. And I just want to name that, especially if you're a parent, because I started with parenting. That's the hardest one because it's the most obvious place where there's a power differential. We as parents have a lot of power. We have a lot of influence in our kids' lives. We have power in our friends' lives. We have power in our workplace. 

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Sometimes it doesn't feel like we have any power. We feel powerless, and there are many reasons for that. If someone else has misused their power to put us in a position of feeling like we have no choices, like we are trapped, that's a terrible place to be in. If you are feeling powerless, I want you to get help. I want you to learn to find small ways to reclaim your power. Because power, at the end of the day, is something we all need to have a relationship with.

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We need to understand the power that we have so that we can use it wisely. So that we can use it for good. Now, in my book, The Best of You, for those of you who've read it, I describe six harmful parenting patterns. I also describe seven friendship red flags. And I get into these ways that we manage perceptions, and I also talk about how churches can abuse power. All of these chapters, where I talk about this, are getting into ways we can misuse power. 

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So instead of showing up, authentically, with confidence, even naming hard things. Even exerting healthy influence, that's healthy power. But instead of doing that, we pivot and out of our fear, and out of our insecurities, and out of our wounds, and out of our unhealed shame, we try to force people to do things. We try to manipulate other people's perceptions. We try to demand loyalty. And we might do this in forceful ways or we might do this in subtle ways.

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There are the overt ways that power gets misused. The narcissistic power that tries to keep you always, only, focused on them. The controlling power that, overtly, tries to dictate your behaviors. The powering-over through gaslighting that won't let you get a word in. You have no say in the narrative, every word you used is used against you. Those are really obvious ways that power gets misused. 

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Now, listen, I mean, obvious, it doesn't mean it's not easy to get sucked into these because it is. But these are overt ways that we misuse power. There are more subtle ways we can misuse power through guilt-tripping. Through trying to get someone to feel guilty, so they'll do the thing we want them to do. 

There's through manipulation ways that we can take advantage of other people's good heart. Ways other people may have taken advantage of you, of your empathy, of your kindness. And instead of humbling themselves to apologize, they start to manipulate you. 

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And there's the power of criticism, frankly, of being judgmental. We feel better about ourselves. We puff up our own faults, sense of power, by dragging others down. So there are a lot of ways that we misuse power. 

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Power is tricky and I think women, in particular, have a tenuous relationship with power. And I think for most women, not for all women, I'm broadly generalizing here. But many of us haven't felt that we have power. We haven't felt empowered. We don't understand what it means to feel powerful. In fact, we fear that in ourselves. We've been taught we're not supposed to have power. Isn't that bad? Why should I want power? Power is bad. 

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And, so. what happens is we stay at the mercy of other people, people who are okay with having power and wield their power. Now, hopefully, we get lucky and we're with someone who wields their power for good. But what I want to propose to you is this idea of shared power. What if we all have a little bit of God-given power and we can use it for ill? Yes. But we all have the capacity to use our power for good. 

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Remember that definition, "Power is the capacity to direct or influence the behaviors of others, or the course of events." You have power. Now let me give you a simple example. We're going into Christmas, I've been talking about this on and on, almost every episode, especially in the series on boundaries. But you have power on Christmas day. You have power over the schedule. 

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Now, you may not have ultimate power. You may not have complete power. I'm not saying that it's up to you to become a dictator, that would be a misuse of power. But you do have some power. You do have some power to say, "You know what? I don't want to do that this year."

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Or "I need to minimize my exposure to that activity or that person this year." I have some power. Right now I want you to consider, "I have some power." I can make decisions that will be good for me and that, yes, might impact or influence the course of events. Which means that my decisions might influence other people. I might need to exert some power with my kids to say, "Hey, this is what we need to do this year. I know you might not like it, but I need you to trust me. This is what's best for our family."

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You might need to exert your power simply for yourself, if you live by yourself. What power do you have to bring in connection? 

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What power do you have? 

I know you may not feel like you have much. It's so easy to feel like we are powerless in our circumstances. But I want you to consider the question, "What power do I have and how could I use it for good?" Maybe for good for someone else, and maybe you need to use that power for your own good. To influence your own course of activities for good. Maybe you need to bring something good into your day. Maybe you need to say no to something that would make you feel even worse, even more lonely.

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What power do you have? 

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And talk to God the author of power. The One who holds all the power and who gets inside and out, how to use power for good. Talk to God, "God, how can I use any shred of power you've given me for good this Christmas. In my own life and in the lives of people I love?

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< Music >

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Alison: I am going to read a quote to you. This is a quote by Marianne Williamson and it's a powerful quote and I just want you to hear it today, as you even think about the holidays and even the new year. Here's the quote; "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

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It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant. . .talented. . .?' Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. 

We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence, automatically, liberates others." 

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And I want you to think about that. What about your own power, your own light, your own brightness, do you fear? What if you could use your power for good, not only in your own life, but in the lives of the people you love?

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Now, listen, I have struggled with claiming my own power. I struggle with it to this day. I don't like to think of having power. There's something about it that makes me want to shrink. But here's the thing that I've noticed. If I don't understand and name the actual power that I have, I will do more harm. And this is where we get into, I will start to please, I will start to perform, I will start to produce. I will start to manage perceptions because I feel fearful. 

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And, so, I slip into these ways of manipulating perceptions versus simply showing up as my true self. As my God-given self, and trusting you to be your true self, your God-given self. And letting us each inhabit the powerful voice that God has given us to use for good in this world, in partnership with God's spirit. 

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Misused power is about misplaced attempts for connection. It all goes back to this deep longing for connection. And when we misuse our power, we are trying to subvert the healthy process of connecting to other humans. We need other people. We need to be loved, we need to belonging, we need trust, we need safety. But we have to go about getting those things in healthy ways. We have to use our power to forge healthy connections in healthy ways.

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So how do we do that? 

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How do we learn to harness our power in wise, healthy, good ways, that forge authentic, beautiful, lasting, safe, good connections with others? Well, power used wisely starts inside you. It starts with naming your longings. "I long for this person to see me."

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"I long to feel less alone."

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"I long to be loved."

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"I long to be trusted."

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"I long for connection." We have to get clear that at the root of this all is our deep desire to belong, to be loved, to be valued, to be honored, to be seen. This is at the root of all of this. And until we're really honest with ourselves that what I really want is for you to get me, to understand me, to see me. To take me as I am in both my good and in my blind spots, and in my brokenness, that I'm still working on. That's what I really want here, out of this interaction, and whether you're saying that or not, you know it. 

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But when you know that you're going to be less tempted to try to manipulate, control, force, guilt trip. Whatever the thing is that we do to try to get those things that are not healthy. So it starts with naming, it starts with owning, deep in your core. 

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"What I long for is your love."

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"What I long for is your respect."

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"What I long for is for your forgiveness."

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"What I long for is for your grace."

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"What I long for is for your understanding. I can't demand that of you. I can't make you love me, respect me, forgive me, see me, understand me, I can't make you do that. I can't force it, I can't control it, it's what I long for."

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And, so, what I can do is let you know that I hope that you'll give me a shot, that I hope you'll see me, I hope you'll understand me. I hope you'll give me grace when I mess up, but I can never demand that. I can't force that. Woo, that's hard. That's a hard place to be, and we first have to go there inside ourselves and with God. 

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We first have to say, "God, this is what I long for from this person. I want my child to understand where I've been coming from and to forgive me. But I can't demand that. I can't coerce that. I can't control that."

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"What I long for is this friend to understand I didn't mean to hurt her. I want her to forgive me, but I can't demand that. I can't coerce that."

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"What I long for is this person just to love me and see me. I want my parent, or this friend, or my spouse to get me, but I can't command that. I can't demand that. I just have to continue to keep showing up, as honestly and as authentically, and naming what I long for, when it's appropriate. That's all I can do, I cannot control the way other people respond to me." And that's vulnerable. 

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The flip side, the underbelly of power is vulnerability. It's vulnerable to want other people to love us, to see us, to connect with us. It's vulnerable, we can't control other people. And, so, we have to think about power from that place of vulnerability. Power used wisely is not weak. It's not being a doormat, but it's having the confidence to understand, "First and foremost, I long for this thing," number one. 

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And number two, "I cannot force someone else to give it to me."

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So, number three, "What can I do? What do I have control over?" And this is where we have some power. 

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"I can apologize."

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"I can communicate."

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"I can go to someone and say, 'I adore you. I would love more of you in my life.'" 

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We can go to someone and say, "I value you and I'd love to make a plan to connect more on Christmas day."

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"Your presence is really soothing to me; it means a lot to me. Would you be available to spend some time with me over the holidays?"

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And guess what, that's vulnerable because that person might say no. They might say, "I don't have the capacity." But what we have power over is the ask. Power is got to flow from a deep understanding of what we need and what we want, and what we can ask for. And it also has to flow from the humility that we cannot force other people to get us those good things we crave.

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It's vulnerable. So we've got to go to God first and say, "God, I'm going to do this brave thing. I'm going to use a little of that God-given power. I can use my voice and I may not get what I want." But guess what? It's powerful to have showed up on behalf of yourself and to have said, "This is what I need and it's okay if you can't give it to me, I'll be disappointed, but this is what I need."

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There's also times when you need to exert power and you need to influence events. Which may influence other people and they may not like it. And this is when there's a power differential, when you're a parent is the best example. And you've got to make a decision because it's what's best for you, and your kids may not like it.

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And, again, you're exerting your power for good when you name it and you say, "Hey, listen, this is the plan that we've got to do, as a family. You may not love this plan. This may not be your first choice, and I get that and I can honor that. 

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But this is the plan that's the best for the best of us. I've thought about what each person needs. I understand what you want, this is the plan I've come up with. And it may not be the perfect plan, but it is the plan we're going to do. And you are allowed, you get to have feelings about that plan. I get that you can be disappointed about it, but here's the plan."

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So this is the power that you exert when you actually have some power. When you have power over kids, and you've got to make a decision that's hard. Or you've got power in your workplace and you've got to say, "Hey, I get that this may not be what's best for everybody else, and I'm sorry about that, that's hard. 

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But as the leader here, I've got to make this hard decision. So here's what we're going to do. I'm open to feedback, but for now, here's the decision. I've made it in the best interest of all of us, and I'm hoping you can trust me on that. And if you've got hesitations, you've got reservations, I'm open to input, but this is the best decision I can make at this time."

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So there's a way you can make decisions and you can exert power, when you do have power over other people that still has humility, but that still has confidence. We got to make decisions in life. We got to exert power in life at times, it's just a fact. So we've got to do it with humility and with confidence. 

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There's so much more we can do on this and we'll dig deeper into this topic, in the new year. Because power is so much at the root of so much of everything. It's at the root of safety, it's at the root of trust. It gets into all these other things. If I've got power, I've got to earn trust, I've got to create safety. It doesn't mean being perfect, but it does mean really stewarding the power that we have. 

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So step number one is we've just got to understand that we do have power. But step number two, is how do we honor other people, as we steward the power that we have? 

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To close, today, I want to look at the Christmas story because here's the thing about this thing, this story that we celebrate every year, at Christmas. Did you ever think of it as a story of power? This is arguably the most powerful day of the year. Maybe Easter is more powerful, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The resurrection of Christ is a powerful, powerful moment in history, probably, arguably, the most powerful moment in history. 

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But when Jesus was born, there's also an example of power, and it's this humble power that I'm talking about today. It's this power that is the opposite of force, the opposite of coercion, the opposite of control. 

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It's the power of a God who chose to leave all the glory, and all the riches, and all the wonder of heaven, Philippians two, and come into the earth as the most vulnerable form of a baby. And not only a baby, a baby born into poverty, a baby born to a single mother, and a probably reluctant, confused stepdad in Joseph. 

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I mean, these were not powerful circumstances that Jesus was born into and, yet, this most powerful being in all the universe, God showed up in the most tender, vulnerable of circumstances. So as to bring safety to others and making himself so vulnerable, so tender, that He could therefore, then, bring powerful healing to others.

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That tenderness of that baby brings powerful healing to others, and just pause on that for a second without me unpacking it. Think of your own tenderness as one of your most powerful assets. Because your tenderness, your ability to tap into those tender places inside of you, "I'm hurting, I'm lonely, I'm disappointed, I feel powerless." That is the start of powerful healing. 

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It's hard to get to the root of our tenderness. But that's what Jesus did, He became vulnerable, so tender, and in doing so, became a source of tremendous healing. The ultimate powerful healing for all of us. 

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So this Christmas, as you think about this baby, Jesus, who was born into a manger, into a stable, into poverty. By everything we understand historically into this mixed up family. That wasn't a socially acceptable family. 

As you think about Jesus and that tenderness, I want you to think about the tenderness inside of you and just notice, before God, areas where you're tender. And instead of shoving those feelings aside; what if naming those areas of tenderness is a form of power?

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It's powerful to name those areas of tenderness. It's powerful to name them in a journal, to name them before God. To name them to a safe person, a person who has earned your trust. There's power in vulnerability, it's a pearl. It's not a pearl you want to give to just anyone, especially, if you're in a situation where someone else is misusing their power. I don't want you to give the tenderness of your vulnerability to someone who's misusing your power. But I do want you to begin to name it for yourself. 

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Because the path to healthy power, to being someone who uses power for good in other people's lives. Starts with you using your God-given power for good inside yourself. To be tender with the parts of you that are hurting, with the parts of you that are vulnerable. It starts with you using your God-given power for good inside of you.

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Jesus came into this earth and He went to the margins, He went to the hurting, He went to the poor, He went to the suffering. He went to this sick with the power of His healing and it started because He became the most powerless form Himself. He understood powerlessness in Himself and He was therefore able to walk into other people's lives with true power. With power that uplifts, with power that equips, with power that heals, with power that transforms lives. 

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This Christmas start with yourself. Be gentle with those tender parts of you. Be gentle with them, that is the beginning of unlocking your God-given power.

Were you subtly conditioned to please others at the expense of yourself? I loved talking with my friend, Dr. Monique Gadson, on today's episode of the podcast. We met through an IG Live prayer session! She's since become the best sort of real-life friend-someone whose wisdom, empathy, and realness breathes life into weary souls.

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If you've struggled with depression or felt overlooked-even as you constantly show up for others-please lean in close. Dr. Monique is candid about her own journey through depression and how she lost herself in all the voices around her. In a powerful turn of events, Monique began to bring mental health directly to the center of the church, where she's practiced as a counselor for decades.

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We cover so much in today's episode, including:

1. A key moment from childhood when she learned to please others

2. Monique's experience as a PK

3. The burden of always attuning to others when you're disconnected from your own self

4. Monique's early experience with depression and how she got help

5. Practical tips if you struggle with feeling "joy" at the holidays

6. Finding your own way as a parent amidst all of the voices

7. Monique's call to bring mental health *into* the church

8. Jesus and people pleasing

9. The power of friendship to bring hope in dark places

‍Check out Dr. Monique's new book with Clarence Shuler, Finding Hope in A Dark Place: Facing Loneliness, Depression, and Anxiety with the Power of Grace

Connect with Dr. Monique at drmoniquesmithgadson.com or on Instagram @drmoniquesmithgadson

If you are struggling with depression, find resources for support on my website.

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Organifi -Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today!
• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp -Go to www.betterhelp.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 10% off your first month!
• Download Abide Sleep and Pray Meditation and text my promo code BESTOFYOU to 22433 today to get 25% off!

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

• Finding Hope in A Dark Place: Facing Loneliness, Depression, and Anxiety with the Power of Grace, by Clarence Shuler and Dr. Monique Gadson
• Learn more about The Cocktail of Codependency, Freeze/Fawn Response, and Spiritual Bypassing in The Best of You, by Dr. Alison Cook
• To learn more about Unburdening and the Internal Family Systems model, check out my book with Kimberly Miller, Boundaries for Your Soul
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
  
• Resources for support‍
• Galatians 1:10 "Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ."
• Ephesians 5:27 "and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."
• Romans 12:15 "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."
• Mark 12:31 "The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these."
• Romans 8:28  "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

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Transcript

Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this episode of The Best of You podcast. I know this is one so many of you have been waiting for. Where we talk about this idea of people-pleasing. And I don't really like that word because it's a little bit negative. Because I think for a lot of us pleasing others comes out of a very empathetic place, a genuinely kind place. 

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And it's really hard for so many of us to discern the difference between pleasing others out of self-betrayal or even out of a way that isn't healthy for them or for the relationship, and a way of just genuinely being aware of needs around us and wanting to meet them. 

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So that's what I'm hoping to flesh out today with my dear friend and colleague, and just an amazing woman who is a therapist, a professor. She hosts a podcast called — And The Church Said. She's a coach consultant, and she's the co-author of a new book that we'll talk about a little bit later called — Finding Hope in Dark Places, Dr. Monique Gadson.

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Thank you so much for joining me today for this conversation, Monique. I'm so grateful to have this conversation with you specifically.

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Monique: Thank you Alison, for inviting me to be here with you. This is such an honor, it's such a privilege, I'm just so grateful. Grateful for you, grateful for who you are, so thank you. 

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Alison: We met on social media and you're one of those people. Right now I'm on a hiatus from social media and I'm noticing the ways in which not having that noise in my life is healthy. But there are some things I miss, and you are one of those people. There are a few people I've met I wouldn't have met otherwise, if it hadn't been for social media. So it reminds me of the good. So thank you for being one of those people. 

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I came across your Feed on social media. You're so genuine. I found you on your Live just praying one night when I really needed to connect in that way, and I joined you virtually for that prayer, and just being a reminder of the goodness. And then we've connected offline and just so grateful for you and your voice.

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Monique: Thank you, and likewise. Likewise, I appreciate you being the safe person that you are. Well, I listen to your podcast. So when I listen to your guests and those who have met you, who talk about your genuineness, and your warmth, and your just inviting spirit, I appreciate you. I appreciate you for being that type of person that restores my faith in people. So I appreciate that for you. 

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Alison: Thank you, that means a lot to me. I wanted to start, today, Monique, with an early history. When do you first remember learning that you could shift your own behavior to please someone else? And how did that begin to take shape in your life?

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Monique: Yes, so, one of my earliest remembrances is probably growing up a PK, a pastor's kid for those who may not be familiar there. I grew up a pastor's kid. So I was born in March, my dad was installed in his first pastorate in April.

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So all my life, practically, that's all I've known as being a PK. Even when he left to be with the Lord four years ago, he was still pastoring. So that's just been the duration of his life, that's what I've known. And I think how that started is you would hear these messages about PKs. 

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And it's, "Well, you know how PKs are." And I would think like, "Well, how are PKs?" And then I would hear that stigma, "They're wild, rebellious and all of the things." And I'm thinking like, "Well, I mean, we get in trouble, yes. We get punished, yes. We got the spankings, yes."

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But I'm like, "We're not just this picture that was painted." And there was something within that made me want to say, "No, that's not who PKs are." And, in addition to that, I do believe the messaging of my parents, "Yes, you are the pastor's kid, people are going to look at you." This, that and the other. And you're like, "Well, okay."

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And, so, just early on there was this sense of there is a way you have to be. There is a way you have to perform to please other people. To not live out this perception that people might have of you. 

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So I really believe that's probably where it started. I love your book and your practice, I love all the things that you do. All the work that you've put forth. But when you talk about that cocktail, I think you called it once, with the childhood wounds, the cultural conditioning, and even those church messages. And I was thinking like, "My goodness, bam, I sit right there in the midst of all of those things." 

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All of those are true factors that I say to my clients, sometimes, "You put all of the ingredients in the slow cooker and with the right temperature, and over time, this is what it creates." And, so, I believe that that's probably a bit of where it started, when I have to really sit and think about it.

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Alison: Yes, it makes sense. Yes, that cocktail of co-dependency. I appreciate that, that there was, especially, as a PK, there was this extra layer of, "Don't bring shame on the family." I can imagine. 

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You told me a story, Monique, about watching, was it your brother get in trouble or what? Can you tell me that story? That was such an enlightening and a window into that unspoken pressure in a way.

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Monique: Yes, there was a time when my oldest brother, well, my father had called for him to come to do something for him. And, so, his mind was there like, "Let me go see what Dad wants." 

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And there was an older lady who, basically, just raked him over the coals saying, "He walked past her and he did not speak to her." And he was trying to be apologetic, and he said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean any harm, and just hello, how are you?" And tried to keep it moving. 

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But she just would not let it go. And, so, then some kind of way my mom either saw what was going on or she went to my mom, and I mean, she raked my mom over the coals. And it was this, "Well, if anybody's children should be mannerable and speaking to people, it should be the pastor's children."

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And, so, that just wasn't a pretty encounter, whatsoever. And I can remember thinking, "Because you thought he didn't speak to you?"

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I could get it if he did say something and say something disrespectful. But the fact that he, and it was an honest overlook, it wasn't intentional. So, yes, that's what you're remembering, I've share it with you. Well, I'm sitting here thinking about it, even right now, and I just feel like I'm right there in that moment in time, just even bringing it back up. 

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But, yes, so those types of things, you just feel like you're hyper vigilant. Now, you're walking around like you're in a pageant. Like, "Hello, Hi." And you're trying to speak to everybody, waving at everyone, just to make sure that you are doing what is expected of you and you're not the cause. Because that's what you're thinking, as a kid, of someone that then is taking your mom and taking her out to pasture, it was like, "Okay."

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Alison: How old do you think you were when you watched all this? 

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Monique: Oh, my gosh, I probably was-

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Alison: Like elementary school?

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Monique: Yes, eight, nine-ish.

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Alison: And you think about, there's a reason we remember. These memories are etched in our minds for a reason. There's a reason that something in you was like, "Oh, my goodness, I never want to make my mom feel that way. I never want to be in trouble like my brother is." 

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I love, and then you're just, almost, compulsively, I would imagine, making sure you're saying Hi to every person to avoid the pain of that moment. And this is what, kind of, in this series, where I want to go back to these early memories. 

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Because that is where we pick up this conditioning, in so many ways, that then we carry with us. We leave the house, we get out in the world, we're in college, and we're still operating in these ways that we've learned. So how did you begin to notice that when you left the home, as a young woman?

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Monique: Yes, I don't know that I ever had words for it. But I can just remember in college, in those early years of college, and, well, even adolescence, this, who am I? Like you're, literally, haunted by that question. 

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Now, I do know that some of that is developmental. If we think about human development, Erikson Stages, and some of that is just to be. But I do believe that it was exasperated for me because there was this sense of trying to attune to what is within. 

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But that being smothered or just crowded out by all of the other voices, of who you are supposed to be and what it is that you are supposed to do. So I truly believe that it was from that compass where I followed the path. So then you get in college, and you're thinking, "Oh, okay, well, this seems like the thing I'm supposed to do."

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Alison: Yes. 

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Monique: And not really checking in to say like, "Okay, but is this true to who you are? Does it feel like this is what you are supposed to do? What resonates with your soul?" I had no inner needle, if you will. Or I should say I had the inner needle, but it would be drawn more to those voices and all of that conditioning that had, in essence, I guess taught me how to suppress me and what I desired.

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Alison: Yes, and, so, how did that play out for you? How did you begin to notice that all of this effort? It's almost like I hear you saying you were so attuned to everyone around you.

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Monique: Mh-hmm. 

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Alison: And I get that picture, you used the metaphor, the pageant queen, I love that. You're so attuned to making everybody else around you happy, pleased, that you didn't know how to attune inwardly. You didn't know how to attune to yourself. And how did you begin to become aware that that was a problem?

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Monique: I think depression. When I first started suffering from depression. I just remember feeling so heavy, like I had this burden on my back or just feeling that there was this persistent sadness that I couldn't explain, it just would not go anywhere. And I just really struggled with like, "What's wrong with me?"

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And at that time, when I was in college, I went to the counseling center on campus and had spoken with a therapist there. Which was, even looking back, just it was a divinely ordered step for me to take. Because in the African American community, therapy just was not a thing. And add that layer of being a Christian in the African American community, and in the church, that definitely wasn't a thing that was talked about, or promoted, or affirmed even for that matter.

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So I just have to look back and believe that that was a divinely inspired step to take. But once I started talking about it, I think that, at least, it gave me an outlet to be able to say some things. And I said these things clumsily because, again, I didn't have the words. 

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And you know, as a therapist, people are going to bring us fragments, and we're just putting them down, and trying to piece things together. And I know that's how I brought things, it was just fragmented. 

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It was just trying to figure out like, "What is wrong with me? What is going on? Why don't I feel like living and why do I feel, not happy?" And all of the things. So I think that that's how it initially had begun to manifest, was through depression, and also there was a lot of anxiety.

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Alison: Yes, thank you for sharing that, Monique, so bravely. I just can sense, in my spirit, others listening who feel that weight that you're describing and don't know how to put words to it. 

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They just know they feel depressed. They don't know how to turn inwardly. They don't even know what they need. And I just appreciate the courage in what you just shared. And, especially, I can imagine you and I are probably roughly the same age. But when you add that overlay of everything you described. Being a PK, being in culturally, and even that time period.

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I know when I was in college, it still was on the early end. For you and I, it was not like everybody was going to a therapist. It wasn't as common even as it is now, and even now there's still stigma to it. So I just appreciate what you're saying, almost. I can imagine there was a certain amount of desperation to go, because it so wasn't a part of what you were taught was how to reach out for help.

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Monique: Yes, it was, literally, fear because once I started thinking, "Why am I even living?"

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"Is there even any point to life?" When I started feeling that. I went, "Wait, something has to happen, I need to do something." And that was all at that moment I thought to do, so, yes.

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Alison: That is so brave. I just put myself in your shoes and thank you for sharing that, again, because I know it's real. I know people feel that way and there's a desperation, and somehow you picked up a phone or walked into an office and it helped, and that's what I'm curious about.

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I imagine it there was still a lot of work left to be done, but in that moment of giving voice, even cobbled together words, to another human. That, that was helpful to you at that time, is that right?

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Monique: Absolutely, it was. And I don't even believe that there was resolve. I didn't stay in it that long and it wasn't because I did not desire. The person that I worked with was a college campus's therapist in training.

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Alison: Yes, I've been one of those. It's scary, and I'm sure you have too. It's like, "How am I going to help this person?"

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Monique: Oh, yes, exactly. But I think that what happened that person, eventually, had finished their term or whatever. And, so, I just was like, "Okay, well, I don't want to have to retail this to someone else." 

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And, again, for the purpose at that moment, there was relief and that was the biggest thing. That there was a sense of relief and release for that matter during that. And that probably was the beginning of my journey toward considering therapy, embracing therapy. And, now that I mentioned it, probably, one of the earlier footprints to even becoming a therapist myself. 

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Alison: Hmm.

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Monique: And I've never really even considered that moment in time. I always fast-forward the timeline of my life and say, "I think it was at this point." But now that I'm sitting here saying this aloud, I do believe that that probably was a footprint even there, at that point, of my developmental timeline, too.

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Alison: Do you think maybe just that seed planted of, "What this person just did for me was so meaningful." And that a seed was planted maybe for yourself? That's interesting.

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Monique: Absolutely, yes.

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Alison: I love what you're saying and I just want to pause on it. Again for those who are listening who are feeling this weight, even right now, and we're going into Christmas. And sometimes I say to people, "Almost, the pressure of the joy can make the weight feel heavier." 

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And, so, what I love about what you're saying is, this was probably a counselor in training, someone young, it's a college counseling center. It probably wasn't in hindsight; it didn't solve all of the things. 

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But there was relief, there was something, there was a glimpse, and that's, sometimes, all we need. You just took a step and you connected with another human, and there was relief and it set a lot of things in motion.

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So I really just appreciate your honesty about how dark it was. It makes me understand a little more, and we're going to come to this book that you just helped co-author. Just the empathy that you have for others who are in that dark place.

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Monique: Absolutely. And who are not only in that dark place, but who are in church and who are in that dark place and feel as though this is, again, "Not what I'm supposed to do."

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It's interesting that you even talk about this joy of the season, and I just remember thinking something. I can't remember if it were a podcast I heard recently on that word joy. And just even once I did a word study on it and one of the ways it was defined is just sheer delight. 

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Alison: Hmm. 

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Monique: And I thought to myself like, "Wow, that feels a little less heavy than the exuberance that we so often associate with joy." And which is a portion of it, but this sheer delight. And I thought to myself like, "Wow, that feels a little less heavy. That feels a little doable."

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And, so, even one day, last week I spoke with a client, going through a very tough time, and we were recounting the Thanksgiving holiday. And for her even just the struggle, and I said, "All you need to do is look at the smiles on your children's faces."

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And I asked her some other things and she said, "Well, I do have a roof over my head." Yes, stay there. Just stay right there. Don't feel, like you're saying, just the pressure to have to say, "Oh, and for all of these deep things I'm grateful for, when I'm in the midst of this very difficult time." 

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Just find the sheer delight, the little things, and I'm hopeful that that does help people not feel so burdened. Again, and this is the thing we have to do during this time. We have to conjure up this energy to be all of these things. When that might not match what's really going on in the inside.

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Alison: That's a really good word, it takes the pressure off of this idea of joy as the absence of suffering. When really it might just be a sheer delight in something really small. I've heard this saying, "Shared sorrow is half the sorrow. Shared joy is twice the joy." And there's something about the being with, even in a small thing. Even that moment with you, with your client, like, "I do have a roof over my head."

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Monique: Mh-hmm. 

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Alison: And sharing that with you. There's holiness in that moment.

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Monique: Mh-hmm. 

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Alison: That right there, that is a moment, I mean, it brings tears to my eyes. Because it is the holiness of our work, is that, "I am with you as you dig deep and find genuine gratitude, genuine-" Whatever the word is that joy does, it feels so... "And I do have a roof over my head and you're helping me see that. I'm not trying to conjure this up all by myself." That's beautiful.

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Monique: Yes.

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Alison: Monique, how did your becoming a mom impact your own journey; toward healing, toward connecting more deeply to yourself? There's such a paradox, I think, when we become parents it becomes very sacrificial. 

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Monique: Mh-hmm.  

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Alison: That in fact, we show up for our kids better when we've learned to show up a little bit more for ourselves. And, so, how did becoming a mom impact your own journey toward becoming more of who you really are? Becoming more authentic while you're also caring for your children?

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Monique: Yes, woo, you talk about those 20s and, so, I had become a mom. So I'm just coming out of college, a few years after college I'm married and shortly a year after that I'm a mom and it's like, "Okay."

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So there were some things I had already resolved that I wanted to do a little differently, as a parent. And some of the things we had talked about, some of our values and beliefs. And, so, those things were not necessarily so hard to implement as becoming a parent. 

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So, again, here we are, all of these messages; the conditioning, and the church messages, and childhood even. Because our stuff, definitely, it's going to show its head when we become a parent, for certain. So there was a struggle. 

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Oh, my God, there was a struggle even becoming a mom and doing what I feel like I'm being led to do as I'm studying this young person. I was a stay-at-home mom, so at the time just because of the way life was, I wasn't working at the time, anyway. And, so, we were just like, "It's going to really cost more for you to work and daycare at that time. And we were like, "Let's just see her through the first few years. Okay, let's do this."

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So, I mean, even that was a thing where this is what we felt. But then there were others like, "Well, what did you go to college for?" And I'm going, "Oh, my God, there's an expiration date on a college degree?" I'm like, "Well, okay."

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I mean, so that was a message that would be in my ear. And then, another message like, "Yes, you're doing that and you need to do this too." And it's just like by the time these things collide in your mind, you're just kind of like, "Oh, my God." Then you're back to, "What do I do?"

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And, so, yes, that is a struggle trying to get through there and tease through what is everybody else's voice? What is everybody else's expectation? And trying to unbury me and figuring out like, "Okay, how has God fashioned me to be a mom of this child? 

He gave me this child to carry." And you're going to know some things about this child before anybody else will know about this child.

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So trying to get to that place definitely was a struggle. Definitely was a big time struggle. And also it made me realize I needed to heal or, at least, start some serious work toward healing. In order to try to raise her to be a young woman that God had created her to be. 

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Alison: Mh-hmm. 

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Monique: I could see early on, how if I did not get myself together, how I would be a hindrance to her and for her. And, by no means, have I done that perfectly. That was, and it still is, a messy journey, and anybody that parents know that, and both of my girls are young adults now. 

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So even in this phase of life, it still is a thing that requires of me to be aware. To continually do my work as I try to guide and come alongside them as young adults. I don't want to give the impression that we spend a certain amount of time, we check a few boxes, and we read a couple of books. We journal a few pages and we're done, we're over this people-pleasing thing. 

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There are places that we continue to struggle. I continue to struggle with that in life. Interestingly enough, even in my therapy, my current-day therapy, just recounting some things in terms of trying to be a good mom, even now. 

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And my therapist shared with me some places where those were some experiences, where you tried to please your girls more than parent them. And I was thinking like, "Are you serious?" So it was even interesting how that theme still even pops up in parent thing.

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Alison: What I love about what you're saying, first of all, for those who are listening is there is good enough.

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Monique: Mh-hmm. 

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Alison: So you're still learning things now, so am I. I'm shocked parenting young adulthood is a whole next level thing. And whole new layers of our own stuff come to the surface, and, yet, there's good enough. And, so, here you are back when she's a baby or new mom, realizing, "I've got to do some more work on myself."

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Monique: Mh-hmm. 

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Alison: Can you give me an example where you realized that? How did you have the self-awareness to know, at that moment, "This is my stuff that I've got to work through?"

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Monique: Mh-hmm. Well, I think for me, one of the first things I had become aware of was just generational stuff, too. I can remember some conversations with my grandmother and I would just say like "Grandma, I don't think that's going to work." 

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But, again, the piece of me that did not want to be, again, we got to be perceived as disrespectful or I know more than you know kind of a thing. So it would be those encounters where you are thinking like, "Okay, I hear what you're saying, I just don't know that that, necessarily, is going to work with me in this situation."

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So I was able to identify some generational things. Which that was some insight that the Lord had just given me, looking back, I didn't know that then, had given me generational insight early on in my life, too. Again, I wouldn't have been able to put language to it.

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Alison: Yes.

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Monique: But when I look back, like you say, those things that I can remember, I remember for a reason and those were indicators of some generational stuff. That I was thinking, "Oh, man, we might need to turn some corners with some things." 

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So that was one way. And I think the other, for me, not only that fawn response, that people-pleasing, one of my, well, I would say my go-to, if you will, trauma response is the freeze, the numb, and I get stuck in indecisiveness.

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Alison: Okay.

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Monique: And I just really could not make up my mind what I wanted to do. "I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do." But all of those, again, other messages and the sweet mothers and grandmothers at church, "And you need to."

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"And you make sure." And you're like, "Oh, okay." And I want people to understand that I'm not saying that these things are not good, and these things were not words of wisdom. What I am saying is that when you are already struggling with trying to do what everyone else expects you to do. 

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It just becomes another layer that you have to try to navigate and, again, work your way through. To say, "Which of these things are good but maybe not, necessarily, what I'm going to implement? And what things to affirm what I, myself, want and wanted." So it was hard trying to kind of...

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I remember that, I don't know if it was a movie or a show and I'm probably really dating myself, but that Journey to the Center of the Earth or something show way back when, or whatever it was called. I almost have that picture in my mind and it was like this journey to our core. 

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Alison: Yes. 

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Monique: It was almost like you're going to all these galaxies. You're having to go through this layer, and that layer, and that layer and it feels like that, trying to get to the core of who you are. It felt as though I just had to journey to even find out what resonates with me.

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Alison: I love that, the journey to the center. And I'm imagining you, and I relate to it so much, Monique, that all the voices amp up at these pivotal moments of which parenting is one. And it's often well-intended, and that's what's hard. 

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And then, again, if you're an empathetic person, everyone is being well-intended, and whether it's family members, it's generational stuff, and these are people you respect, and that noise can get so loud. And if you already struggle to connect to your own inner compass, your God-given barometer inside. 

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I really appreciate that you brought in that freeze response. That sort of a deer in the headlights, "Oh, my gosh, I-don't-know-what-to-do immobility because I can't figure out how to manage all these voices around me. I can't even find the voice inside me. 

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I'm no longer even trying to please others, I'm just inert and I've got this precious little baby that God has given me." I love how you said that, "Has given me, and I have to be able to show up, at the end of the day, for this." I mean, that is intense, I love how you just zoomed in on. 

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I know every mom listening is going, "Ah-huh, yes." And the voices get so loud around that time because so many women do struggle with knowing, "How do I need to show up for my child and myself?" And it's going to look a little bit differently. And, so, how do we help each other in a better way? Because we're trying to help but it isn't always helpful. Our help is not always helpful. 

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***

So again, you have another moment of like, "Somehow, by the grace of God, I understand here that the best way to be a mom is I've got to do more of this work to really zoom in on my own center." You find probably another layer of relief there. And at some point in this makes you then also go back to become a therapist. 

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So tell me a little bit about that. You've got two girls, you're trying to find your own mom voice, and not only going into being a therapist, but going into being a therapist in a church setting. So tell me a little bit about that. How did you know that you wanted to go into that, make that move?

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Monique: Whew, yes, I think my spiritual life took a turn. I was at a funeral for, I did not know the young lady. I was there more in support for my brother. It was one of his dear friends who had passed and died in a car accident, and her middle name happened to be Monique.

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Alison: Hmm. 

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Monique: Now, and I didn't know that until I got there and I was just like, "Wow, okay." But it was there that I just had this, what I termed as God experience young girl, very young girl. She was in college when she passed. And I just remember having this moment of like, "What if this were your funeral?"

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And, "What would people say?"

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Or, "Would you yourself feel that you have done what you were placed on this earth to do?"

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Alison: Hmm. 

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Monique: And I, literally, left that funeral thinking, "No, I have not." And I just, earnestly, sought the Lord in prayer and just other spiritual disciplines like journaling. These things that were things that I've always just done, again, divinely-ordered looking back. But I had that conversation. I just begged the Lord to show me some things, and my goodness did He ever. 

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And a lot of what I saw and what He shared with me, I thank God at that time there was a spiritual mother, a mentor, who after we had gotten married, we spent a little bit of time living in Mississippi. And, so, this lady I met there, in that short amount of time that I was there, which is real interesting too.

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I would share these things with her and she would tell me just how she felt the Lord was leading me in that time. And what I recognized is, how did I say it before, one of the first times like really hearing Him speak directly to me, to me, not necessarily through other people. 

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And basically saying, "I want you to counsel. I want you to go and train as a therapist and to do this in the church." In the Black church clear. And I thought, "Okay, all right, this is cute and funny because I'm new to this. I, definitely, am not hearing correctly because Black churches don't do this type of thing. Black people don't do this thing." 

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So I struggled again and wrestled with trusting that my voice and the voice of the Lord were intimate in that moment. That they were one and the same. So after confirmation that this is indeed the voice of the Lord, "I am speaking to you, you are hearing me correctly."

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And I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, okay." And, so, I started the journey then to prepare to be a counselor. Now I believe looking back one of the reasons why to do that in the church setting, for one, again, and we're talking umpteen years ago. So I know things have progressed, thank the Lord. People, as you were saying, are a little bit more accepting to counseling. It's almost become a little trendy thing to do. So significant progress has been made, yes, still have a long way to go.

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Alison: Yes.

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Monique: Still have a very long way to go. Because even in the church setting, again, we're getting better with allowing people to express their grief, their limitations, the heart of life. 

I think we're getting better. But I also still believe that we don't allow adequate time and space. I just don't believe that we do. 

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And, so, that became my call. My life's work, is to take these experiences that I had throughout my life and figure, "How can we correct these experiences, especially in the church setting, so that people can walk in liberty sooner." That they can understand that, again, I think in this day and time we give a little space for a person to say, "This is hard." 

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But it's not long that that comes followed with this spiritual cheer, "You can do it. You can do all things through Christ." Truth, yes, but again, when we're in certain places in life, doesn't that feel heavy? Doesn't that feel... 

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Maybe I know this but what I need to hear someone say to me is, "I understand you're depressed and I'm wondering is it because you've done everything that everyone else has wanted you to do? And you are sad, or you are feeling heavy because you have gone overlooked for so long?"

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Do we open up that space and are we okay with stepping into that miry, murky place with someone and not feel so compelled to have to spiritually hurry them along. Because you and I very well know that spiritual bypass and A, is a very real thing and B, that that emotional work may take a little bit longer than sometimes we are willing to give that space and that time for.

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Alison: What a beautiful picture of taking all of that empathy, that you both needed. I'm thinking back to your college years when you had the heavy weight and the depression, and found relief from a therapist. And a PK, someone who grew up in the church and loves the church, and in that moment God's voice and your voice. 

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I love how you said, that coming together and it's like, "Okay, now you're going to go take that place of holding space for witnessing, for being with others' pain. For not fixing, or bypassing, or slapping Bible verses on." Just being with, right into the church setting 

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Monique: Mh-hmm. 

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Alison: That is just such a beautiful picture. We talk about spiritual bypassing, it really is this way of putting clichés, pat answers on things. Instead of really walking into the pain of others and just being with others in what they're experiencing. And just that picture of you in a church setting is really powerful to me. Do you think that whole issue is more elevated in a Black church?

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Monique: Yes, and I am speaking from my experience. So growing up in that life, still in that Black church life, and also having been a counselor in that setting. I feel like it gives me a bit of an edge to be able to say, "Yes, to that." I do. 

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And from what I have heard, over time, wish I had the insight back then to have collected some data. But I can remember what people would share with me. Kind of when you talk about these clichés, we get those things sometimes from the pulpit. Which I've actually done a presentation on about how some of the messages from the pulpit hinder our mental health and emotional health, especially, in the African American church setting.

How there is this historical reference; we talk about how our people have endured and how our people had to just keep it moving. Even under the most distressing of circumstances, extenuating of circumstances, they prevailed, they made it, and you come from that, you're cut from that cloth, you should be able to do that too. They didn't have time to sit on somebody's couch to process their feelings. They had to keep it moving and you should be able to do that too. 

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So I think that some of that is embedded in that historical context, generationally. And then we want to talk about cultural trauma versus that generational trauma, it's just been transmitted, from generation to generation. 

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And I want to say to people it is an act of resistance to feel. It's an act of resistance to feel because if your ancestors, your enslaved loved ones, were told, "Shut up, boy." Or, you can't show any kind of emotions when your families are being ripped apart, all of these things. Then do we not owe it to our ancestors to cry out. To even carry some of that, that was never expressed by them, we can bellow those things out. 

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Alison: Wow, oh, that's powerful. That just gave me chills.

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Monique: I think about the night before my father's funeral. A lot of his first cousins had come to the funeral home when we had the family visitation time or whatever. And I've known some of them just over the years, it was a lot of them. But it was just interesting to me that they shared with me, that night, that my grandmother, so my father's mom, was the one that their parents... So we're talking my grandmother's siblings would be their parents. 

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Alison: Mm-hmm. 

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Monique: So their fathers and their mothers, they chose to put their money together to send my grandmother to school. They felt she was the smartest one. 

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And, so, they put their money together, they worked to put her through school. And I told them I had never ever heard that before. But what I did know is that education was super-duper important to my grandmother, and to her children, and thereby to her grandchildren. 

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So I say that to say, that if we say things like for us to obtain an education or to have the right to vote. We should do this because our ancestors could not, or they fought for this, then, I would say the same thing about our emotional healing.

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Alison: Yes, okay, I get what you're saying. Yes, that makes a lot of sense and there's a whole another layer. And I remember talking about this with you. You so kindly read The Best of You and endorsed it. 

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And I remember I wanted to know from you, because in that cocktail of co-dependency, and the cultural conditioning, and the messages we get from culture, as women, "To stay small." And there is just a generational... we couldn't vote. There were lots of things we couldn't do. 

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My mom couldn't get a credit card, literally, and my mom is a brilliant woman, college educated, couldn't get a credit card if my dad didn't co-sign it with her. You know what I mean? That was not that long ago, these kinds of things. 

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But I remember when I was talking with you, Monique, and I'm so aware that as a White woman there's one thing. And then you add the layer of being a Black woman in a country where there are so many more layers of the different cultural messages. Both from the dominant culture and also from your own about how you're supposed to resist.

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Monique: And, so, when you think about that, even when you talk about people of color, and I am sensitive to that, there are many people of color that can possibly resonate. I tend to have to say even when we talk about this people-pleasing, this fawning, I have to step out from underneath that label. And I have to say, "I am a Black woman." Because I get lost even in the label of people of color.

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Alison: Can you tell me more about that?

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Monique: Yes, I just think that Black women's, our experiences are so unique. 

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Alison: Yes. 

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Monique: So very unique, and I think that because of the uniqueness of those experiences. That expectation of, "You are going to put it on your back. You're going to carry the weight of-." And that's kind of like a fill in the blank. So the women had to do that. When their men were stripped away for from them. And I'm also thinking of, I don't know if you would've, recently, have seen The Black Panther?

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Alison: Oh, yes. Wakanda?

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Monique: Yes.

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Alison: Yes.

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Monique: And, so, I'm even thinking about some of the themes I felt in that movie. When the queen had to talk about her husband, and just the absence of the Black man. So there is this expectation that the Black woman has to do these things. We have to protect, and we have to provide, we have to do. So that can be lost when, sometimes, we talk about this people of color label. 

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So I have to step out from underneath that and say, "But as a Black woman, this is my experience. This is what I am having to tease through, and discern, and embody." Definitely it is going to tell us a whole lot of stuff even before our mind catches up with it, right?

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Alison: Yes.

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Monique: So, yes, we have some very unique experiences in terms of that expectation. That expecting to do what others need and want for us to do.

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Alison: If I'm hearing you right, it's like what comes with that is an extra layer of pressure to do things in a certain way. And you are coming in and saying, "What if part of the resistance, part of honoring the strength is to honor the lament, is to honor the weight, and get healthy and heal."

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I just want to pause and just say, man, what a beautiful. Again, to circle back to, then, you stepping into the church to bring all of that light into all of that healing right there. It's just a beautiful picture to me. It's a picture, to me, I think we can all learn from.

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Monique: Mm-hmm.

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Alison: Why shouldn't we be bringing the healing into the church? Versus going to church and then go into therapy. I just think that is a brilliant, beautiful way that you began to use your voice, that was so hard-earned. So hard earned. 

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Monique: I mean, if you think about just even the people-pleasing, if you will, even of the bridegroom. The Scriptures will teach us that we are nourished, we are cherished, we are going to be presented without spots and without blemish. This is the work of Jesus. So are we pleasing people by trying to hide our blemishes, and our spots, and our wrinkles?

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Can we free even those of us who, you know I love the church and are in the church to say, "I'm blemished, spotted, I'm wrinkled." So I tend to think of that on a systemic level. How even systemically do we find ourselves in this fawning, this pleasing? And Galatians 1:10 clearly states, "Are we going to please God or are we going to please man?" And I think that's interesting, that's black/white. And I think that there are places where it's clear. 

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But there's a whole lot of nuance, as you very well know, that we have to have to deal with, and we have to live within. And I think that we have to be careful that we are not communicating to people, "That to do this is pleasing to God." When it can really just be you're pleasing men.

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Alison: Man, that's so nuanced. And it actually makes me think of this idea of there is a way in which we can, almost in an unhealthy way, use the fawn response or pleasing with God,

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Monique: Yes, Ma'am.

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Alison: Because we're trying to, and I love what you're saying, it's when we're trying to cover over the blemishes to please God., which is not what God wants. God wants the honest, real, person that we are. 

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And, so, that trickles into our relationship with God, to our relationships with the church. Versus really showing up and it requires so much safety, Monique, and you and I have talked about this, but to be able to show up with our blemishes. I feel like there is so much tenderness even in this conversation because we're going to fumble, but to show up. I picture like, "This is who I am."

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Monique: Mm-hmm. 

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Alison: And the problem is folks will hurt us when we do that. And, so, it's tricky, we have to create this safety so that people feel like they can. And, again, it gets back to what I think is so beautiful about what you did, is bring the counseling right into the church setting, to begin to model what that looks like for folks. 

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I want to just touch on your new book, you co-authored with Clarence Shuler, it's called Finding Hope. It just so flows right out of what we're talking about. Finding Hope in a Dark Place: Facing Loneliness, Depression, and Anxiety with the Power of Grace. And one of the things that really, when I read it, stood out to me, and it's a lot of what we're talking about, was the friendship. 

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Monique: Mm-hmm.

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Alison: The way that just it wasn't even therapy, it was just the way that you showed up for your friend who was struggling with depression.

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Monique: Mm-hmm.

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Alison: And, so, in the book, he's telling his story of struggling. And you come along as his expert, his friend, who's an expert to give language to some of the experience of depressions. Suicidal ideas, shown anxiety, from a more clinical background. 

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But really you can tell it was your friendship, that just brought so much hope to him. And it was just such a beautiful picture of, it's like what you said, the little joys. Here is a friend who just sent me a text and said, "Are you doing okay?" And that gave him some relief. It was just a really beautiful picture. 

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So I wanted to just hear a little bit more, from you, on your experience, again, of using this hard-earned voice. That you have to go to the journey, to the center of the earth to find it. And then here you are coming alongside so beautifully in this book. What was that like for you?

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Monique: It was hard, very hard. Very hard to speak into that because it goes back to, "Okay, is it enough?"

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"Is it too much?"

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"How do I get this right?" I want to please him and his publisher. Because when he came to me with that idea, I'm like, "What?" And he was like, "Yes." They just really felt like this would be really great to have the voice of a therapist. And he was like, "I'm thinking I know the one to get."

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And I was like, "Oh, my God." So that was very difficult to find my voice, I'd given him some submissions and he was like, "Is this all you've got?"

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And I'm like, "Oh, God, so I'm not pleasing."

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But then he's like, "No, Monique, say the thing, say it." And I'm going, "Okay."

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And, so, I didn't want to be accused of saying too much or now it's more about me. So it was hard for me to figure out how to strike that balance. But, thankfully, yes he was just real gracious and just like, "Monique, just do your thing, that's what I need you to do."

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And I said, "Okay." So it was a beautiful experience once I finally found my flow, if you will. I hope that people do understand, like you were saying, that it's not so much based on me being a therapist, but what the power of relationship can do. 

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And I like how we're almost rounding out with that. Where we've opened up but not even shared about just you, and what people say about you. Being in relationship with you, relating with you, and it's a powerful thing. I know, I have benefited from being in relationship with you. You have given me corrective emotional experiences on various levels and I just won't even name those, but you have.

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So when we think about this context of just in relationship. Thinking about this grace that is sufficient, that the Scripture tells us. But when we find it in those dark places, it is when we name like I did with Clarence. Like, "You have to be disappointed." And he wanted to skirt around it and deny, "No, I'm just mad." 

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I'm like, "You know what, for Black men, usually, they're going to be mad before they're going to be depressed." So that can be and most people are going to misconstrue that, "Another angry, Black man."

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No, maybe it's another depressed Black man. 

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Alison: Yes. 

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Monique: So being able to name that and to be able to say, "There is grace in that place." If the Scripture tells us, "Where we are weak is where He is made strong". So it is right there at that point of intersection where grace is found. 

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Alison: Yes.

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Monique: So I just believe that it is imperative, again, going back to church, we are many members but we are one. If we are going to be able to rejoice when others rejoice, weep when they weep. Shoulder life with people, shoulder to shoulder life with people, or even at times bear the infirmities of those who are weak. Those who are strong at that moment. 

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And that's my emphasis at that moment because we're going to have our day. We're going to have our day. We have to be able to name ours, in order for us to name it in others even when they're trying not to. 

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Alison: Yes, that's good. 

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Monique: And I think that that's where grace is found. I think that that's where grace is found. And, so, I just believe that if we're going to be healthy individuals, if we're going to be a healthy society. 

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If we're going to be a healthy church, we have got to name what we are feeling. We have to allow other people to do it and we have to allow them the space to do it, and also provide adequate support and tools to help them to navigate their way through those dark times.

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Alison: Yes, it's a beautiful book. But just that friendship, what you just said, and the way that you helped them name what was happening was really powerful, and I learned a lot about friendship. I've thought about it. I'm like, "Oh, so much of it is just naming. I see you, I see what's happening, this makes sense. Your experience is valid. I'm with you in this." 

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We don't have to fix it; we are just coming alongside. And it's been an honor for me that you invited me in, Monique, because a little bit into our friendship to say, "Yes, I get it. I see it." It's meant so much to me and I've learned so much from you through that book, about, "Oh, this is how we do it, just for our friends." I know, I feel so much pressure. "I got to fix the problem."

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"I got to give them the solution."

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"I've got to give them the nugget of wisdom that'll change their life."

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And it's really all I have to do is be like, "I see it. I get it, that's right. I hear you, that's valid. How're you doing?" It's just really showing up. And that to bring this full circle, I think, I started this off saying, sometimes, it's hard for me to know what's the difference between genuine kindness. Genuine, just showing up for others and pleasing, and that is getting at it. 

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It's when I've done, and I love how you say this, it's when I've done enough work in my own self. That it's like, "Oh, I know that and I can come with you and name that." Not because I'm trying to get something from you or feel like I'm the best friend here or whatever. 

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It's because I've done the work in myself and now I have the ability and the capacity to take that God-given empathy, and that God-given kindness to say, "Oh yes, this is real and I'm with you in this." And there's a with-ness in that and it's powerful and I'm beginning to understand that difference. 

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Monique: Mm-hmm. 

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Alison: But your friendship with Clarence and the way that was modeled in the book was really instructive to me. It was really powerful and really helped me, I think about it a lot and how I show up for other people. 

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Monique: Mh-hmm. 

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Alison: It was subtle, it was a nuanced, but it was very powerful.

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Monique: Yes, oh, thank you for saying that. That means a lot coming from you. It's just easy, and I know you know this, in my final comment. It's easy for us to get lost in other people if we don't know, like you say, who we are enough, we're not aware enough. 

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We're not going to ever have a 100% that glorification is going to take place on the other side. But at least do we know even what our limits are? What we lack? What we might be trying to get from other people? If we are not aware of that, then, we so easily are going to fall into that. 

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So, yes, it is so important for us to do that intrapersonal work. So that we can then be able to love the Lord our God with everything that we have, and then love our neighbor as thyself. And I think that right there is the cornerstone.

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Alison: That's right. There's a term in IFS, in Internal Family Systems that I kind of like it, but they call you have to have a critical mass of self.

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Monique: Mm-hmm.

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Alison: And what they mean by that is just enough. Nobody is ever going to be really there, but just enough of that self-led, and we would say the Holy Spirit-led self. 

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The spirit-led place versus the, "I'm trying to please, fawn, cope, survive, get you to like me, whatever the things are that go along with people-pleasing. There is enough self of a spirit-led self, "No, I'm showing up for this person out of the best of me."

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Monique: That is right.

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Alison: What would you say, Monique, to that young girl, now, who watched you know her brother and her mother, and learned how to just wave, and smile, and nod. What would you say to her now?

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Monique: Oh, my God, oh, without crying, "That is going to be okay. It's going to be okay. That, literally, all things do work together for good even the things that are not good things can work together for good." I think that's what I would say. "Just hold on, hang on, even when you don't want to. Hang on, all things will work together. They will work together for a good."

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Alison: That's beautiful, thank you. I want everyone who's struggling to hear that, that's a word, that's a hard-earned word. What would you say to those who are listening, who struggle with pleasing others and have a hard time really feeling that joy of being God's beloved child?

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Monique: Yes, that you're worth it. You are worth the hard work. You are worth telling others to hold on. You are worth saying, "No." You are worth saying, "Let me think about that and get back to you." So, in other words, you are worth creating that space to do whatever work you need to do. 

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To be able to hear not only your own voice, not only your own beat to your heart. But also how God is speaking to that voice within and how He is also attempting to slow down that beat of our heart, when it's anxious. Or to even speed it up when it's slowly beating because we're lethargic, you're worth creating that space.

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

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Monique: Oh, my goodness, the fact that God has graced me, favored me with relationships, again, such as you, that have allowed me to show up as Monique. Not who people think Monique should be or expect her to be, but who Monique is, that brings out the best of me, have that safety to just be, that's it.

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Alison: I love that. And what needs or desires are you working to protect in your life right now?

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Monique: You have said it, repeatedly, and I know people can't see us, but I'm over here shaking my head, profusely, that hard-earned voice and that wisdom. 

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So many times we can be made to doubt, and to wonder, and to maybe feel like, "You are selfish" or whatever else the case may be. But that hard-earned voice and the wisdom, that is what I'm working hard to protect and I surely encourage all others to do the same. 

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Alison: Yes, we need your voice, it matters. And, especially, the hard-earned voice that has been through the fire, it's powerful, it's holy.

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How can people connect with you, Monique? Your work, your podcast, your resources, your services?

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Monique: Yes, they can reach out to me via my website. It's drmoniquesmith, not to my father, gadson.com. It's G-A-D-S-O-N, I know many people spell my last name many different ways, but it's G-A-D-S-O-N. 

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I'm like you, I have that kind of love/hate relationship with social media, oh, my God. But I try to hang out on Instagram every now and again @drmoniquesmithgadson. And every now and again I might send a tweet, and I may show up on Facebook as well.

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But go to the website is the main way and Instagram, probably, would be the main way. The podcast is, And The Church Said, and that's another story too. In terms of just voice and just following what the Lord is saying to do and how I've even had to learn that maybe it's a tool of healing.

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Alison: Hmm, that's beautiful, thank you. I so appreciate the time you gave us today and I'm so grateful for you.

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Monique: Thank you so much for having me, Alison. I appreciate you.

Is your to-do list a mile long? Are you that person who hustles to get the job done, no matter the cost to yourself?

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If your inner task manager tends to take you (or someone you love) over, do not miss this episode on The Best of You Podcast with my friend and fellow therapist, Rebecca Ching. It's all about the gift and the cost of being a highly productive, can-do person. Rebecca speaks candidly about managing childhood trauma through becoming extremely productive-a survival skill she took with her deep into her adult life. You'll also hear more about our friendship, including the opposite ways we operate in order to protect ourselves.

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Here's what we cover:

1. The moment Rebecca, as a young girl, walked out on a family therapy session

2. The story of being mugged together in our early 20's

3. How to re-org your inner circle to protect the health of your family

4. The shaming voice that surfaces when you give yourself permission to down-shift

5. The problem with the word "busy"

6. Key questions to ask in order to simplify your life.

7. Surprising ways you can start to rest & play

8. How faith messages can intensify productivity in not-so helpful ways

Connect with Rebecca at The Unburdened Leader Podcast or www.rebeccaching.com

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Organifi -Go to Organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today!
• Check out the Raising Boys and Girls Podcast at raisingboysandgirls.com/podcast

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

• To learn more about Fight / Flight / Freeze / Fawn Responses and The 7 P's of Managing Perceptions, check out my new book, The Best of You
• To learn more about Unburdening and the Internal Family Systems model, check out my book with Kimberly Miller, Boundaries for Your Soul
• Rebecca mentions The Daring Way certification program with Brené Brown‍
• Resources for support‍
• Mark 1:11 "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
• Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey, everyone, welcome to this week's episode of The Best of You podcast. I can't believe we are already into December, and as this year winds down, I have a favor to ask of you. I'd be so grateful if you would take two to three minutes, to fill out a survey we've designed. It's called The Best of You Podcast Survey, very creative title. And we're going to give three randomly selected participants a free copy of my new book The Best of You, as our way of saying thank you to you for taking just a couple of minutes to fill out the survey. 

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Here's the thing: we want to hear from you. I am passionate about getting these resources to you for free, every week, to help you in your life. I want this to mean something to you and to be helpful to you. And in order to do that, I need to hear from you. 

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So please take two to three minutes. You can do it right now, go to The Best of Your Podcast Survey link. It's in the episode notes of this episode. It's also on my website, dralisoncook.com/podcast. It'll take just a few minutes, two to three minutes max, to fill out the survey. We'd be so grateful to hear directly from you on how to make sure this podcast is providing you with real help, you can apply in your everyday life.

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Hey, everyone, welcome back to The Best of You podcast. Where today we are going to talk about the hustle. And by the hustle what I mean are those parts of us that produce, perform, work overtime to get the job done. These are the task managers, the productive parts of us. And going into Christmas, I know so many of these parts of us are in overdrive. 

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We've got the list, we've got the goals, we've got the vision, and we are going to get the stuff done. We are the go-to people and we know how to get it done. And to talk about these productive, these producing parts of us. I asked my friend, I have known Rebecca since we both lived in Washington, D.C., right out of college. So, I don't know, I don't want to age us, Rebecca, is that 25 years or more? More probably.

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Rebecca: Yep!

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Alison: So my friend Rebecca, is a Trauma-Informed Leadership Coach, a psychotherapist, and she's the host of a podcast called The Unburdened Leader podcast. And for those of you who have been listening in or who if you've read my first book, Boundaries for Your Soul. We have actually not talked a lot about Internal Family Systems, on this podcast yet. Rebecca is also trained in Internal Family Systems, in IFS. So if you've read my first book, you're well aware of what we mean by unburdened and by this parts model. If you are not familiar with that language, tune in because I'm going to do a whole series on it in the new year. 

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But her podcast is just a beautiful podcast, where she interviews all kinds of leaders. About how to lead from a place of calm, a place of clarity, a place of curiosity, an unburdened place. We're trying to get out of that pressurized place and into clear, calm, unburdened leadership.

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And, so, she is someone who practices what she teaches. She tries to live and model all the things she talks about. And as I know, because I've known you a long time, you've come by that the hard way. Just as I've come by everything I've learned the hard way. 

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I mean when it comes to hustle, when it comes to productivity, I knew you back in the day. You knew how to get the job done better than anyone. So this unburdened leader, this place to which you have arrived, now, you've come by the hard way and I can't wait to have this conversation with you. Thanks for being here, Rebecca.

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Rebecca: Oh, I am so thrilled to be here. Yes, I'm looking forward to this conversation, Alison.

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Alison: Yes, so I want to just hit the ground running with an early memory of, and I'm calling it hustle. Does that word hustle resonate with you?

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Rebecca: Yes, grind, hustle, work, just the grind culture, yes, the doing, all of that resonates.

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Alison: Getting it done.

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Rebecca: Yes.

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Alison: I mean, it is producing, it's performing, but it's just that kind of grind. That's a good word because there's a tension to it. There's an edge to it, in a way, when we are in that task mode. So what's an early memory of hustling, of producing. 

Now, I know hindsight is 2020, so at the time you might not have realized what you were doing. But what's a memory of when you started to operate in that way?

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Rebecca: Yes, and, so, I almost want to back it up a little bit because there's a memory. But there are some influences, as I was thinking about our conversation, and one of the biggest memories and early influences. Believe it or not, if you know me, I love pop culture. 

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And, so, movies, and TV, and magazines were a thing back in the '80s. So I was really drawn to the female archetype who was smart, she was hardworking, she worked her way to the top. She didn't need anybody, and that really was indicative of what I was going through at the time. I mean, my parents had a very conflictual marriage and a three-year separation during my middle school years. Ended in divorce, and there was a lot of abuse, and conflict, and chaos at home.

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And, so, I was really drawn to this '80s archetype; the shoulder-pad suits, the slicked-back hair. She didn't need anybody, and then usually there was like a Michael J. Fox character that would come in and melt her heart. And it was kind of gross all of the tropes that I breathed in. 

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But there was something that felt like, "Oh, if I don't need anybody and I just work, and I have money, and power. I can escape what I'm feeling and still have this recognition, I can have freedom, I can have choice."

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There's something about watching some of those archetypes, at a young age, that burned into my psyche. Combined with growing up in the Protestant work ethic, and then in Minnesota, where I grew up on steroids, it was so in the air. 

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I breathed in, "You work." No exaggeration, you get up, and you shovel the snow in below zero weather, and you scrape off the ice on your car, and turn the car on. And then when it was still dark... that was just what you did. 

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We would ski. I mean, I know you grew up in cold weather, too. So there was just those two influences. And I say this with humility, but also a sense of pride, once I realized I had a brain. I was gifted with a brain and also I was good at sports. 

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And, so, at a young age I realized, "Oh, there was something about this kind of comfort." That I realized, "Of getting good grades, and being in the honors' classes, or being on the sports teams, and performing well, and producing the results that calmed the pain that I was feeling. And, so, it was this thing everyone praised. "Oh, you got the home run."

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"You got the high test score."

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And I had a shadow side, too, because there was this sense of if I didn't ever meet a 100% I had failed. So then I would try and produce more, and work more, and perform more. But it was chasing this idea that these results, these ways of doing and being, would help separate me from the immense discomfort, and loneliness, and pain, that I was sitting with as a kid. 

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And, then, as we got into high school and then college, and discovering my interests and passions. It was just like putting oil on the fire, fuel on the fire of performing. Because, as we mentioned at the beginning of the show, I got into politics and that's just a place where... My wardrobe in D.C. was suits and workout clothes; I had no casual wear. It was like my-

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Alison: Yes, that's the metaphor right there.

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Rebecca: Right there. I mean, we'd go to work and then you'd go to some function that you got an invitation to, the happy hour, and you'd meet up with your friends. But it was usually some work networking or an event, and then you'd go home. Maybe go to the gym at night or in the morning depending. 

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And, so, yes, I think there was just that piece and then it just fed on itself. And then as I got older getting sick was seen as weakness, and if I wasn't producing that was like a moral failure when my body was tired, and I judged others too. 

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So it was this sense of just going and going because if I wasn't producing. If I wasn't pushing myself and achieving these goals, then I'd have to sit with what I was feeling and that wasn't very fun.

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Alison: Yes, it sounds like it worked to some degree. In the sense of, especially, early on, maybe in those middle school, high school years, when there's a lot of chaos at home. Hard to make sense of that escape, almost, of getting that achievement, pushing yourself into sports. I mean, it wasn't an entirely unhealthy outlet, it's what I'm getting at. 

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Rebecca: Well, it was better than drugs. It was better than sleeping around. But I guess nobody knew me and I don't know if I knew me, but I knew how I was supposed to be.

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Alison: Tell me more about that. Were you aware of feeling that at the time, feeling alone even while you were in the grind? 

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Rebecca: Well, I don't know how much I think I was aware of, "Okay, I'm smiling, but I don't feel like smiling but this is what we're supposed to do." I was a cheerleader, captain of the cheering squad. And I mean, I'd get excited but inside I'd have this constant ache and there were just the burdens I was carrying. 

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And, again, I loved people, I loved community, I loved team things, I loved gathering. I would host the parties and those kind of things, I loved all of that stuff. And I think the world says, "Well, it could have been worse." Sure, but I was breathing in the whole performance. So I guess I'm saying at the time, sure, it looked like it worked.

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Like, "Oh, wow, you get good grades and you did things with your career. and you achieved these things, and, oh, Rebecca, you do so much." Yes, but at what cost? And, so, while I had some really great fun memories, I still am right now in a massive rewiring my nervous system, and what it means to rest, and to downshift, and to not be moving towards achieving. 

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I mean, I don't think I'm going to check out of that ever. Because that was so connected to my safety, and to my identity, and to my belonging. 

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Alison: Yes, but when did you begin to realize that consciously, right? In hindsight, again, there was a cost, there was an ache, "I knew it." But when did you begin to, consciously, realize, "I've got to change something?"

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Rebecca: Well, you were there for that moment, Alison, in D.C., and you and I were coming back from a late dinner and we were mugged. And I remember you got jumped first, and then I jumped on the guy that jumped on you, and then the other guys jumped on me. 

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And I'm laughing because it feels so surreal. And then I remember I heard this wild noise and I realized it was me screaming. And I then I heard your voice saying, "Just let him have it." And I realized they just wanted our backpacks, they didn't want to hurt us. 

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So I relaxed so they could pull my backpack off, and they ran. I ended up going to the hospital because I had smashed my knee in the struggle. And I walked or kind of limped on crutches into my therapist's office, I had just started therapy. And my therapist looks up at me, as I enter the door on my crutches, and smiles and says, "Oh, it's nice to see you leaning on something." 

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And I was like, "Oh." And I wanted to cuss her out, I was so angry at her . And then at work, I was working for a senator at the time. I kept getting up on my crutches and going to talk to staff, and moving around. And everyone was like, "Rebecca, you don't have to come to our office, sit your butt down and heal your knee."

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People were getting mad at me, and I'm like, "Bo, I'm not going to let this get me down. I have to keep showing I can do this." There was no downshifting. So that was the beginning of an unraveling that showed up over the next couple of decades, for sure, but that's a big one. When you asked that question as you were prepping for this call, I was like, "It was that moment."

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Alison: I want to pause on it for a second, because I've never told that story on this podcast. And there are a couple of things I want to tease out. I mean, first of all, I don't think I realized, at that time, that you had started seeing a therapist. It was before therapy was really normative in a way. 

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Rebecca: Yes.

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Alison: So it's not like we were talking. Actually, I'm just realizing, I didn't realize you did have a therapist at the time. It wasn't something that we all did. I mean, we knew about it, we knew about therapists, it was on the front end of it. 

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Rebecca: Yes, I've been in and out of therapy most of my life with family; we did group therapy. My parents brought us to therapy when they were divorcing. So, for me, I pretty much saw how I didn't want to be a therapist through almost all of the therapists I had up until the one in D.C., which she worked out of a church. 

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So I wanted to see someone with a faith-based orientation that was important to me. I never had done that before, and that was a beautiful a gift. 

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So, yes, I already had that and it was across town from where I worked. So I had to get on the metro and go across town and then go up a hill. So I ended up taking cabs to see her because I couldn't get there on time on my lunch break, if I had to do it on my crutches. Well, it's interesting because I just realized, again, we've known each other a long time. So I grew up in a very Christian culture that would've seen going to a therapist as a little bit outside. 

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Rebecca: Sure.

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Alison: And, so, I'm interested, I don't think I had realized that for you that'd been more a part of the norm. And you knew you needed help and that was something that had been part of your... It hadn't been necessarily that effective, potentially. Because I always like to ask people on this podcast. Every time I ask somebody, "When you reached out for help what was the result?"

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I get mixed. Some people are, "I had a terrible experience with a therapist." Or, "I had a great experience with a therapist." So I like bringing that to the surface, because it's important for people to realize that just going to a therapist isn't necessarily the fix. It's finding the right person to come alongside you.

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So this is a little bit of a tangent, I want to back up for just a second. Because through this experience of the achieving, and the ache, and the loneliness, and knowing there was this disparity. There were some people coming alongside of you, at some point, but it wasn't, necessarily, helping. Is that correct? 

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Rebecca: I think I would say, too, one of the gifts that if there's something that I wanted or knew I needed, I just went for it. And I don't know how conscious it was, it was just like, "There's a gap in my life, so I need to figure out how to fill the gap."

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And, so, from a young age, I don't know if it's just... I've got a parent who is an entrepreneur and you get scrappy, and you figure things out. But there was just this sense of knowing and looking for more. 

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I've always been hungry for what's more, what's better, what's different from a young age. And then if I saw something that was an injustice, like the therapist that saw my whole family when we my parents were divorcing, and he would get mad at me for being mad. And I remember I slammed the door, and one of his pictures fell and he yelled at me about that. And I had so much enjoyed that I got to him, and I just remember that, too. 

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But if I saw an injustice, I wanted to better it. There was always this sense of improving. I had to improve everything; myself, my environment, others. But I was also the one, particularly in high school and middle school that people would come talk to, no surprise. 

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It was like they would come down to me with all their questions about boys, and relationships, and all the things. Even though I was friends with everyone, I wasn't really in a serious relationship, but I was the go-to.

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Alison: Mm-hmm. 

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Rebecca: And, so, there was just this sense of wanting to learn, to better, to grow, to be different than what I was seeing at home. I knew, early on, that what I was being taught wasn't the way. And, so, when things weren't effective I ended... there is a sense I did end that. 

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So I hadn't thought about it that way. And even if some of the therapists weren't helpful. I remember in second grade going to a family therapy session and my parents listing all the drugs they were using, and substances they were using, and then they dropped me back off at school. And I remember sitting in this classroom waiting for everyone to come back from recess going, "What just happened?"

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And like, "Oh, my gosh, that was horrible." So, yes, it took me a while. But this wonderful woman in D.C., she had just this beautiful integrative approach with clinical and theological approach, and just presence. And, so, when I walked in on crutches after our mugging, that was the time I started to realize I couldn't just push through. I could stop, and feel, and heal what happened.

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Alison: And she had the trust with you to say what she said. It wasn't the first session when you walked in, and there was that trust and that safety there. What's interesting, Rebecca, and, again, I want to zoom back to this mugging. But I'm learning about you, as a friend and in our friendship, even thinking about your relationship with therapy. 

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Where you and I, we both have this hustle, productivity, get the job done part of us, but it manifests very differently. And even in your relationships with therapists, I'm going to call it, and you can correct me on this. But I'm thinking about the Fight/Flight response, and it's like you'll go into fight mode. Even with that early therapist you're like, "I'll go. Man, I've got fight, I'll go to the therapist, I'll get there. I mean, I had to, my parents dragged me there." But there was that a little bit of fight. Or "I'll leave."

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Or, "I'm happy if I get to him."

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Rebecca: Yes.

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Alison: And then in the mugging, that's where I'm circling back to, there was that fight response. "Man, I'm going to protect my friend." And what's fascinating, I have much more of that Flight/Fawn, so I would never have gone to a therapist. You couldn't have paid me to go. I was halfway through my doctoral training to become one and I was like, "No way." So my way is to avoid or I fight through fleeing. I go the opposite direction. 

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So actually it's interesting, so my protective strategy is I won't protect myself with someone who's not helping me. So I just won't go near them. I won't give anybody a chance, I'll keep everybody out, that's how I protect myself. 

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Whereas you would go in and if it got bad or if it wasn't helpful, you would speak up a little bit more, and that's an oversimplification. But I want to zoom in on that mugging moment because that is where just for-

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Rebecca: Pretty indicative of my personality.

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Alison: Well, but, yes, both of our responses, if you think of that survival, that nervous system response. 

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Rebecca: Yes.

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Alison: I remember, vividly, I could tell, I don't remember if you did. I remember thinking, "Oh, this doesn't feel good." We're walking, I was like, "Oh, this isn't good." I felt it, I just collapsed. I don't even think I screamed. 

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I mean, I realized, "Oh, my gosh, when faced with danger I won't fight, I won't run, I will just surrender." That was scary for me. You on the other hand went into fight. I mean, you were going to protect me. It's interesting because those are those survival mechanisms.

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Rebecca: It was of value, too, because I remember there was this moment where I looked at you and this guy. Because these were really tall guys, they were three guys and you and I are not. We're not blessed with height, but we're blessed with might. But and I remember just thinking, "Well, if I'm going to go, I'm not going to go just standing here watching my friend get hurt." And I was just all in, and that was something I really tapped into. I was like, "Okay."

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But what was interesting is some of our mutual guy friends, I felt a little shame, because they said, "Oh, if it was just Rebecca, she never would've been mugged." There was almost this sense of like, "She's so tough." You know what I mean? Like my strength was a repellent and that's been an interesting dance. Where people are drawn and repelled by strength.

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And, so, yes, I think that was an interesting time where I started to own that. But that was a clear moment, it was almost like I just hear this God moment, of like, "If you're going to go." And I just didn't. I mean you were getting hurt and I was like, "Screw this." 

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Excuse me, but you're right about the fight and connecting it to producing and productivity. I don't know how to downshift and I'm just getting a handle of downshifting. It's like, "Okay." 

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Because I think even in one of our conversations, maybe, this year. You're like, "Rebecca, you don't always have to be improving, you are enough now." And I was like, "Oh, yes." It's like I never want to settle. And I'm like, "Oh, geez, I've breathed in with so many of the leaders I work with, and so many of the clients I work with, and my clinical work. That when am I enough?" 

I'm like, "Oh, shoot, my enough, it was there when I was born." 

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And, so, how to separate that from I still want to refine, and grow, and push, but then even that can be its own drug of choice for me. And I have to sit with the discomfort of just being. And, so, I'm really trying to pay attention to that because I love to do, and create, and push, and challenge. 

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But then at what expense to myself, my wellbeing, the most important relationships, and rest, and play, those things that I used to laugh at. Like, "Oh, rest and play, that's for those wimpy folks that need to. This is my life, I work." Oh, my gosh, it's embarrassing that I think about it. But you know me, then, and it still comes up every now and then, too.

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Alison: Well, this is the whole series, each of these productivity, whatever you want to call it, has its strengths, and I see, to this day, those strengths in you. You are going to show up. You've shown up for me at times when I'm like, "You shouldn't be showing up for me, you're tired."

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As your friend I know this about you, you will show up. Even when you're exhausted, excellence, justice, all of these things are really beautiful, good qualities. And I think that's what's really hard about these parts of us because, and there's a cost.

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Rebecca: There's a big.

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Alison: There's a cost, we have to balance them out. And, so, again, going back to this moment, we've been circling around it. But there's this moment where there's a physical. You're walking into your therapist's office in crutches, and she says, "It's good to see you leaning on something."

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And, again, even today I can see it in your face, you're shaking your head at yourself, "Yes, it took that." And even then, I know there was still many more, but it took that almost physicalizing something embodied to slow down just a little bit, which was still not quite easy for you. 

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Rebecca: And parenthood was the other big catalyst because for a while, then, I was finding work and family were at war with each other. And I'm like, "Oh, that's not working." And, so, a few years ago I really wanted to say, "Okay, my loves; what I love to do, and to give, to serve, to work, and my family are going to be on the same team. I'm not going to pivot them against each other." 

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But that's when I started realizing, if anything, it's taking me away from being the best partner. The best parent, and the best friend that I want to be, and community member, I need to rethink this. Because work was and producing was trumping it all and it was so reflexive.

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Alison: Can you tell me a little bit about that? As a parent, how did you begin to notice that? What are some examples of when you noticed, "Oh, my gosh, the reflexive instinct here is something I've got to start to pay attention to."

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Rebecca: Yes, and it's something that my husband Gavin and I talked about early on. He knows that I love to just create, and build, and try, and do new things. He knew it more about me than I did. It was a few years into the marriage. And I'm like, "I think I'm an entrepreneur."

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And he's like, "Yes, like really." And then with kids, having kids, I realized many folks who've grown up in homes where there are a lot of challenges. I know, for me, going into parenthood, I knew more of what I didn't want to do than what I did. So I had a lot of things to learn there too. 

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Oh, and then being a trained psychotherapist with the trauma specialty, I was like, "Oh, it's all about presence. And, so, how am I showing up with my littles? How am I showing up with myself? And I can't do that if I'm spinning out and running around."

‍

And then I started recognizing, "Oh, okay." And, so, it's just navigating that, and especially as they got a little bit older. I mean, some people have different phases they love for those who parent, or care-give, or are step-parents. 

‍

I mean, my kids are in their preteen and teen, and this is my sweet spot. But also just those moments of being with, and that's when I had to slow down, and then all of a sudden stuff came up. But also it was like, "Oh, I want to do things differently and I can't do it all."

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I started realizing my capacities. I mean, when we're in our 20s it feels like we can just do about anything. When you're blessed with physical ability and health, you do that. And then just the fatigue. And my oldest daughter is on the autism spectrum and there were some other things coming around that, and I got really protective there. 

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And, so, I realized, "Okay, if this is a priority, to create the home and the safe space that I wanted for them." Then I needed to make some shifts in what I was valuing, what I was worshiping unintentionally, and started to really redefine what producing and productivity were. And, so, yes, I'm still untangling it from it all, but having kids was the next phase of that awakening.

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Alison: I always love how intentional you are about those things. You become aware, you get intentional, you get the resources that you need. But I can imagine in the context of the childhood trauma. 

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The history around which this beautiful, again, entrepreneurial, creative, productive, can-do woman that God made you to be. This is good. This is a good part of you. But yet some of these ways in which it got extreme.

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Rebecca: Yes.

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Alison: Out of a context of trying, it was your way out of pain for those early years. So, again, at every moment, and we know this to be true, that when we step back a little bit. Whether it's the pleasing, the perfecting, the performing, whatever it is, things come up because we do those things for a reason. 

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And, so, you have the value. You're like, "I want to be present for my kids, I know this is important. I've got to shift my relationship to work, to producing." What came up for you and how did you care for yourself, as you made that shift? 

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Because I think that's why it's hard for people to change and to shift, is things come up for us. For me, if I shift away from a little bit of that people-pleasing drive, and over time. I'm aware of it, and it's like, "Oh, yes, that's why I do it because it's scary."

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Rebecca: Yes.

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Alison: There's stuff under the hood there.

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***

Rebecca: It took me a good chunk of years to untangle myself from a lot of commitments, and spaces, and things that I developed. But I realized I needed to simplify, and I got really picky on what I was giving my attention to, and who I was giving my attention to, and that felt important. And it is still a challenge, and you and I've had many a conversation about social media on that area too. 

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But it involved a lot of reorganization with who was our inner circle. What does support look like for me? And I found a lot of support in the work spaces, but I was diving deep into Brené Brown's Daring to Lead community. 

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So I'm a certified facilitator and also a consultant, and I've done trainings for them. But to do that work you have to, it's like the self of therapist. And with IFS it's the same thing, it's a way of leaving. Shame, resilience, IFS, they're a way of living and being. 

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And, so, I was drawn to these methodologies that weren't just frameworks that I could teach. I had to live it if I was going to be a decent model for this, for anyone else who was wanting to learn it. 

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So it was this intuitive being drawn to the things that we needed to learn for ourselves. And, so, I was learning what I needed to learn also to help others learn it too. So these communities, that I'm a part of professionally, became the space. And at the same time, in my personal life, my husband and I had to get rid or do a big reorg. 

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Because we realized, to have our home be safe it meant setting tougher boundaries. Maybe with folks who felt entitled to our family because of being related, or proximity, or whatever, and being intentional about who we sought out. And it's harder to make friends and build community in that post-college era because everyone is so full and their schedules. 

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And I think that's the other thing, too, is I try not to stay busy. I don't want to be busy. I want my life to be full of things that I love and that are aligned, and I know that's a privilege and a gift. And sometimes we got to just do the things because we got to do the things, and adulting is what it is. 

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But that's become part of it too. And I had to do a lot of work with some of the voices I internalized of, "Who do you think you are to be..." Fill in the blank. And I came from a family where there's a lot of brilliant, talented people, but everyone was siloed to their one thing.

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And, then, either this person is this, so that means you can't be that too. And I am a multiplicity of talents, and gifts, and things, but I didn't pursue them because that wasn't nurtured because I wasn't tapped with that. And, so, part of parenthood helped me discover that too. Because there's that thing awakened, that, kind of, Mama bear for me awakened. But, again, it took me quite a while to detangle.

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So when Covid hit, I had been feeling for a while to simplify and began the process of scaling back, and released the brick and mortar that I'd been running, and the team of 10 that I'd been leading. And I started this business to help with leadership, coaching, and consulting. Which I've been dreaming about and working on for years before that, but solidified that so I could be home as much as I can as my kids were getting older. 

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But it's tricky, Alison, I still struggle to rest well and I'm really trying to build in practices, and I'm trying to check myself on what's the meaning and motivation of what's going on in my head. "Am I trying to create, or build, or cultivate something out of protection and fear?" 

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Or is it something that's coming up that it's, almost, like I cannot get it out. And that's what I've seen with other projects I've done. I have to just write it out, or create it, or sketch it out. And, so, I'm trying to get be better discerning of that and really trying to like butt on the couch watching a show, or reading a book, sketching, journaling, getting outside, just slowing that down.

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Because I do love what I do but I'm starting to see I don't have to keep that drive that, as a young kid, that helped me, go, "I got to do something different. I got to find other mentors or other resources." That younger part can still show up, if she gets scared and feels disconnected from me. 

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Alison: Yes, and how does she, that younger part of you, as you rumble with this idea of rest.

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Rebecca: Yes.

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Alison: How does she experience rest and play? 

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Rebecca: Hmm, okay, she's a real goofball and a real dork, and my kids don't always enjoy her, but I do. And I enjoy seeing my kids get annoyed with me or roll their eyes, and I have to watch that because I can push it a little much because it's so entertaining. 

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But, yes, I'm just a goofball. I lose that place when I let myself just let her lead a little bit. I'm not caring what other people think. It's awkward dance parties, singing at the top of my lungs. It's not editing myself, or on the other hand, it's a deep place of deep listening and curiosity. 

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I'm in a just a radical presence of, "Oh, my gosh, a new person, a new story, a new thing to learn." And it's like sitting criss-cross, applesauce around, and it's like, "Oh, tell me more." And there's just this joy, I love learning from other people and just listening to their stories, that just delights my system. Because that little girl likes to see herself in other stories or she gets a lot of perspective, from others' lived experiences. 

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Alison: I love that because, especially, for producers, I love that you're touching on this idea of rest. Rest is hard for a couple of reasons. Some of it is the self-imposed-

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Rebecca: It sounds weak.

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Alison: Yes, it sounds weak. Some of it is there's a lot of energy. I know when tap into the young producer performer in me, she's just full of energy. She wants to move. She wants to move. And, so, I've had to think about rest in a different way. And that's what I'm kind of hearing you say rest for her. That's why I was curious, what rest for her isn't necessarily putting her nose in a book, it might be.

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I had to learn that rest doesn't, necessarily, mean sitting still in a quiet room. Rest for me might be a lot of movement, but just movement that's fun, and playful, and there's a lot of different ways we can rest. 

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Rebecca: Yes, I mean it's Tahoe for me. Lake Tahoe, which we discovered, I'm in San Diego now and I've lived in the Midwest, in the East coast, and I've lived in Europe. And, so, Tahoe's this beautiful mixture of some of the most significant parts of my life. And lake life is different than ocean life and has a different energy to it. There's a stillness inside, even when my body is moving in nature or when I am just listening to others. 

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Going to my Sunday school, just one of my spiritual practices, and just listening, really, watching my judgers or my defenders come up. Because it's this beautifully, it's diverse in theology, and political orientation, and socio-economic status. It's not very diverse in race, necessarily, but it's this place that helps get me out of my polarities. 

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And, so, these parts kind of all come with me and listen, and come, and we don't break bread together, but we're talking about the Word. And, then, my Sunday and school teacher will stir things up. And then parts of me like my know-it-all parts, my I-want-to-teach parts, my defense parts. And then there's just those little girl's, it's like, "Oh, what do they think?"

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"And what do they think?" Or, "Oh, that wasn't very nice to say." 

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And, so, just sitting with that and delighting. But it really has been good to be in community too, and get out of, sometimes, the bubbles and the work zones that we can be, and in the echo chambers. 

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So maybe rest isn't the best word for it but that spiritual practice of just rubbing shoulders with people, and being in community that's not about creating, and producing, and productivity, and being identified by whatever titles or letters by my name. It's, "We are connecting and coming together." That fills my cup and it's life-giving, even when it's a little hard, if that makes sense too. 

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Alison: I love that. The word that comes to mind is curiosity. When you're just given permission to just be curious and just be present, without having to be anybody or do anything. And, again, that's energizing, it's life-giving. 

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It might not fit that classical definition of rest, but for you it's giving the young one inside of you instead of producing, or performing, or earning her words. She just gets to... I get this picture of her just Curious George, just super curious and enjoying that, delighting in that. 

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Rebecca: And what I've seen, especially, with the leaders that I most admire and the leaders that I get to work with. They're the ones that detox from the very dangerous personal and professional development messages, that we've all been sold and breathed, in over the years. About pushing through, and exiling our pain, and overcoming, and all of that stuff. And it's like once a bit and then coasting. 

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It's just so full of privilege and power over, and not full of that consent of those different parts of us that just want to be seen. And the leaders that I'm drawn to, and the leader that I want to be, is definitely one that's able to sit with a lot more of that presence, and that curiosity, and owning. Sitting with my discomfort in the presence of someone else's discomfort. And I can't do that if I'm trying to fix, strategize, mobilize, organize, I can't. 

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And, so, I'm finally getting it. I mean, I've read that, I've been taught that, and now it's starting to metabolize in my system more and integrate. And I think that's the gift of age, honestly. I think that's taken me a while to work through that and that's the gift of feeling a little bit more settled in that.

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But I'm also seeing it with my kids though, too. My kids, they don't have all that stuff. They're carrying a lot from the times they're growing up. But when I see them listening. When I see them learning, I see them asking questions with abandon, and a lack of self-consciousness, that's beautiful. I didn't have that as a kid. 

So seeing leaders who can create spaces for real sharing. For a welcoming of the mess, and the imperfection too, and for collective struggle. I was always taught that I had to do this on my own, the lone wolf. The very individualistic way of surviving and excelling. There's no I and team and just cheesy as that is, I forgot that for a long time because that's what I needed to do to survive and to be able to do something different. 

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And, so, when I am producing at the expense of connecting, or really the presence of witnessing someone, that does harm. And I've done that, and I, again, untangling from that, not intentional, but still the impact's not great. But when we're raised with, "Oh, you're producing, you're doing so much, you're so great." You just go into automatic pilot but we lose touch with who's in front of us. 

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Alison: Yes, that's beautiful. I love the picture of, it's interesting because you've told me a lot about that Sunday school class, and I never really pieced it together before that. But for you being there and giving yourself permission to be with all that's going on there. Without needing to take over, take charge, strategize, teach, instruct, just be with is a spiritual practice for you that makes so much sense to me. 

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Rebecca: You got it.

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Alison: And it's being part of a community because being part of a community, when you're used to being an achiever, a producer, it can feel inefficient. At least to me, it can feel inefficient. It can feel messy like you're saying. 

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But I love almost the spiritual practice of being with, just watching, noticing. And even what you were saying there was that different energy. It's not judging, it's not criticizing, it's, "Oh, that wasn't nice." Just how kids are when they just state what's true. They're just, "Oh, ouch."

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Rebecca: And saying that, hey, I noticed in me when that was said, this is what that brought up, versus, "You need to stop this if you were really a good Christian." And that's the circular leadership where the power is more egalitarian versus that hierarchical that you and I were raised on, on so many levels. And this top-down has just got me rethinking, it's about power too. There's so much about power because I felt like I was so powerless as a kid. And I had to do whatever I could to maintain some level of my own sense of power or to reclaim it. 

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Alison: Mm-hmm.

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Rebecca: And I think now, more than ever, with people there's just so much hurt. So much polarizations, and so much pain, that's where it's like, "Okay, that's the call on us to be able to sit with our discomfort so that we can sit with others." And I know that I can go into that produce/perform. I can put the smile on, I know how to appease. You and I, both, probably, we got PhDs in appeasing, but I also just want to be real. 

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And, so, I think that's the work and, so, there's something about rest that's very much connected in me being seen, and me being present. Me witnessing myself and what's going on with me, and allowing others to see that, outside of my identities that are related to work or producing. 

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Alison: That's beautiful. I mean, this is exactly this whole series. It's moving from managing the perceptions going in, "I'll be the can-do person here, which is exhausting for me and doesn't really lead me to the connections I so deeply need."

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And, again, just that picture of you sitting in that circle with the freedom to say, "Oh, that didn't sit well with me." There's so many ways we can be authentic, we can be real, we can speak on behalf of what we're noticing inside of us. And you're doing such a good job, Rebecca, of it's all the stuff we talk about. It starts with being curious and compassionate with all of our own internal-

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Rebecca: It's ground zero. 

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Alison: With all the things that go on inside of us, and that's what enables us to show up with other people, and sit with all that's going on in that room. All that's going on with our kids, all that's going on in our families, all that's going on in our church groups. Whatever the room is-

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Rebecca: In the world. 

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Alison: In the world. Not silencing, not fleeing, not just caving, or fawning, which was my go-to. Not needing to fight, or lead, or take charge.

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Rebecca: Not everything has to be a danged fight or debate.

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Alison: Yes, but simply being present, and that's where we start to feel real connection. We build that safety inside of ourselves, that allows us to be in a room where we don't require perfection to feel safe. We need enough, we need a critical mass of safety, sure, but then we can be in that room and be present to ourselves. Present to others with that same curiosity and compassion.

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Rebecca: Can I add one more thing, though? I think that's important to this too. For me, for so long, too, I was raised in a mixed faith home. But I didn't really start my own faith journey until the end of high school. And for so long, the messages I got around faith was, "If you believed then life was good."

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"If you had faith and if things were struggling, I was doing something wrong."

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And, so, that message played upon my producing, and performing, and productivity parts. It's like, "Oh, if there's struggle then I got to figure out what flaw is in me." This deficiency versus kind of the more Imago Dei model of really seeing myself as an image bearer. And those around me as an image bearer, regardless of even how they identified in their faith journey. 

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And, so, for me, there was a lot of that unhooking of some of those messages that I had to... or of this image of, "if I am going to be a success I have to have it all together, and I can't show the underbelly of my humanity." 

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And I'm not saying all the things all the time, some things are just sacred and private, but I had to start owning it myself. And I was exiling my story because it didn't fit this narrative of what it meant to be a good follower of Christ. 

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And, so, that was also a big part for me to allow myself to downshift and to be able to find more rest. When I realized to lean into what God said to Jesus right after He was baptized, "You are my beloved, and with you I am well pleased."

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This was right after He was baptized but before, at least, what we know, of all the miracles, all the things He did, "You are my beloved, and with you I am well pleased." That was right after... I was like, "Okay." So there's something about that, that it took a while to metabolize, too. But I think that plays a role in it for me in my journey too.

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Alison: Yes, we can Christianize our hustle, I hear you on that, and that's a really good word. There's a lot of layers there, thank you so much for that. I'm curious, What would you want to say to that younger you, whether it's the 15-year-old, absorbing all of those tropes about the lone wolf, shoulder-pad wearing female hero. What would you say to her now? 

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Rebecca: I would say, "You probably aren't going to take this in, but this doesn't have to be the path. And I'm here for you when you're ready to listen." Because I wouldn't have listened, I just know her, I should have been. 

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I'm a redhead and I live up to the stereotype of stubbornness, but I just would've said, "I'm here. I'm here a little sooner maybe to her. I'll be just like, "There are other ways, when you figure it out that this isn't working. You don't have to keep pushing one result or one outcome, and I'm here to listen, and I'm here to be with you when you're ready."

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Alison: Sounds like wise parenting. The non-shame based, non-power over. Just, "I see what's happening. I know you and I'm here, when you're ready."

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Rebecca: When you're ready to listen. 

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Alison: Yes, I love it. What would you to say to others who are listening, who struggle with producing, performing, for their worth? 

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Rebecca: I'm here for you when you're ready to downscale, I'm just kidding. I see you. I see you. There's another way. I guess depending on where you're at in your relationship with your awareness of all this. Just to know that there is another way and this is said a lot, but your worth is never on the table for a negotiation. 

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We're the ones that put it on the table for others to have an opinion on it and to appraise us. And reclaiming that is one of the scariest and most empowering things you'll ever do, is detaching from the world's having an opinion on you, and your worth, and your faith, and your identity, as a human, as a follower of Christ, whatever it is you may be doing and that's the work. 

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And to be so picky on who you allow to have a say into your life and what you allow to have be said, be discerning. Not out of fear and instead to have an open but guarded heart in the process too. And I will say girlfriends, for me, friends are the best, if you're a female listening to this. 

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I mean, Alison, our reconnecting after all our years and our conversations have been medicine to my soul just to be able to. There was the most integrated conversation. So finding one or two people that you can really show up and not edit, is the beginning. Where you're not filtering and just saying the things, and getting seen and loved in that place is really a powerful and healing place to be. 

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Alison: I love that, and just that reminder it's quality not quantity, when it comes to those key friends, those unedited friendships. It doesn't have to be a ton; one is life changing.

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Rebecca: You got it. 

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Alison: Rebecca, thank you so much just for being so honest and so real. I know we've barely scratched the surface. If you've been someone who just feels that tension in your body of, "I can get the job done." 

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It's a hard journey. It's a long journey to begin to release, and it doesn't mean you stop being productive. You're one of the most productive people I know. It means you relate to how you show up as a productive person in a different way. Tell us what's bringing out the best of you, right now?

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Rebecca: I mean, some of this is cheesy like being instead of doing. Being with instead of doing for. My word of the year, or words of the year, slow and bold and slow. So slowing down and not overcommitting my schedule has been a beast to detangle, and then being bold in that place.

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I think people, like I said, my friendship with you, my relationship with my family, my Sunday school, my neighbors, my mom friends. And, honestly, I've always valued this about me, but being around folks who have different views on things is a huge value of mine. I've had it from a young age, whether it's different faith, political, worldview, you name it, that brings out the best of me. 

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So that I don't get into my head or I'm always challenging my beliefs. So that either I know I need to rethink them or I feel more anchored in what I believe. So I can always want to be pursuing and refining, but I think that that's important. 

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And I, honestly, like many people I work with, I knew who I was supposed to be, and what I was supposed to value, and what I was supposed to do. And it's just taken me a while to figure out who I am, what I really love, what really matters. 

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"Out of the heart flows the well spring of life." Those desires of our heart that I squelched down to try and fit in. And, so, I really just think taking that time to be with people, books, TV shows, experiences. Live music is my love language right now, and that's where I go, "Okay, I like me, I connect with me, I'm proud." 

When we walk away from people or experiences where we feel less than or smaller, it's amazing what we tolerate, Alison. It is amazing what we tolerate in the name of things that we've deemed good, but just stop tolerating. Just stop tolerating and speaking truth to BS, and speaking truth to BS with love.

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Alison: I love that. What needs and desires are you working to protect? 

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Rebecca: I think there's something about getting older, but my needs and desires to be present with my family, with the clients that have invested their trust in me, and treasured friendships, my health, and my calendar. I am trying to create more space in my calendar, that's my word for 2023, is space. Space and pace, which is you know me, that's going to be an adventure. 

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Alison: Wait, you went from slow and bold this year, to space and pace next year?

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Rebecca: That's the fruits of this year, yes, it's nice.

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Alison: Interesting.

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Rebecca: Yes, trying not to over commit because there are the big things I want to create and I want to do. And I realized I have lived outside of my margin and my capacity for so long. Being a high producer, just like many of the clients I work with, we don't know we're in crisis and we're overwhelmed till we're hanging off the cliff by a pinky.

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Alison: Mm-hmm. 

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Rebecca: And even then we're just like, "Oh, my pinky is sore." Versus, "We're hanging off the cliff." So I don't want to be that way anymore, so I'm protecting. The full body sacrifice is not okay unless... 

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I mean, again, like I said, I'll jump in. If you're getting mugged, I'll jump in. If I know you and I'm there, I will jump in, that's a certain kind of full body sacrifice. But the day-to-day because of the grind of culture, and the shoulds, and the have-tos that aren't aligned with values, no. That take me away from the most important relationships, I am fighting for that. 

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Alison: I love that, and also because you are someone who's so whole body, all in. All the more reason the space and pace is needed to protect because you will be that person. And I've said it time, you will show up, I know you will. Therefore, you have to make sure you're protecting that space. 

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How can people find you, Rebecca, connect with you, your podcast? 

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Rebecca: Yes, wherever you love to listen to podcasts, you can subscribe to the Unburdened Leader. And if you listen and are impacted by an episode, I'd be honored for you to leave a review and a comment, I want to hear from you. 

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You can also follow me an Instagram @rebeccachingmft, or sign up for my weekly Unburdened Leader Email at www.rebeccaching.com. 

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Alison: Thank you so much for being here, you're the best. 

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Rebecca: Ah, it's been an honor my friend, I appreciate you.

You want to keep the peace at all costs. The problem is sometimes anger is warranted. Sometimes conflict is needed. What do you do when everything in you does not want to be the one to speak up?

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On today's episode of the podcast, I am joined by my dear friend Rowena Day. This is a powerful conversation for anyone who has struggled with conflict, avoided anger, or stayed quiet to get along. The second half of this episode is a WHOLE WORD. Listen in for deep wisdom on how to come out of that protective peacekeeping shell and start using your voice. Do not miss the end, when Rowena describes what she's learning about finding her voice from parenting 4 young children.

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Here's what we cover:

1. Why it's normal to talk to yourself and how to pay attention to that inner dialogue

2. The power of attunement-and why interrupting and fixing each other doesn't work

3. Why we learn to mute our voices

4. The power of generational messages

5. Why we push anger aside, especially as women

6. Why it's important for peacekeepers to make friends with anger

7. Rowena's experience of speaking up about toxic behavior she was witnessing

8. Blame shifting and scapegoating in faith communities

9. Embracing the wildness of your your soul

10. The double bind culture puts women in when it comes to using your voice

11. What we can learn from our children

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Thanks to our sponsors:

• Organifi -Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today!
• Download Abide Sleep and Pray Meditation and text my promo code BESTOFYOU to 22433 today to get 25% off!

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

• To learn more about the Fawn Response, the Window of Tolerance, the Empathy Trap and the Mirror of Truth referenced in this episode, check out The Best of You: Break Free From Painful Patterns, Mend Your Past, And Discover Your True Self in God, by Alison Cook
• To learn more about Parts, Internal Family Systems,  Speaking on Behalf vs. From an emotion, and the C's of self-leadership referenced in this episode, check out my book with Kimberly Miller, Boundaries for Your Soul‍
• ‍LTI: Emmaus communities
• Enneagram Information
• Keep Calm and Carry On WW2 poster
• Family Systems Theory
• Church Hurt and 4 Steps for Healing
• 3 Signs of Bad Church Leadership
• ‍5 Toxic Behaviors & How to Protect Yourself (including Blame Shifting and Scapegoating)‍
• Resources for support

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Scriptures referenced:

• John 2:13-17 Jesus and Anger
• Luke 11:39 Jesus speaks to washing the outside of the cup vs. the inside
• Proverbs 25:15 on the power of gentleness
• Isaiah 9 Jesus as the Prince of Peace
• John 11:35 Jesus wept
• Psalm 18

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Books, Music, and Video referenced:

• "The soul is like a wild animal-tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek." From Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer
• When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd
• "Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart. Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it." From The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
• Army of Spider Crabs Shed Their Shells, Blue Planet II Video
• Unwritten Lyrics, by Natasha Beddingfield
• Seeking God's Face devotional
• "Get thee up into a high mountain. Lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid." From Handel's Messiah

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Best of You podcast. I am grinning from ear to ear because I have a dear friend on the show with me today. Her name is Rowena she goes by Roe. She is a friend that I met I want to say 10 years ago, which feels crazy because it does not seem like that long. At a spiritual listening community that we were both a part of. We're going to get into that and talk more about that today. 

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We've stayed in touch. She is that rare blend, where we just connect on the deep and we connect on the light, and we find the same things funny, which is such a rare gift in a friend. We can go from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, to laughing beside ourselves. So I'm thrilled that she's on the podcast. We'll get more into Rowena's story today. Right now she's, primarily, parenting four beautiful children. What are their ages, Rowena?

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Rowena: They're eight, six, three, and one.

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Alison: So she's in the weeds of parenting, you are in it.

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Rowena: Holy ground every day.

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Alison: Yes, and that's another thing that... my kids are primarily out of the house now. They're 21 and 23 so we're on the opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. Which also makes it fun because we just bring a lot to each other. The other interesting thing about Rowena is you were the eighth of nine children growing up?

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Rowena: Yes.

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Alison: Which is amazing.

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Rowena: Yes, I don't think there's any birth order studies for families of that size.

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Alison: Yes, how many studies have we done on what it means to be the eighth children? I know what you mean.

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Rowena: Yes, I haven't found that info out there yet, but I found it within myself.

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Alison: Yes, and as we've talked, Rowena and I will just talk, we'll use parts language. We like to read a lot of the same stuff. We like to bring the spiritual component in, so I'm just super excited. I asked her to come on today to talk about peacekeeping parts. 

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The parts of us that want to manage perceptions. That want to manage everything through peacekeeping. And I know there's so many of you listening who will relate to that. Where we feel like the best way we can manage how we show up in the world, is to just stay really quiet. 

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Is just to not use our voices and make sure everybody else is getting along. We're going to talk about a lot of things, but that's our main focus. And with that, thank you for being here at Rowena. I know this stirred up a lot inside of you to agree to be here.

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Rowena: It sure did. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. It feels like labor, a weird labor of coming out, my voice having space. So it's exciting and it is just a powerful and nerve-wracking opportunity.

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Alison: Well, that's what I said when I asked Rowena, because I just love talking to you so much, I wanted to talk to you on the podcast. And one of the things I love is you're not trying to forward yourself, again, to the point of this whole episode.

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And, so, I had to ask so many questions like, "Do you want to do it?" There were so many conflicting parts inside of you. Which made me want you to come on even more because I just love how authentic you are, and how honest you are about things. You were like, "Well, parts of me doing, parts of me do not."

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Rowena: Yes, I remember the day. You said you had some idea you wanted to talk to me about and I was like, "Oh." I had immediately felt those two different parts. The part that was really curious and then the other part that was trying to speak up, and make everybody else comply. That was like, "Whatever her idea is, let's just agree right here and now that we're not going to do anything that puts us out there publicly. We don't do that, that's not for us."

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And all the other parts of me were about ready to be like, "Yes, definitely not. Terrible idea, let's not do that." And I remember closing the fridge and then hearing this other little, brave, voice being like, "Let's just be open to this idea, we're also curious about it."

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And, so, it's weird to talk about yourself in this 'We' term. But we talk to ourselves all day long and, so, that's just a bit of my inner dialogue, that was happening on that day. And, so, then, when you told me the episode was going to be about and it was about this very peacekeeping part, that had tried to speak up and shut it down. I was even more intrigued because we would be talking about the very thing that I had been experiencing on the inside.

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Alison: Yes, again, just a glimpse, that's what I love about Rowena. You're not a therapist, you haven't gone through the training, but you just have this self-awareness. You are, to me, the classic saying, "Still waters run deep." You are so thoughtful with your words and you pay such attention to your inner life. 

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So I want to start us off with how we met, and we first met at this Emmaus Community. It's run by a group out of New England called Leadership Transformations Inc. I'll link to it in the show notes. 

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I highly recommend these communities. They're quarterly retreats for ministry leaders, pastors, counselors, anybody who's interested in just setting aside time to grow spiritually really. And it's a specific way of growing spiritually that I just found so powerful, and really changed even how I do my own work as a counselor, that's where we met. And you can sign up for one year, and, again, it's four quarterly's retreats. 

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And then you have a reading to do in between each retreat. So it's a significant commitment, and we ended up both doing two years. You can do one year or two years. We did the full two years, and I found I needed the full two years. 

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I was really discerning things in my life, and it was retreat five where I got to some real clarity. And, so, I'm curious, Rowena, what led you to sign up for Emmaus and to do that two years of really focused spiritual listening?

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Rowena: Yes, I found out about a one-day women's retreat that was focused on silence and solitude, and listening to yourself and to God. And I read the description, it was offered by LTI also, and I signed up for this one-day thing. I was like, "That sounds really awesome, I want to do that."

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And, so, I went and you could also sign up for an hour spiritual of direction session as part of that retreat. And, so, I was a little bit nervous about that, but signed up. Probably balled my way through the whole spiritual direction session with Diana. But it was just a very structured, yet, very spacious way of listening to someone. 

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And, so, it was deeply profound to have the attunement of someone else. Who was not giving advice, not interrupting, not telling parts of their own story, or quoting Bible verses, or whatever. It was just a very holy, sacred listening. And I'd never really experienced anything like that before, and it just made me really hungry for more. 

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And, so, as we explored, in Emmaus together, we did the Enneagram back in the early days before it was really a big thing. And discovering that I am a type Seven, I identify most as that. And, so, I hunger for things that are satisfying. And, so, I found spiritual direction to be something that was really satisfying. 

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The ability to be heard, be seen, be known to another person, to myself, and to God, all within one sacred hour was just really powerful. And it really stirred up this desire in me to do more of that, and to experience more of that. And then eventually to get training to be a spiritual director, which I'm going to start next spring. 

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So I've been waiting for the right timing for all these years, and I'm really excited about accompanying other people, and journeying alongside them as they attune to themselves and to God. And I just think the inner world that we all have is so interesting, and fascinating, and so worth exploring. And so a type Seven, I love to travel and experience things outwardly. But I've realized, oh, there's so much traveling we can do inside our own selves.

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Alison: I love it. So if you decide you'll come back, I want to do a whole episode on this idea of spiritual listening, spiritual direction. We haven't talked about it, yet, on the podcast. So for those of you who are listening, spiritual direction is a beautiful way to get support. 

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It's not therapy, but it is a structured way of, as you said, just someone who's trained to listen to you. As you also are inviting God to be part of that listening, so it's a guide. We should all have it, that that's my feeling. 

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It's just a beautiful, it's not new, it's actually an ancient practice that has started to grow again. People are starting to talk about it more, it's just beautiful. And I love how you described it, Rowena, and this is what we then both ended up doing.

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So in these quarterly retreats, the spiritual listening community, you spend time listening to each other. Just as you said, each person has a certain amount of time, it's structured. I could go off on a huge tangent on that. That's why I'm going to bookmark it, and say let's do another episode just, literally, teaching people what that's about. Because for me it was transformative, just as you said. 

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You set a timer and you just share what's been on your heart, what's been on your soul, what's been on your mind, what you're struggling with. And in the group situation, the spiritual direction is one-on-one. But the group listening, there's a group of five or six people that listen and they don't try to fix you, and they don't give you advice, and they don't quote Bible verses at you. What they do is, maybe, repeat back to you, "I heard you say this."

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Rowena: Mh-hmm.

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Alison: And it's like, "Whoa." It's that mirror, and I talk about the mirror of truth in The Best of You. And I think it's chapter four where we need those people that hold up that mirror so we can begin to see ourselves as God sees us. 

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So I love how you just talked about that, and we've just continued to connect so much. I will say that it's supposed to be this very... there's a lot of solitude, there's a lot of quiet, you do all the spiritual listening. 

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At the meals, that's where Rowena and I, we clicked on all that. But, man, at the meals, we were just busting our guts laughing and everybody loved that. I mean, I think we also brought a little levity when it was appropriate to do so. But we connected on so many levels and I so appreciated you there. 

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All right, so I want to dive in a little bit because you talk about this peacekeeping part of you, and I want to hear a little bit more about your story. About when did you first learn to avoid conflict? When did you first learn that, essentially, you tell me, but it's like muting your voice. Keeping your voice very small was the best way to stay safe.

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Rowena: Hmm, yes, so I think to look at that picture, it requires stepping back even further and looking at a much bigger picture of generations before me. And, so, my parents were both born in England and near the end of World War II. And a phrase that has come back, in full force in recent years, is the phrase "Keep calm and carry on."

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And that was a phrase that originated in 1939 just before the war, anticipating the dark days ahead. And it was postered in and put in places that were going to be targeted by German bombers. And it was to boost morale, and there were two and a half millions of these posters displayed. And then a copy was discovered in 2000, and then it blew up after that. An original copy of the poster was discovered in a bookshop, and then that's when it of re-came out.

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Alison: Mm-hmm. 

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Rowena: And I've been thinking a lot about that phrase and how that probably was a very helpful thing in that time, of significant trauma, for people in that time. And then I wonder if that message has stayed in the bodies of all the people since then. 

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This idea of keeping calm and carrying on, and how that can be a really powerful thing. But if that's the only thing we're doing and we're not able to pay attention to our anger, or our grief, or sadness, or fear, or disgust, any of these really hard emotions. If we're just always focusing on keeping calm and carrying on, then we are not addressing other things. 

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And, so, I don't think this phrase was ever spoken to me in my childhood. But I think, somehow, it lives on in the collective of our society. I think as a society we do not know how to be angry. We are very confused about what to do with anger. We know, cognitively, that anger is not all bad. But I've just wrestled a lot in my life, "Well, what does it look like to be angry? I'm so confused about this emotion."

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Alison: Mm-hmm.  

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Rowena: And we know that Jesus's anger led Him. So anger can be dangerous, it can lead to harmful behavior, and it can also lead to justice because there are things we need to be outraged about. Things like violence, and greed, and racism, abuse of power, sex trafficking, the list could go on forever. Of things that we need to be angry about. 

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And, so, somehow, as I've been unpacking, I think just in the society and in the waters that we're in. It has not really been permissible for women, especially, to feel anger. And I think we sort of push it aside, or at least I did, and I didn't know how to express it. I didn't have the tools; I didn't have the knowledge. 

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I just knew that I didn't like the feeling in my body when other people were angry. I didn't like the feeling in my own body when I was angry. And I guess I learned, maybe, that my voice had the power, sometimes, to make people angry and therefore I did not feel comfortable with that power. 

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It could elicit anger and I want peace and harmony. Those are really important things to me, and joy. And, so, if my voice was, sometimes, the thing that was going to elicit anger, then, subconsciously, I kept my voice out of the picture.

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Alison: Yes, I love that you just gave us the big brush strokes, the big paint brush strokes. I do want to add you grew up in Canada.

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Rowena: Mh-hmm.

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Alison: And I'm curious, you're younger than me. But my guess is your parents are, probably, since you're the eighth of nine children, our parents are of a similar generation. And I think that generation, what we were raised in, that keep calm carry on, really does embody how we were raised. 

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And it's not all bad, and I love how you're describing it, as there is a time and a place for that. And, especially, when you're going into - we've got to just all keep calm. But when that permeates down to the detriment of, "Oh, actually we need to bring some hard things to the surface." This is this season now, that there was a time for that. 

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But then there's also a time to, "We need to bring some of the hard things to the surface, so that we can honor and work through." And that means bringing up some conflict, bringing up some anger, bringing up some of these emotions, that actually need to be healed. There's also a time for that and you're making a really good point. That a lot of that message filtered all the way down.

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Rowena: Yes, like what do you do when you're angry? How do you keep calm and carry on then?

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Alison: As opposed to this idea of harmony or peace really being, it's not about denying the hard things, it's about bringing things to the surface. 

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When you think about harmony, I always think of the metaphor of an orchestra or a band, where every part needs to be able to use its voice in the appropriate way. It needs to be able to be played in harmony with the other instruments.

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But if the drums stop drumming, or the flutes stop fluting, or the trumpets stop trumpeting, you don't actually have the full picture of what you could have. At the same time, if everybody is just yelling, and yammering, and playing, you have discord.

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So harmony is hard work is what I'm getting at. Harmony isn't just, "We're going to all just sit here and pretend like everything's fine." 

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From Family Systems Theory, the goal of a healthy family is harmony. But what people don't understand is that harmony is like that orchestra. It's making sure each one of those parts is playing its role, and has its appropriate voice within the family. 

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Rowena: I benefited hugely from being one of the last of so many kids and really looked up to my older siblings. And there's such a profound love that we all share for each other. 

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But I think just in being one of the last ones and having so many of us. I spent maybe some of the time just doing a lot of observing of what other people were saying and feeling like, "Well I'm younger, who am I to know what I'm talking about here?"

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I think it's only natural that if you're one of the younger kids and you've got lots of older ones, that you will defer to other people's opinions and defer your voice. And, so, a lot of it is reclaiming, "Well, what do I think? What do I feel and what do I think?"

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Alison: Yes.

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Rowena: And taking other people's voices into account, but not so much that I'm not listening to my own, also.

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Alison: It makes sense that you would get lost in the shuffle a little bit. I mean, you're a mother of four now and you see, I'm sure, how hard it is to make sure each one of your children is getting that attunement, it's hard. I can't imagine doing it for nine people, I mean, I can't imagine. 

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Rowena: Yes.

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Alison: It's hard for me with two.

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Rowena: Right and the person on their own has all their many parts. And, so, you won't just have four kids, you have all the parts within each child.

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Alison: Yes. 

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Rowena: And then you have all the ways that those are interacting with the parts of the other kids. And you just have so much happening and it's wild, and messy, and beautiful, all at the same time.

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Alison: When did you begin to become aware that for you staying quiet, not using your voice, was a conditioned response. And that it wasn't necessarily the only way, and that maybe it was important to speak up?

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Rowena: Yes, so I have really valued peace and harmony in my life and want to create, protect that. I don't want my body to feel so much discomfort that I'm outside my window of tolerance, and that I can be assertive in many moments. 

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But I think in moments when I fear that my very voice is the thing that is going to elicit anger. Then this is where the peacekeeping part goes into overdrive. And, so, I've been on a huge journey, recently the past year especially. 

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Our family was involved in a faith community for many years and there are lots of dear people, and memories, and things that we loved and enjoyed about being a part of it. And, yet, there was a growing feeling that something was not right and our bodies began to feel at first, and our minds kept trying to override the signals and say, "Everything is fine, just keep the peace, have grace."

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And, yet, our bodies just kept getting more and more uncomfortable and the signals kept getting stronger to the point where we couldn't really ignore it. And, so, we had no choice but to become curious about what we were feeling. 

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And, so, I realized my body was saying, in some ways, "I don't feel like I have a voice here. I feel a bit stuck. I feel trapped, I feel powerless. I don't feel like I'm flourishing. This doesn't really feel like the way that it should be at church." And I was also getting ready to birth our fourth child. So I was going through these two kind of labors simultaneously, it was a really stressful time. 

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And, so, my husband and I just started to gather puzzle pieces and realized in dysfunctional families, there's one person's emotional needs that are at the center. And this is the person who has the highest need for constant attention and praise, and you can feed into that all day long. 

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And then anyone who wakes up to that reality and stops pouring into the center, and maybe tries to, gently, bring some awareness, there's blame shifting that occurs. And the problem is deflected onto the people who are trying to say something, and then you become scapegoated. So it's a very challenging dynamic, to say the least. 

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So I would say that there was an incongruence that we witnessed between what the authority figure was presenting publicly, and the lived experience that we had behind the scenes that didn't match. Jesus says it like, "You wash the outside of the cup but you're ignoring the inside." 

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And that's what we were seeing and experiencing. There's this carefully curated and crafted image and, yet, we're not really seeing the love and the abundant life modeled. 

And we also saw that there was an ongoing pattern of leaders, who had gotten close proximity, being deeply wounded and leaving, and then we became one of them. And, so, the incongruence was profoundly disorienting. And your article on the empathy trap was really powerful for us. In understanding that loyalty and empathy can't run the show alone, and that we also need courage. 

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And, so, loyalty and submission, and deference to religious leaders and authorities should not be given automatically, simply, because of their position and training. We need to be looking at the character and the fruit in people's lives, and not just their words.

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And, so, the essence of Jesus's loving others well. And, so, love should be the primary measurement for how well things are going. Basically, we realized we all have wounds and we need to tend to our own, and take responsibility for them. But if we don't they're going to be infected and they're going to leave a legacy of harm.

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So we decided that we wanted to say yes to something else. We wanted to say yes to a community where we felt like our voices would be heard. Where we could bring gentle correction from time to time, if even though we're not the type of people who are constantly criticizing. 

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But if we don't have any space to bring ourselves, then we were feeling very stifled. And, so, we had to do the very thing that terrified me, using my voice, knowing that it would elicit anger. And that was very scary for my body, my nervous system.

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Alison: Thank you for sharing. I know how hard this is. I think so many people can understand what you're describing. And I love how you said it in the context, again, this family system, church is a family and when somebody, especially somebody in authority, someone in power, so in a family, it's a parent.

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In a church it's somebody in leadership, a pastor, somebody in leadership is sucking all of the energy toward themselves. This is the powering-over P, they're controlling the narrative. They're controlling and silencing others as a result. 

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So you combine that with your own, "I don't speak up, I am a peacekeeper." And, oh, that is hard. And, yet, I think of the Proverbs, listening to you,  that says, "A gentle word breaks bone." 

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It's the gentleness of, "I don't want to be the one to do this, but I cannot not see what I'm seeing." And, so, I just want to name those things. This was for you, there was no interest or your husband, I mean, I know him, too, just gentle people all the way through.

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we're witnessing this dynamic that is not healthy for us, not healthy for the community, and we've got to be the ones to use our voices here. And, as you just said, sometimes, you use your voice and it's like, "Oh, this is great."

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People are like, "Oh, we're so glad, thank you. It was so great to hear from you, thanks for sharing." It was not going to be that. It was not going to be that.

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Rowena: No it was not.

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Alison: It was going to be the thing you feared and you knew it. It was going to be, "We don't want your voice here, this is going to create discord." You knew that, so it was the very thing you feared the most, and I just, again, that word courage. 

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That word courage to speak up just really speaks. 

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Rowena: Yes, and we know that everyone has a true self. 

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Alison: Yes.

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Rowena: Ye, we really believe that. But we can all get lost from our poor true self that God has given us, and wander away and be just caught in a lot of self-deception about who we really are. And, so, it requires a lot of awareness of what are these protective parts of us that are so overactive, that are hiding something within us because of wounds. 

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And we all have the responsibility to travel within and figure out what those wounds are, and name them, and bring back the puzzle pieces within ourselves, and experience healing. But if we're not, and we're not willing to listen when people are saying, "Hey, I think you're going off track here." It's scary.

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Alison: Yes, it is. It's that self-awareness. And I love what you're saying, again, this list of seven Ps, none of them in and of themselves are a problem if we are aware of them, even that powering over one. Even that one where that's the person that's taking control of the narrative, and trying to be in charge, and make sure they're the ones, no one else has a voice. 

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Well, that awareness of, "I am someone that can do that. I am someone that can bully others. I am someone that can be that." You can imagine raising a kid like that and it's like, "How do you?" It's that self-awareness. 

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This is cliché, but you think about it a little bit sometimes in Enneagram terms, we need to do a whole episode on the Enneagram. But there's a type, the Enneagram Eight that is the power. They want the power.

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Rowena: Mh-hmm.

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Alison: We need powerful leaders. We need people who step up into the spotlight. That is not in and of itself a bad thing. 

But if there's not the self-awareness of the dark side of that, just as with any of these, it can get really toxic. 

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Break

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Rowena: I've had to reclaim my understanding of power and authority and get more comfortable with those terms, and not see those as all bad. Like not seeing anger as all bad, not seeing power as all bad, and reclaiming the good parts of those. Those are good things when they're used well.

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And, so, that has been healing in and of itself, to not view power as bad or anger as bad. So, yes, in terms of how we began to grow and change in, bravely, speaking up. I was surprised at the journey that it would take me on inwardly and learning more about my own wounds, and my own self. And, basically, it set a fire to all these old habits and ways of being because I was using my voice knowing that it would elicit anger.

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And, so, that set a fire to unhealthy ways of relating to others, in a good way, but in a very challenging and deeply uncomfortable way. So I didn't know that the Fawn response was a thing. And it has been eye-opening to discover that that is a response of the body, basically, it's a peacekeeping response. 

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You're trying to keep the peace and just manage the situation, by not eliciting people's anger and not being disruptive. And those are things that my type Seven body does not want to do. I want to experience joy.

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And, so, it has been basically setting a fire to that Fawn response to fearing anger. And also realizing the disconnect between my mind and my body, and realizing, "Oh, I have been just stuck in my head for a lot of my life and my body has so much wisdom to share with me."

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And in the past I think I would view anxiety, or anger, or rage, or disgust, all of those things, or fear and try to just get them far away from me. And now I feel like I've alkalinized those emotions so much more, and I can pay attention to my body and understand that it is trying to tell me something. And if I can just get curious about it and listen that there are things that my body is trying to tell me to help me. 

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And, so, anxiety doesn't need to be something that I fear anymore. And anger doesn't be need to be something that I fear and these can be really powerful things if I can get curious about them. And I think this is part of why Internal Family Systems has been such a powerful tool is because it helps distance yourself from these parts of you. Because when they take over it feels like it's all of you.

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And you feel like, "Well, I'm just drowning in anger or drowning in anxiety." And really when you can realize, "Oh, this is one part of me." Then you can step back from it and differentiate from it a bit more, and that has been such a helpful tool. Peace, and harmony, and avoiding pain cannot be my primary guiding values. 

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Alison: Mh-hmm.

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Rowena: And if they are then it's creating a false peace and harmony. And, so, having peace and harmony are good things, but they need to be also in tandem with courage and listening to angry parts of ourselves, and anxious parts of ourselves, and fearful parts of ourselves. 

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And not just trying to sweep them under the rug or put them in a jail within us and say, "You can't come out it's not safe." And, so, I've really been learning to bless those parts of myself and say, "Oh, anger is, and you've got good things to tell me and I thought you were all bad."

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And, so, I had this moment where I felt like all my other parts were able to welcome anger back in. And be like, "We see you, we value you. You actually put us in that situation." And now I know, especially, from the work that you say, that phrase, "We speak on behalf of our anger not from it." 

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And that has been the distinction that I've been trying to find for so long. I think journaling about anger has been a common theme for eight years of parenting. Because I've been like, "God, please show me how to be angry." This is what kids do, they know how to press your triggers and it's not their fault. That is a window into something within ourselves. Like, "Why is this a trigger for me?"

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And, so, yes, I've been on that journey for so long and so I feel like I've had some breakthrough moments. Where I've been able to recognize anger as good and I can bless it and honor it, and I can steer it in a way that I'm not so afraid of it. That it's going to be destructive or take me over or hurt other people.

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Alison: It's like a paradox. So the peacekeeper parts of us think anger is the enemy. Avoid it at all costs because anger is conflict, anger is discord, anger is all the things that peacekeeping parts of us just cannot stand. 

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And what I'm hearing you say, the paradox is, as you've made peace with your own anger, and even welcomed, and allowed anger a seat at the table, there is more peace. More actual peace because we don't want to make peace. 

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You gave a great list of things, at the beginning about, of all the things we should be angry about. We don't want to make peace with certain things. We don't want to make peace with these terrible things, atrocities, that are going on in our world. We don't want to make peace with toxic leadership. We don't want to make peace.

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And, so, we have to make peace with our own anger, which is our cue that something is awry. And it does turn this idea of what is peace" And even thinking about Jesus, "I'm the prince of peace." 

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And then you think about, "Yes." And if we look at the whole life of Jesus there were some really hard things in it, and there was anger in it, and there was even some harsh words for folks in it, and He didn't shy away from conflict at all. And, yet, He was-

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Rowena: "A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." And He experienced anger. The shortest famous verse in the Bible, "Jesus wept." He experienced intense grief. He had a panic attack in the Garden of Gethsemane, and experienced intense anxiety like we have never experienced. 

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And, so, Jesus shows us that He felt the full range of human emotion, and I'm really thankful for that. And I find that the Psalms have been a powerful way of connecting emotions and bringing them to God. And the Psalms are a way that God is just always trying to reveal to us, that He keeps us safe, seen, soothed, and secure.

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Alison: Yes, even when the circumstances of our life require us to enter into discomfort, that's the paradox.

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Rowena: Yes.

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Alison: That internally we can experience that experience of being seen, soothed, safe, and secure even when we have to walk into a really hard situation that challenges us. What I love about what you're doing here, Rowena, is the event was, "I've got to speak up about something I'm seeing. It's really hard, I don't like it."

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But then you immediately got yourself into a safer situation. 

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You got yourself to where you needed to be, and then, all of a sudden, guess what happens, you are the one that's growing. That's what these things do, these invitations to courage. And I just love how you're describing this process of really having to examine a lot of ways, that you've showed up in the world. So tell me a little bit more about some of those breakthrough moments.

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Rowena: Yes, so one of the quotes that I love of Parker Palmers. He says that, "The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek."

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And, so, I think this is the nature of human beings, are the nature is that we want to hide. And we often think that God is the one hiding and we are the ones trying to find Him, when all along it's we are hiding and He's out there in the open. 

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And I think Henri Nouwen is the one who says that beautifully in a quote, I'm just paraphrasing it. And, so, it was sort of doing that very thing of sitting quietly in the woods, with the wild animal that my soul is, and waiting for it to reveal parts of itself that were wanting to be seen, and wanting to hide all at the same time. 

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Alison: Mm-hmm. 

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Rowena: And I think of Sue Monk Kidd, in her book When the Heart Waits, and she says, "Crisis can be holy beginnings, a coming alive." So we get to take these inward journeys where we have these holy beginnings. 

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And we can travel inward and discover what are the places within us that are wanting to hide and why? And how can we draw them out, and experience greater healing, and have well-ordered souls, and we can be fully alive. It's such a travesty to live in this world and be hiding and feel like you're not fully alive. 

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And, so, while I don't have the power to change outer circumstances, that's not within my realm of responsibility. I have been surprised at how much ownership of things within me that I have needed to take. 

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And that healing can come by gathering exiled parts of myself that have been scattered and bringing them back together. And it's this mysterious journey where God is at work and we are participating in the process somehow. And it's slow, very slow, and it is deep and lasting. 

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And, so, one of my big breakthrough moments was when we were watching this episode of Blue Planet with the kids, and there was a section on these crabs. And they are usually solitary creatures who gather together by the hundreds of thousands. 

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And they don't gather together to reproduce or to feed, they gather together to molt. And it's because they've become too big for the exoskeletons that they're in, and they need to climb out of those shells, and they're super vulnerable. They're soft, their limbs are all wonky, they can't move. So they're extremely vulnerable to the predators. So they gather together to protect each other in these large numbers. 

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And as I'm watching this with our kids, I'm really moved by it and I'm like, "Wow." I feel like that is what has been happening to me. I have been on this journey of climbing out of my own crab shell and expanding and leaving these old exoskeletons behind. And just dying to old ways of being, and birthing new ways of relating to people, and being able to use my voice instead of keeping it silent, and small, and using the fawn response.

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And I've really loved reading so many of Sue Monk Kidd books. And a lot of the themes in her novels are of women bending the ear to the longing in their soul and using their voice. And one of them has this beautiful prayer that's like "Bless the largeness that is within me." 

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And that prayer really stood out to me, and I think it probably does for every woman and every everybody. That goes in hand in hand with this idea of us expanding and needing to come out of these exoskeletons that we're in, and to leave them behind. 

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It's awkward for a time and it's uncomfortable, but then we slowly can build new ways of being and we probably undergo so many. 

Or if we're paying attention, we can undergo lots of these molts in the course of our lifetime. And that is how we can grow closer and closer to God and to who He has made us to be.

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Alison: That's beautiful. That metaphor you had sent me of the crab shells was just so powerful. Because it is these protectors, even these peacemaking protectors, that can feel like they're good Christian parts of us. They're still protecting us. They still are that hard shell.

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And, so, when we come out of them and that vulnerability of being seen, of using our voices, it is that it captures that tenderness of that. And, yet, it is part of that process of leaving behind the old and moving into new ways of being truly safe. 

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Which isn't denying the hard things or keeping the hard things; "Just keep calm, carry on." It's actually coming out and acknowledging the dangers, and being aware of the landmines, and also knowing how to resource ourselves, get ourselves what we need.

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Rowena: So other breakthrough moments occurred a lot while reading this Anglican Devotional, that I've been going through for a couple of years called Seeking God's Face. And it's just a beautiful way that it lays out short passages of Scripture. 

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And this one, in particular, was very meaningful to me from Psalm 18. And it said, "In my distress, I called out to the Lord. I cried to my God for help from his temple, he heard my voice. My cry came before him into his ears. He reached down from on high and took hold of me. He drew me out of deep waters." 

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And I could probably quote so many of the psalms that have been powerful, but that has been particularly meaningful to really believe and know that God hears my voice, and that He wants it to come out of hiding.

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And then I was listening to the Messiah, the other day, and there's this one stanza that was really sticking out to me also. It was like my ears perked up and it's basically saying, "Get thee up into a high mountain. Lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid." And it's just amazing when things hit you in the way that you exactly need to hear it. 

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And, so, yes, just by coming on this podcast I feel like I'm practicing this. I'm practicing lifting up my voice with strength and being not afraid. And it feels really good to have all of these puzzle pieces come together and feel like, "Oh, I am coming out of hiding and I'm coming out of my crab shell."

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Alison: I just, I want to sit there, for a second, and play that clip for all of you who are listening right now that just needed to hear that. "Lift up your voice. Lift up your voice before the Lord." And we need your voice. I have been blessed by your voice, Rowena, which is why I wanted you to come on here because I know what a blessing your voice is. So thank you for that word. 

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I am so grateful for just the encouragement, to me and to so many. I want to ask you being a mom of four, how do you notice this peacekeeping part helps you? How do you need to set gentle boundaries with it sometimes? How does this come into your parenting?

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Rowena: Yes, so this is what's also been really redemptive in it and healing, is that instead of seeing this peacekeeping part as all bad. I can recognize and bless the parts of it that have been good, and that is trying to help me, and I can assign it new, more productive roles for me. 

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So I think the peacekeeping part of me has kept such a tight guard on my voice because it knows that there is value in what I have to say. And my mind may not have always known that. But this protective part is trying to protect something because there is something of value in there. 

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And, so, I think that has been an important realization, and I don't want it to be on overdrive. But I want to bless an honor that it wants to keep me safe. It's the part of me that wants to help me think before I speak.

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Alison: What you're saying is so interesting. I've never thought about it that way., but it's actually protecting a treasure. 

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Rowena: Yes.

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Alison: So it's not it's not trying to keep you silenced. It's actually almost saying, "Your voice is powerful, therefore, we have to be careful with it." That's fascinating.

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Rowena: Yes, and then because I have feared power then it has made me. I don't know, "Can I trust myself to use my voice in good ways." The tongue is a fire and it can be very destructive. But, also, our voice can be so tightly guarded, like a jailkeeper is in front of it. And, so, I'm trying to give this peacekeeping part of me a new role, that it is the guardian of my voice and the gatekeeper in a wise, shrewd way. 

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And, so, it helps me think before I speak. It helps me discern if it is wise to speak or if boundaries need to be set with action instead. So it's like bringing that piece of the orchestra into harmony again. 

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And saying, "You have a valuable role to play here and we've got to change the music that you're playing. But we're going to give you this new music, and it's going to be much more beautiful. If you can take up this really helpful, protective role."

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And if my core self can lead with all those beautiful see words of IFS, like courage, curiosity, compassion, confidence, creativity, clarity, calm, and connectedness. If my true self can lead this peacekeeping part of me in that way, then I think that's where the real power is going to be led by the Holy Spirit. 

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And, so, yes, I'm trying to break free from the shackles of other people's anger, and uncomfortability, and not actively trying to elicit it, but using my voice when it's necessary.

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Alison: Yes, and one of the things you touch on is when folks have a very strong bend toward peacekeeping. What can happen is when we do use our voices that we have to get so far down the anger spectrum that it does come out. It can, right?

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Rowena: Yes.

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Alison: It can come out angrily. It can come out because we've suppressed and then it gushes out. And, so, with those of you who see yourself as peacekeepers, it's that learning that nuanced voice of anger that you talked about earlier. Speaking on behalf of, "Man, I am feeling." 

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And if we don't name that, and if we don't give ourselves permission to feel that, and speak on behalf of that anger it will come out too big. Because we flip into fight mode once we are just done. And especially when we're with our safe people, which often are our kids and our families. Because we know they're not going to leave us, and that's just human. 

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And, so, I mean, that's just a visceral, that's primal, that's not a conscious choice. It's just, "Well, if I lose it here, I know that..." And, so, learning, again, taking it back to that theme of what you've been saying. We have to make peace with anger, make peace with the things that we're feeling. So that we can speak on behalf of those from that calm place inside versus that activated place inside. 

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Rowena: Yes, and I also want to speak to the double bind that culture puts women into. Of, "If you use your voice, then you know you're either too sensitive or you're too assertive." And, so, then, I feel like I've experienced that. And so it's left me with like, "Well, how do I use my voice then." Because I don't like being blamed of either perspective of being overly sensitive or overly assertive. 

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And, so, it's breaking free from that double bind, and owning my voice, and knowing what it is saying deep in my gut. And then once the blockages are gone it can freely wind its way out of my gut, where I know that it lives, and through my lips, and from my tongue and into the world. 

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And, so, it's that reconnecting with my body, too, that is part of it. Actively feeling, "Okay, I feel like my voice lives in my gut, and it wants to come out of my lips." Sort of reconnecting all of these parts inwardly, and the mind to the body has been really powerful for me.

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Alison: That's beautiful, Rowena. That's just beautiful. I've been privy to a lot of this journey, as your friend, and just to hear you articulate it, it's just so powerful and so beautiful. I want to ask you, what would you say to that young, little girl, eighth of nine children. Just in light of everything you've been learning, especially, these last few years. What would you want to say to her now?

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Rowena: I think I would say, "You are not responsible for other people's anger." And I would break that connection between the use of the voice and anger. And I would say, "Allow room for your own anger. Don't silence it and be curious about it and don't let it come up sideways, either but speak on behalf of it."

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I would say, "Trust your voice and stay connected to your body." Those would be the main things that I do tell my younger self.

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Alison: And what would you say to other women, who are listening right now, who struggle with using their voice?

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Rowena: Yes, I would say get curious about what blockages are in the way. Because once you can remove the blockages, then it can flow again and it can come out. And, so, I get curious about what are these protective parts trying to.

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In what ways are being overly protective and why, and then take that journey inward to listen to all of your parts. And do this with support and befriend painful emotions like anger, and fear, and anxiety, all those things. And realize that your body is trying to send you good messages if you would get curious and have compassion for yourself as you do it. 

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And then honor and bless those parts of you and realize the ways that they are trying to help and to not see them as all bad, and that that can really set free a lot of things. And then I would I would say, "Once you go through all that work, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up and be not afraid."

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Alison: That's beautiful. Rowena, thank you so much. As I close every episode, I ask all of my guests, what or who is bringing out the best of you right now?

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Rowena: So I think that I would have to go through all four of my kids, just briefly. But our one-year-old, I think we have so much to learn from babies. We just think that we need to teach them so many things, but they have so much to teach us. And, so, our one-year-old is just such a joy and delight, and he contributes zero productivity to our household. But we just delight because he exists.

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Alison: That's awesome.

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Rowena: And, so, I feel like God is always reminding me of that. Like, "This is how I see you. You are a delight just by existing, just by being, and I don't expect you to produce and perform, do all these things. Babies are uninhibited from all of these ways of being that we've adopted as older people. 

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And, so, they're just beautiful to witness the presence that they have, and the joy. Our one-year-old, right now, is going through all of these language acquisition. And, so, he's just babbling and he's so uninhibited with his voice that it's just really beautiful, it's inspiring to me.

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Alison: That's great.

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Rowena: Like you don't care that you're just saying, "Higgledy, gibody." words right now and, so, I love that.

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And then our three-year-old, I feel like this is really holy ground because he really knows how to let his anger flow. And, so, he's been teaching me a lot, and he'll just be able to name like, "I'm so angry." And I'm just like, "Wow, you just know how to name it."

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It just feels like a very tender spot where I'm really trying to be a wise parent and not shut it down. But try to help him have healthy outlet for it, and it is very challenging, too. But I think this inner work that I'm doing in myself, hopefully, is going to translate to that over time. 

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It feels like I'm that wobbly crab at the moment with that. But I'm hopeful that I can nourish his anger in healthy ways, if that makes sense. And then our six-year-old is just so curious and always inspires me with just his curiosity about the world and his playfulness. 

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And then our eight-year-old daughter, right now seems to really lack this peacekeeping to please and fawn part. So I've just been like, "Oh, cool." Trying to bless that part of her that is really strong, and speaks her mind, and also she has a huge laugh, and it's super silly. And, so, she just brings a lot of hilarity to our household. 

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And then I have to say for my husband, too, he is just such a safe person and accepts all big emotions. And I can say to him like, "I felt angry when you did such and such." And he can listen and not be defensive, and we can have regular rupture and repair cycles. And there's just a lot of mutual trust and respect with him, and I just am really thankful for who he is.

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Alison: I love it. I love how you flipped that to what you are learning from each of your kids. That's beautiful perspective there, that the things that could also drive us crazy, about our kids, are the very things that we probably need to learn, and I think that's just incredible perspective. What needs and desires are you working to protect?

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Rowena: So I think beauty is something that I am working to protect. Whether it's creating pottery, or listening to beautiful music, or singing and dancing in my kitchen, just noticing. I've had to, because there's been so much happening inwardly, I've really been needing to look at open space. 

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And, so, I've just found myself being so much more attentive to what the sky is each day and noticing the clouds, and really looking at it because it's just like the open space. I can't get to the ocean as much as I would like, so the sky is an incredible open, vast, expanse that really helps settle my nervous system, too. 

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And then reading, I just have been really interested in reading lots of different books. And that has been just something that I want to hear other people's perspectives, and take them in, and just turn things over, and think through things. 

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And, so, John and I went on a date last night and we heard this song playing in the restaurant that was from our high school days. And it was a Natasha Bedingfield song, the song Unwritten and the words were so [Inaudible 00:56:40] to me. It was like my ears perked up. 

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So she has these words that are; 

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"Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you

Only you can let it in

No one else, no one else

Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken

Live your life with arms wide open

Today is where your book begins

The rest is still unwritten"

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Alison: Beautiful.

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Rowena: And I hadn't heard that song in decades and it just came back. And, so, the next morning, I'm driving our kids to school, we've got six car seats in the back and I'm blasting this song, and singing and dancing in the car. I get to this red light, and I look over and there's this bus stop filled with people, and this one guy is just looking at me and laughing. And, so instead of breaking eye contact, I just kept looking at him, and I kept singing and dancing, and he started to move too.

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Alison: That's amazing, I love it.

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Rowena: It was so funny, it just really made my day.

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Alison: I love it, that is a perfect image. I just am so grateful for you. Thank you so much for your time today, just for all of your wisdom, and your nuggets. And I just couldn't be more grateful for all that you had to share with us today, thanks for being here. 

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Rowena: Yes, thank you, Alison. You've been such an important part of my journey.

Today's episode of The Best of You Podcast is in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, and the holiday season in general. If you're dealing with a mixture of emotions today, this episode is for you. Holidays are complicated, and in today's episode, I walk you through how to honor what's hard, even as you give thanks for what's good.

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We'll discuss:

1. Why it's normal for mixed emotions to show up on a holiday

2. How old ways of managing kick in-and leave us exhausted

3. How to take brave steps to honor vs. manage hard emotions

4. The myth of the perfect family, the perfect holiday, or the perfect experience of gratitude

5. What we can learn from 5 characters in my favorite children's book

‍

Thanks to our sponsors:

• Organifi -Go to www.organifi.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 20% off your order today!
• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp -Go to www.betterhelp.com/bestofyou and use code BESTOFYOU for 10% off your first month!

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

• Ramona Quimby, Age 8, by Beverly Cleary
• Parables as Stories
• The Best of You: Break Free From Painful Patterns, Mend Your Past, And Discover Your True Self in God, by Alison Cook
• Boundaries for Your Soul, by Alison Cook
• Resources for support

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Transcript

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Alison: Hey everyone. Happy Thanksgiving and welcome to this special episode of The Best of You Podcast in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday and really the entire holiday season. I've thought about this episode for a while, and I really wanted to speak directly to you today because I think holidays bring up such a myriad of emotions. 

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Holidays are complicated, and I wanted to address all that you might be experiencing on this day. I also wanted to tell a story, a bit of a parable. It's not my story, it's written by another author, but it's a story that illustrates some of the hard, some of the good, some of the messy, and some of the grace of a day like today. Jesus told stories to illustrate the points that He wanted to make. He told stories to illustrate deeper truths. 

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And, so, today I'm going to share a story with you. It's not from the Bible. It's one of my favorites from childhood, and I appreciate your indulging me as I think about what stories have meant something to me on a day like Thanksgiving. 

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But before we get there, just some thoughts for all of you who are listening. Not just today on Thanksgiving, but all of you who are anticipating the holidays with a mixture of emotions. Parts of us get excited this time of year, parts of us get excited about the holidays. 

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It might mean time off work. It might mean spending time with people you love that you don't get to see very often. We want to feel the joy that a day like Thanksgiving symbolizes. 

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It symbolizes the hope of a happy family gathering, of a celebration, of the many blessings we've received. It symbolizes this idea of contentment, gratitude, and joy as we pause to recognize and celebrate the good things God has given us. The good things that are in our lives. 

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And it's important to do this. It's a beautiful, hopeful, day that encourages us to pause and pay attention. To notice. But here's the problem, as we pause to notice the good things, on a day like today, we often also notice what's hard. It's just the way we are designed. With every joy that we recognize, there's almost always a sorrow. 

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And if you're feeling a mixture of emotions on a day like today, I just want you to know you're not alone. In fact, you're incredibly normal. So there are several ways that a day like Thanksgiving can take us off track. Cannot be that day we imagined or hoped it would be in our mind. 

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First of all, it can end up being a day of stress, if we're not careful. The day can end up being a flurry of activity. As we move into those perfecting, pleasing, performing, producing modes we've been talking about in this series. 

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Those parts of us that try to get all the things together that tense our bodies. Trying to make everything perfect, everybody happy, everything beautiful, and we haven't even gotten to the mayhem that can be Christmas. Thanksgiving can end up being a day where there is a lot of stress. As we work over time to put the day together.

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Sometimes we end up at the end of the day exhausted and spent, and not really feeling all that joy and gratitude that we had hoped to experience. For many of us, another reason the day can be hard, is that for many of us pausing to notice the gratitude also means noticing hard emotions.

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For example, some of you have had to think, really hard, about, "Who do I spend this day with?" 

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Maybe your family lives far away and you can't get to them. 

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Maybe your family is complicated and spending a lot of time with them is hard for you. 

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Maybe you're estranged from a family member, maybe even your own parent or your own child. 

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Maybe this day brings up memories of a beloved friend or family member, who is no longer with us. The day is complicated. 

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I don't know anyone who doesn't experience a myriad of emotions, when we arrive at this morning of Thanksgiving. Gratitude is complicated. It's not the absence of what's hard. It's not the absence of grief. It's not the absence of grit of the reality that, sometimes, we're just getting by. 

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And, so, I want to honor that complexity in this episode today. I want to honor the different emotions you might be feeling. The emotions that you might not be able to name at your Thanksgiving table later today. 

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There might be some anxiety or worry that is present with you. There might be sadness, grief, longing. There might be some loneliness. You might be alone today. You might be struggling financially and can't afford the type of meal or celebration you wish you could provide. You might be sitting at a table full of people, and still feeling unseen or invisible. 

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You might be sitting at a table, where the absence of someone you love or someone you've had to move away from brings up painful memories for you. You might be working so hard today, for everybody else, that by the end of the day you're exhausted and even a touch resentful. 

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All of these emotions are welcome, and I don't want you to sideline any one of them. Instead, I want you to pause, right now, as you're listening, wherever you are, and notice each of these emotions. Whichever ones are present for you, and give thanks for every single one of them. 

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I know that sounds crazy but I mean it. On this day of Thanksgiving, I want you to give thanks even for those hard emotions. They're there for a reason. And as you notice even the hard emotions and give thanks for them. 

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I want you to check in with yourself and notice; "How can I care for myself in this specific feeling I'm having?" This is how we move into authentic gratitude, and it's how we move toward authentic connection. 

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Instead of sidelining what we really feel in order to manage the perceptions of other people. We start to pay attention to these emotions. We start to give thanks for them, and we start to get more connected. 

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As you give thanks for these emotions you are feeling, invite God to be present there with you. Let Him know that you see the angst, the worry, the fear, or the sadness, and guess what God sees how you feel too. You're no longer alone with those feelings. 

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And then turn your attention toward how you will be tempted to manage throughout this day. How will a part of you try to please others? 

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How will a part of you work to keep the peace? 

How will your inner perfectionist step in and try to take over? 

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How will you try to cover over some of this pain? 

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For those of you who are peacekeepers. Your body may go tense as you anticipate all of the ways conflict will surface, and work overtime, trying to make sure to ward off any possibility of it.

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You'll work to direct conversation, redirect conversation, explain away somebody's inappropriate comment. You'll work to protect your sister from your parents. Your father from your mother. Your mother from your father. You'll revert back into that younger version of you that didn't know any other way. 

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For those of you who perform, or please, or produce, you may be tempted to work overtime to make sure everyone else is happy. Inside you may be tired, but you'll ignore that. You'll shove it aside, and by the end of the day you'll feel completely out of gas and running on empty. 

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For those of you who are grieving, you don't know what to do. Grief can be so painful to face, especially, at the holidays when you feel like you shouldn't feel that way. Holidays are complicated, and I want you to give yourself permission in this moment. You do not have to hide your pain. Hide what's hard to go through the motions. 

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Again, pause, take a minute, and give thanks for these parts of you that have worked so hard in the past to manage these hard emotions. And then ask yourself, what if it's not my job, primarily, to take care of everybody else today? 

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What if it's also my job, just as importantly, to take good care of myself? 

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What is the anxious, worried, sad, grieving, lonely, or weary part of me need on this day? 

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Take a moment and connect to that feeling inside. Imagine an inner table, an inner Thanksgiving gathering inside your own soul. And what if you could create a space for that hard feeling on this day? And what if God wants to be with you there too? 

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What is something you can do for yourself on this day, to honor this feeling? 

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You don't have to let your sadness, your worry, or your loneliness take you over. But as you notice what you feel and name it, you can care for yourself in a specific, special, only-you-can-quite-know-exactly-how way. 

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Maybe it's music, maybe it's nature, maybe it's movement. Maybe it's telling a friend that you are struggling. But as you honor what you feel and create a place for all those different emotions. You, paradoxically, also set gentle boundaries with them. You show up with more capacity. You show up more authentically. You show up holding what's hard and holding the gratitude, one in each of your hands. 

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Holidays are messy. Family is messy. And when I think about the holidays like today, I think about that old sage, Ramona Quimby. Brought to life by the wonderful author, Beverly Cleary. 

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I loved these books when I was a kid. I devoured them, read every single one multiple times, all the time. And as an adult, several moments from those books have stayed with me. 

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There's something Beverly Cleary did in capturing some of the angst, even the depression, even the melancholy. Even the fear of being a kid, and she brought to life these feelings. 

In ways that made them safe for so many of us to feel, in an era when we didn't really talk about those feelings.

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And, so, those books became a place for me to honor those feelings all of us have. That many of us didn't have a place to bring to our family gathering. And while so much of what you might be feeling, on this day, relates to your present circumstances. 

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The way that you cope with those feelings, often, goes all the way back to the way you learned to cope as a child. The way you learned to stuff, or to numb, or to speak out too, harshly, or to set your own feelings aside. 

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And, so, for you, today, I offer you this parable, this story. These characters that are so beloved, so well-known, that are playful and light. But also represent some of the ways we can feel on this day. And some of the ways we might hold both what's hard and what's good, together, side by side. 

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All right, so if you're not familiar with the Quimby Family, brought to Life by the amazing Beverly Cleary. In a series of books that focus on Ramona. I want to give you an overview of some of the key characters. As you listen, think about who you resonate with or who you relate to in this story. 

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There's Mrs. Quimby, who is the stalwart holding the family together. The family struggles financially. She's got a job. She's always worried about money. She's always trying to keep the girls together. 

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She can be a little bit stern, and she's focused on getting things done. Keeping everybody together, getting the rooms clean, getting the chores done. She loves her family, but she's definitely, sort of, that stalwart, trying to keep the train moving. 

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Then there's Mr. Quimby who is loving and kind. He's also a little anxious, again, that's my 2022 read on his character. He doesn't like his job, initially, as a grocery store checkout clerk. So he leaves it to go back to school. He later gets a different job, which he then gets laid off. 

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There's a lot of angst around Mr. Quimby. He even takes up smoking at one point, in one book, and Ramona's really worried about him and always trying to get him to stop smoking. There's the melancholy, sort of, angst around this character of Mr. Quimby, and he's also kind and loves his family. 

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Then there's the older sister Beezus, and Beezus we see through the eyes of Ramona, is a little bit self-absorbed. She is, sometimes, cranky. She loves her family, but would really rather be with her friends or at her own party than with the family oftentimes, and then there's Ramona. 

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Ramona is honest to a fault. She gets herself in trouble. She's curious. She's calls a spade a spade. She speaks out the truth that she sees. She's often reforming others, she's curious. She's lively, she's playful, she's lovable, and she can often get herself in trouble. 

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So in this particular story, it's from a chapter in the book called Ramona Quimby, age eight, and the chapter is called Rainy Sunday. And this scene, this story, just lives in my memory. It just like, literally, I can recreate it in my mind to this day. And I thought about that because I always say there's a reason we remember. Our memories are powerful. 

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And, so, there's something about this story that captured my memory when I was young. So I went back and reread it, and revisited it. And here's what's happening, and I think it's in part because it captures both the melancholy, the hard, these different ways we manage through a day. 

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The different ways we're managing other people, and what's beautiful, and good, and grace-filled about any family. About any collection of people, it doesn't even have to be a family. Because in this case, a stranger comes in to the story. 

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So I think that's what captured me. Is that it gave us space for there to be both hard, melancholy, struggles, and beauty. Glimpses of joy, glimpses of good in any given day. 

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On this particular day, Ramona and her family are not getting along. Again, it's rainy, it's miserable, it's melancholy. You feel the just angstness of the day in the house. 

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Mrs. Quimby is barking out orders, trying to get the girls to do their chores, and Mr. Quimby is checked out. Beezus is cranky and mad that she's not allowed to go to her friend's party. And Ramona is sort of bouncing around, complaining with antsy energy, trying to get out of her chores. 

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Every single one of them, you get this sense, is just operating at their worst. They're each just trying to make it through the day, cope, survive, and they're really at each other constantly. In an effort to salvage the day, toward the end of the chapter, Mr. Quimby says, "We're going to Whopper Burger, which is their local diner food chain. 

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And you can tell the way that she tells the story through gritted teeth. He's like, "And we are going to enjoy it." There's this sense of, "By, golly, we're going to just enjoy each other on this day." Even though none of them is really happy.

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And at that table, they're at a dinner table and you can picture it. It's just a diner, it's not a fancy restaurant. They're sitting at the table. But there's something about gathering around that table, making a decision to leave the gloomy house behind. And just, brilliantly, what Beverly Cleary does is she shows us, how they each start to move toward a, slightly, better version of themselves. 

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Mrs. Quimby stops herself from reprimanding Ramona about her manner. She kind of pulls in that little perfectionist part of her and just smiles instead. Beezus stops herself from complaining. She just pulls in that cranky teenage part of her and is present at the table. 

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Mr. Quimby smiles, there's a sense of a softening, a sense of the worry leaving him. And Ramona stops herself from commenting on everybody else. And you just get this feeling that slowly, just with these micro decisions, each one of them is shifting into a better version of themselves. 

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Well, the whole time there's this stranger, at the table over, watching them. And he had an interaction with Ramona when they entered into the restaurant, and she's annoyed by the fact that he's noticed them, that he's observed them. 

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And we don't really know what to make of the stranger. He's described as lonely. He's eating by himself. He's dressed in a way that might suggest he's been to the Goodwill, and he's just by himself. 

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And, so, we don't really know much about him other than that. He's annoying Ramona because she's aware that he's noticed them. And she notices the waitress talking to him, and then he leaves the restaurant. And what happens next is what always stood out to me, is the waitress comes over. 

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Mr. Quimby is getting ready to pay. And the waitress says, "This stranger, this man over here has paid for your dinner." And this is no small thing for the Quimbys. They struggle financially and they're confused. They don't know this man. They've never seen him before. 

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The waitress says, "Yes, he just said he thought you were such a nice family and he misses his own kids, his own family, and he wanted to pay for your dinner." And they're all just stunned, by this, because they don't feel like they've been a nice family. They feel like they've been a cranky, anxious, angst, stern, complaining family all day, and this stranger has seen a nice family. He's seen a group of people trying to be together, and it stuns them. 

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And you realize, in that moment, that sometimes when we're in it. When we're in the angst, when we're in the emotions, we don't see the good. We miss those little micro moments where our parent or a family member, our child, or our sister, or our mom, or our dad, or our grandparent, is actually trying to make a step toward just doing it a little bit differently. We miss those moments. 

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And, so, when that stranger sees them in a different light, it brings out even more of the best of them. And as they're driving home, each of them is even more kind, even more present, even more grateful, and it's just a beautiful story. And reading it again, I get why it stayed with me there's so much to it. It really hits us. 

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This is all of our families, in many ways, or even our friend groups. It doesn't have to be your literal family. This might be your group of friends. This might be your group of relatives, your community. We can feel broken, busted up, we are not getting along, nobody is getting us. 

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Even in the best of us, even in the best of our families or our friend groups. We can feel more of the melancholy, more of the angst, more of the misses than we feel the joy and the connections. We humans are messy. 

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I think there's a reason that memory stuck with me all these years. It's such a picture of family and, man, there are hard days. There are days where the melancholy feels deeper than the joy. And even on Thanksgiving, that is true, especially, I would say, during the holidays that is true. Everything is magnified. We feel the grief, we feel the melancholy, we feel the angst.

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Here's the thing, even as you feel those things, even as you welcome those feelings. I also don't want you to miss small moments of joy, and that's what that parable is really about. It's not about a happy ending in the sense of, "Oh, yay, and now we were all happy for the rest of our lives, and all treated each other well every day from here to the eternity." That's not what happens.

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But there's a moment where they notice. They notice themselves pulling back the sharp barb. They, each, notice themselves pulling back on the criticisms. They each have a moment of showing up a little bit more like the best version of themselves. 

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They each have a moment. And even the lonely man, in the story, if you look at this as a parable, he's lonely. He's missing his family. We don't know why he's not with his kids or his grandkids. Maybe they live far away. Maybe he's ostracized from them, we don't know. 

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I know some of you feel ostracized from your family. I hear from you. You write to me. You'll say things to me, "I'm the toxic one. I'm the one whose kids have set the boundaries with." You feel like the one who's been ostracized. 

You're lonely. You're facing hard things about yourself and I want to say a special note to you, if you're feeling that way this holiday. "I'm the one that my kids said, 'I can't be with you this holiday.'" 

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Think of that old man and that parable. What's a kindness you could do for somebody else? That's part of your healing. You are starting to heal too. And part of what you do to love them is not to beg, or plead, or control, or manipulate, or guilt trip them into showing up for you. 

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Part of what you're doing is granting them the space that they've requested. Honoring what they've asked for from you, and that's painful. And that's causing you to have to look at yourself in all new ways and face shame, and that's hard. And my prayer goes out to you this Thanksgiving, as you honor these hard things that you're facing. 

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What if you could do something nice for someone else, for someone else's family? What if you could turn toward healing in a new way? What if you could find a way to give thanks for that moment, even amidst a lot of pain that you're facing? 

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Maybe you are Ramona in this story. You feel like you're the one that's pointing out all the hard things. You're the namer. You're the one who is honest. You're the one who's like, "We're not always nice. We're actually not doing a very good job today." If that's who you are. If that's who you are, what if today you could just take a step back, and look for the good. Look for what is working in your family today. 

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You might be like Mrs. Quimby the one trying to hold all things together, you've got a fistful of bills. You're worried about everyone. And as a result, you're barking out orders, trying to get everybody else to just get along. What if you could take a deep breath and just notice what's going well? What to give thanks for today? 

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And maybe you're like, Mr. Quimby, you've just made some hard decisions. You've moved away from some old ways to pursue something better. It's scary, it's foreign, it's uncomfortable, it's new, you're a little wobbly. You're not sure what's next for you. 

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What if you could just take a deep breath today, and pause, and notice what's going right. What can you give thanks for? And what if you are Beezus, cranky, a little grumpy, a little tired of your family, not sure you really want to be with them. Give yourself grace, take a little space and then notice one thing, you can give thanks for.

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Each of us is represented by a member of this parable. The one who is lonely. The one who is anxious. The one who is melancholy. The one who is irritable. The one who is facing hard changes. And maybe for you, you need to minimize the togetherness today in order to be thankful. 

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Maybe you're someone who needs to take a deep breath, in order to notice what's good alongside what's hard. 

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So today, and over the coming month, as you consider the holidays:

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What if you could acknowledge one good thing about this gathering, this day, this family, these people, yourself? 

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And what if you could also honor one thing that's hard?

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This Thanksgiving, I want you to consider creating space for what's hard, for what's good, and for what's messy today. Give thanks for what you can and give grace for what feels hard. And no matter where you find yourself in this story, today, I'm with you in prayer.

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I am sending love to each of you today. I'm so grateful that you're here. Give thanks, today, for what you can and give grace, today, for what feels hard. 

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