"I'm so grateful I found Dr. Cook's work—she is the best of both worlds. I trust her and I don't even know her. Morally authentic and kind with really strong clinical chops. Thank you Dr. Alison for helping me to stay hopeful when I had almost given up."
"I can't say enough about this podcast and Dr. Alison. I have listened to every episode and can't wait for the next one. She has shed so much light onto my spiritual pain. . . I am learning how to heal and live the life God has planned for me."
"I started this podcast roughly a year ago from start to finish. I was struggling, had tried several other podcasts, several counselors, and I was just lost but really could not identify why. I started listening to this podcast in the mornings and my life has really changed. It gives me the tools in the morning to wake up my emotions and really dive into some topics that have made me more self aware without shame!"
"I have learned so many new perspectives and tools through this podcast!"
"There are so many takeaways that have changed my perspective, illuminated my circumstances, or simply encouraged me to tears. Thank you, Dr. Alison!"
“Dr. Alison’s compassion and understanding of psychology in tandem with Scripture is excellent and so very helpful. One episode is better than the next and I often listen more than once and share them!”
Choose a category to narrow your search
What do you do when relationships feels risky after you’ve been hurt, betrayed, or let down, yet you still crave real connection?
This week, Dr. Alison is joined by speaker, and author Toni Collier, for a powerful and honest conversation about healing through community and learning how to trust again after deep pain.
Toni shares her story of betrayal and loss, and how she discovered the power of safe people - the kind who can hold your heart without judgment and help you rebuild when life falls apart. Together, they unpack what real friendship looks like and why isolation, while it feels safe, can slowly destroy us.
You’ll walk away with language for repair, courage to take off your “strong friend” cape, and practical wisdom for finding (and becoming) the kind of people who can walk with you through both heartbreak and healing.
This episode explores:
Why healing requires safe people, not just safe spaces
How to build a community that can hold your story
The difference between isolation and refuge
The courage it takes to say, “I need help”
The three steps to finding and keeping trustworthy friends
You can find Toni’s powerful book here:
📚Don't Try This Alone: How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 104: Overcoming the Fear of Vulnerability
Episode 76: Finding the Faith & Strength to Move Forward after Loss & Heartache
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
- Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
- Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.
- If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
- Go to shopremi.com/BESTOFYOU and use the code BESTOFYOU at checkout for 50% off.
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
What I went through was extremely painful, and God has a plan for our pain. Every
single question, feeling, everything that I wanted to process, I called someone. It
was your community that became the holding place for the big emotion. So I'm going
to go to a safe person. I loved that you highlighted the safe person aspect because
I think people are using the phrasing, you know, this is a safe space. But we
don't build safe spaces. We connect with safe people. It's not a rupture that ruins
a relationship. It's the love.
funny places for support. We find ourselves confiding in a hairdresser or suddenly
downloading on our neighbor at the mailbox. It's helpful to chat with trusted people,
but when it comes to real issues, complicated challenges that we face in our lives,
sometimes we need more than casual advice. We need to talk with someone who is
trained to help us, and that's where BetterHelp comes in. Therapy has been such a
game changer for me personally, because I know I'm talking with someone who's
actually credentialed and focused on helping me grow. And with Better Help, you don't
have to spend
and provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.
Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at
BetterHelp .com slash Best of You. That's BetterHelp, H -E -L -P .com slash Best of
You.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. Here we
are on video. I still kind of can't believe that...
go it alone. I can just do better by myself. I won't risk being hurt.
And if that's you today, today's episode is, I hope, just a hand on your shoulder,
a quiet, honest, non -shaming, gentle invitation back into community.
Today I'm joined by someone who has lived this message in real time, Tony Collier.
Tony has been on the podcast before. We love Tony. She's so real. She's an author,
a speaker, and the founder of Broken Crayan Still Color and the Still Coloring
podcast, where she invites honest stories of healing and resilience. And Tony has a
brand new book out. And since we're on video, for those of you watching, I can
show it to you. It's called Don't Try This Alone, how to build deep community when
you want to hide from your pain. It's something we can all relate to. And it's
such a tender, courageous guide based in Tony's own story, which she's going to
share a little bit with us about today, about finding the kind of people who can
help you hold what feels overwhelming. Some of the worst life experiences are
mitigated when we have people who can come around us. It's how God made us to live
in this world that he's created. And also, we're going to talk about how to become
that type of person for others. In this conversation today, Tony and I talk about
why safe spaces are really made by safe people. The three key steps needed as you
build authentic, safe friendships and what it looks like to walk through betrayal,
rupture, and repair without losing your own soul in the process. And Tony gives
language to things so many of us have felt but haven't known how to name. A few
highlights I want you to listen for today is how Tony talks about living on
offense, not defense. She had built this community before the crisis hit.
So there was a net to hold her during crisis. It's such an important thing I want
all of you to have. Is that safety net in place. God forbid a crisis does come.
You want it to be there, right, to hold you when that crisis hits. She talks about
the difference between isolation and refuge, right? Hiding can feel protective, but
healing requires presence and how repair is a skill. And it isn't the rupture that
ruins relationships. It's the absence of repair. And she offers practical, gracious
language for coming back to the table when things get bumpy. If you're new to
Tony's work, you'll hear the same heartbeat that runs through all of her work, this
conviction that your story isn't over and that beauty can emerge right in the middle
of the mess. And if you've been following her for a while, you're here the deep
wisdom that has been formed in her through these last few years and some really
personal confessions and stories that I was just, well, it brought both of us to
tears, to be honest. I also want to say as someone who cares deeply about the
integration of faith and psychology, I think Tony's new book is a real gift. It's
honest about pain and equally honest about hope. So if you've ever wondered, where
do I find people who can help me hold all that I'm going through? How do I become
a safer person for other people? This conversation is going to meet you there.
So let your shoulders drop while you're listening and maybe invite God's spirit to
just tap you at whatever part of your soul needs to hear something from this
message. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation today with Tony Collier.
What I think is really powerful about don't try this alone, the title in and of
itself and the book itself is it's really about the importance of safe, authentic
community for healing. And we know this. And so we'll get into the how you find
that if you don't have it and how to create it. But I want to start with your
story because the impetus right for your need of this community, which thank goodness
you had the scaffolding for when the crisis hit which doesn't always happen was a
betrayal in your marriage a significant betrayal that led to a divorce yeah can you
share with us about the moment you learned about the betrayal it was out of the
blue as i understand it yeah um and and just how that played out yeah so i i
will never forget the day it's september 19th 2023 23. You know, oftentimes we
remember big dates where we celebrate things, and then we remember really painful
dates as well. And so September 19th was that date for me. I was actually in
Nashville. I live in Atlanta, but I was in Nashville filming for a TV network for
this beautiful Christian TV show that I get to do. And I got a call in my hotel
room from my now ex -husband, and he was like, I've got to confess some things. And
I'm like, no, no, no. And the reason why I kind of already had some just knowledge
and understanding of what he was going to confess is because this wasn't the first
act of infidelity in our marriage. It was just the first one that I was aware of
in a long time. The infidelity originally started in the second year of our
marriage. And we'd gone to counseling and there had been some forgiveness and trust
kind of rebuilt. And so this call was a shock, but also it was familiar.
And so my ex -husband confessed to being extorted by someone that he'd hired for
sexual favors. And there was a video out there. And it just was devastating and
surprising. And in the same breath, as soon as I got off the phone with them, I
called two of my closest friends that are in my confessional community, my group
therapy group, because they had been on this same Christian network filming the same
show the day before. And I say that part of the story because I just want to
testify to someone that what I went through was extremely painful. And God has a
plan for our pain. And the plan that day was to have two of my closest friends
who knew a bunch of my story, a lot of my pain, who was right there.
I mean, in person. We live in different states, so that's not a normal thing. But
we were in the same state, in the same city, in the same hotel room, on the same
floor. And they came for me. And I just, I got to say, I just don't know how
well I would be today if I didn't have my people saying, hey, this is really
painful and it's really heavy. And alone, it could crush you. But with us, it
won't. And so, yeah, that's a little bit of context on the story. I really want to
get into the community piece because that's the thrust of the book is how that
carried you. Before we get there, I know one thing I often tell people when they
receive news, crushing news, especially in the form of a betrayal, is wait. Don't
make big decisions out of the big emotions.
Yep. How did you navigate that as you process this betrayal?
And I understand it was it almost though in some ways because it had happened
before and you'd work through repair. Yeah. To have it resurface in that way.
You know, it's almost even more. I mean, you can't, we can't compare what's right
but that it's all just devastating but yeah how did you navigate the emotional
aftermath that allowed you to get to a place of clarity because so often with the
betrayal you have to make big decisions in the middle of big emotions right when
you're parenting you're trying to figure out a relationship yeah tell us a a bit
about how you process that in the immediate aftermath. Yeah, I love what you said
about the waiting and about the pace because I do agree. I think in that moment,
it could have been so easy for me to respond to my ex -husband and say, well,
it's over, bye, don't talk to me ever again. It's over. I'm shutting this thing
down. I think I've just learned over the years that I just, I'm not the smartest.
I don't have all the answers. I don't always make the best decisions. And so I
need people to help me wait. And so for me, what that looked like is I just
rallied all the troops. And I said, listen, I need y 'all to walk with me through
this because I want to run. This is painful. I want to run away from this. I want
to scoop up my kids and take them to safety. I kind of sort of want to move to
a different country. Okay. Like, I want to leave the situation, and at the same
time, I've been intentionally using more ands, less butts, okay, because we can hold
all of this together, right? Like, and I want to do this well. Children are
involved. I can't move as quickly as I probably want to. I can't run away from the
reality that I have a public platform. And at the time, we were both pastors,
church planters, planting a church, like, I can't run away from that community, I
have to be wise. And sometimes wise means low. And so for me, my confessional
community, they're so sweet. They kept calling. We did some emergency zooms. I added
a couple of people to what I now called my freedom board. It was like an advisory
board of women who either had walked through this before or had wisdom and
understanding of being a leader and being in public and going through betrayal and
divorce. And I just didn't make any moves without them. Every single question,
feeling, everything that I wanted to process, I called someone. I did not dare do
it alone. And I think, if I'm honest, that's the reason why we're still standing
with such goodness and grace and freedom in our story. That's why it didn't
completely set everything ablaze and our whole lives were crazy. I think it's because
I did it with people and I moved so cautiously cautiously with them.
I've always been a nighttime teeth clencher. For years, I'd wake up with a sore jaw
and headaches, and my dentist kept reminding me how important it is to protect my
teeth. That's why I use Remy Nightguards, because I'm not alone, about 30 % of U .S.
adults clench or grind their teeth at night. Remy's custom night guards are
clinically tested to protect against grinding, reduced jaw tension, ease facial muscle
strain and even help you sleep better. They give you the same professional quality
and comfort you'd get from a dentist, but at 80 % less cost and without the hassle
of an office visit. You can even use your HSA or FSA dollars at checkout.
Here's how it worked for me. Remy sent an impression kit straight to my door. I
followed their step -by -step instructions, pop the mold back in the prepaid box, and
a few days later my custom fit night guard arrived. It fits perfectly and my jaw
finally feels relaxed in the morning.
best of you. Thank you, Remy, for sponsoring this episode.
Oh, that's so interesting. What I hear you saying is what allowed you to wait.
And again, not that any of those immediate reactions aren't warranted in these cases,
right? You know, I really want the listener to say, you know, sometimes that is the
immediate reaction. But in these big life relationships, there has to be some sort
of process. And what I hear you saying is it was your community that became the
holding place for the big emotions. Right. I want to right right now reach out and
just shred him or, you know, move to a different country. So I'm going to go to a
safe person with those feelings. And those people become the holding,
the regulating with you. Can I say this too? I loved that you highlighted the safe
person aspect because I think in our day and age, people are using the phrasing,
you know, this is a safe space and we built a safe environment for you. And the
truth is that is beautiful. But we don't build safe spaces.
We connect with safe people. Like, that's what, it's the people that gets you
through. I think it's easy for us to say, well, I just need to lay in my bed all
day because it's the safest place to be. And maybe for some of us, that's a
reality. But the truth is, I just think safety is built in the context of
relationship. And that's what I had. I didn't want to run to a safe space and be
isolated because I think sometimes when we're isolated, that safe space doesn't, it
isn't safe anymore. because it's just you and your thoughts and your emotion.
held you when you were. Yeah. I call it living on the offense, not the defense.
I'm a, you know, I'm from Texas. I'm a wild girl. I kind of just run. I don't
really walk. Slow is not my vibe, okay? But over these last couple of years, as
I've been healing and healing in public, which is even heavier, I've just learned
that It's just better to be prepared. I honestly feel like I sound like my dad. If
my dad listens this, he's going to be like, I've been telling that girl that for
years. But I just, I've been trying to live on the offense and not the defense.
And this confessional community came about because of one singular human being that
said, I don't want to live a life isolated. I also don't want to live a high
level life. I want to live a deep life, an intentional life. That's our, my friend
Jessica Honiger, who you know, and I'll never forget. She called me in the airport,
and she's like, hey, I want to do this thing. It's a group. We're going to meet
every single month, and we're going to go real deep. We're going to talk about our
trauma. We're going to hold each other accountable, and we're going to confess. And
I was like, don't want to do that. I'm not really sure what you're talking about
here. And I prayed about it and thought through it. And I was like, no, I want
that too. I actually think it's the antidote to a lot of things, not just betrayal
and divorce, but also accountability. I think it helps prevent addiction. I think it
helps to address addiction. I think it helps to curate language around your feelings.
I also think it gives us so much confidence and security in ourselves because we've
got a group of people here who is committed to a life of sharing, a life of
confessing with you. It's not one -sided. Everyone's in it. And every year we meet
in person for a retreat and we go super deep and we're there for like three days,
but it feels like three months because we are crying our hearts out and tending to
each other and contending in the spirit for each other. But then every single month
for three hours, we meet via Zoom. You've joined us on one of those calls and made
me not crying from all my friends as we did some part work. And it's that,
you know, I just, it's what I believe at least Jesus had with the disciples, these,
these, these, these, this.
when crisis hits, we have people, but we haven't tested that piece. Because sometimes
people can't, and it's legitimate. Sometimes, you know what I, right? And I love
that you said that, the capacity to hold the weight of pain. And that had been
tested before. Tony, for the listener who's listening to you saying,
that sounds amazing. I don't have that. Yeah.
How can somebody go about cultivating that with the, because I hear you saying there
was a lot of, there's structure to it because to hold, to have the capacity, we've
got to have structure. There's got to be some norms. There's got to be, because
it's hard. I know. Oh, my goodness. So how does somebody go, there's two questions
in that one is how does somebody go about beginning to develop that kind of safety
net yeah and what might they anticipate what scaffolding is needed so that that
safety net will hold because we are human and it gets hard yeah so i think there's
a couple of things i think the first thing is that we have to be brave enough to
admit that we need that type of community yeah and i think for some of us It's
going to require bravery because for some of us, we've been the strong friend for a
long time. We've been the one that everyone comes to. I get tender about this
because I've been the strong friend for a long time. And it took a lot of humility
and bravery on my part to say, I just, I'm not the strongest all the time. I need
breaks. I need help. I need people that'll say, I got that for you.
I see you're struggling. And I've especially needed that over the last two years.
And so I think for some of us, we've got to take that cape off and we've got to
start leaning in. I think the second thing that's super, super important is that we
have to transition friends that are currently there that don't have the capacity to
hold the weight. I can remember around 24, I really started to get serious about my
faith. I got saved at 21, but I was just a fan of God, not a follower. And at
24, 25, I was like, no, I really want to get serious about this. And I remember
the Lord prompting me to start really taking a deep dive, look at my community, my
current community, because they were, you know, people from college, from my past,
party girls, while doing living life together, partying. And that wasn't the life I
wanted to live anymore. And so unfortunately, I wasn't strong enough to have deep
connection with people that still live that lifestyle because then I would end up
doing it myself. And so I remember doing something very brave and vulnerable and it
was asking the Lord to help me transition friends and help me to find new friends,
which is childish when you think about it. Like it's embarrassing a little bit like,
Daddy God, can you help me find friends, you know? But I kind of think that's
required of us. And I think the third thing is that it's anticipating that as an
adult, this is going to be really hard. When I was writing the book,
Don't Try This Alone, I was doing research on why it's so difficult for us as
adults to develop friendship and why it's so easy for kids to do it. And two
things came up consistently in all of these research studies and it was number one.
Kids don't have so much baggage in their stories. They don't handle or process shame
in the same way as we do as adults. So when my daughter goes to the park and 52
seconds later, she comes up to me and she's like, I got a best friend now. Her
name is such and such and her and I plan a playday together and I gave her your
number. Like, I'm like, what is happening right now? Like for her, for Dylan,
my daughter, she doesn't have so much shame. So she goes right up to a person.
She's like, you're going to be my friend and it's over. The second thing is our
parents and guardians were curators of community for us. So our parents brought us
to the park around kids and jumpy places around kids. They put us in school. So
literally the community was curated for us. Even all the way up to college when we
think about it, we're literally in a saturated small campus with other people that
are like -minded, there for the same reason. And so we have to find those places
now as adults. We have to go to church sometimes.
are in your area. Like you can just actually get on an email list with different
events that have different people interest in the same thing you're interested in.
And I would say the last thing is this, we've got to lay our personality types
aside. The biggest thing that I've heard as I've released this book is, well, I'm
an introvert, so this is hard for me. Well, I'm an eight, so I don't really like
people. Well, I'm this, I'm a that. I'm so sorry to break it to a couple of you
out there, but your God -given design was to be connected with other people. And
your personality type, I think, comes after that. Okay? So you're going to have to
lay that down and really start viewing yourself as a person that needs deep
connection, a person that needs deep community, no matter what day, month you were
born, no matter what wiring you have, no matter what emotional color you are, you
have to start thinking of yourself as a person that needs deep community like you
need water yeah yeah i love that and on that last point it can look differently
for different people and i but i love that you're saying that self awareness all
that means is that that that might dictate a different approach to finding the
people or i would prefer a group of three over a group of 12 you know you know
but but but but but but it the baseline need is universal so i heard three things
and i want to tony because it's so good and i really want the listener to hear
this so first well the first thing i heard you say is this is a universal need it
doesn't matter we have to have this it doesn't come naturally yeah and and so i
love this humility i need this yeah it's part of my god -given design the second
thing i heard you say essentially was discernment it's not just anybody i can have
a great friend that i love to go out with on friday nights that doesn't necessarily
become my safe people yep and i heard you say you went through a pair you had to
get really discerning yes and and i just i want to give a practical tip here
because i have gotten so many messages about this from people like, okay, but how?
Like, do I just like peace out like you're dead to me? I'm like, no, clarity is
kindness. The conversation that I had just give you, I'm going to give you guys a
script right now. Yeah. The conversation I had with one of my friends was, hey, I'm
getting ready to go on a healing journey. I'm really pressing into my faith and
relationship with the Lord. And so my friendships are going to look different. It
doesn't mean I don't love you. It doesn't mean I'm upset with you in any way. I
just want you to know that you may feel a little bit more distance and space
between me because I'm getting stronger in the things that I do. I'm battling some
things with addiction. Like, I just need some space and time to really get more
healthy. And I can't do that in close proximity right now. Wow. So that's like...
How did that go with most people? Okay. So one friend was like, hey, I totally
understand. I'm here if you need me. And I'm like, keeping that as a mental note.
You're a person that I'm transitioning right now, but I could actually maybe
transition back in later. You're pretty safe. That's actually a sign of safety.
You're mature. There was another friend who is like, what are you even talking
about? If you don't want to be my friend, just tell me. And it was in that moment
that I, you know, had continued the conversation and said, hey, truly, it's not
about that at all. I am just personally not strong enough to be in deep friendship
with you right now because I really would like to stop cursing. I want to stop
drinking so much. I just had to provide more and more detail and more and more
clarity. And that's okay. It's okay to give people that, honestly, that respect of
saying, I'm not going anywhere. I just, I had to change some things about my life.
And, you know, unfortunately, our friendship never attached into a really deep,
intimate friendship. And she has great, lovely, beautiful friendships and so do I and
we're both still standing and we're fine but sometimes it's hard and that's okay
it's yeah it well and that leads to the third point which I hear you saying is
courage the brave it it takes to deal with the shame that might come up the guilt
that comes up I always talk about the guilt that follows a healthy
like there's that courage that that piece that kids have kind of more net but that
piece to be like this is what I need and and I've got to lean into it and people
some people may not like it
but it's how I'm figuring out this path yeah I also will say that a big question
I get all the time and this is for the listener is, well, how can I trust again
when I've been so betrayed? Yes. Because of my story and because of the public
betrayal and divorce, I get this question a whole bunch, like, but how can I trust
again? Yeah. Like, I've been so deeply hurt. Like, people, when people look over the
context of their story, they're like, when I'm in the most pain, it's, if it's not
a physical thing or a disease or anything in my body, it's because of people. And
so the question is, how how do I get back up again? And I think I get a little
bit feisty with this question because I know for me the first year after divorce
was, it was difficult. But I didn't have a choice. I had two kids.
I had to move out of my house. I needed help moving a crib that was twice my
size. I needed help furnishing my new house. I didn't have any income coming in
because I got off stage to heal. Like, I had no choice. I had to accept help.
And I just think that it was the kindness of God to remind me that not it doesn't
matter what happened in the past, but it can't matter so much that we jeopardize
the future of our relationships. The people that hurt us, betray us,
broke our trust, caused the need for us to go to counseling. They don't get to
have our future. It's just not something I'm willing to compromise on.
And I don't think it's something that you have to compromise on. And when I think
about the way of Jesus, I think about this idea that he had 12 disciples and all
along, even when choosing them, he knew two would betray him. He knew Judas was
going to rat him out. He knew it. He's omniscient. He's omnipresent. He's all
powerful. He knew this was coming. He also knew that Peter, one of his closest
disciples, would deny that he even knew him. And yet, the betrayal of the two
wasn't more powerful than the beauty of the ten. We have to walk like that just
because my ex -husband betrayed me doesn't mean that God hasn't created and put other
people in my life who I need, who won't betray me, who I can trust, who are safe.
And if I allow one human being and my experience with that one human being to tell
me or influence me not to open up again, I would have lost so much connection,
so much love, so much help when I really needed it. So I just want to encourage
you, and I want to be honest with you that this journey of community,
of curating it, the ebbs and flows of moving to different cities and being hurt and
being rejected, it's hard. I want to name it.
I don't want to be one of those people that's like, It's so beautiful.
it's not yep and I want the listener to hear that that the odds you can you can
bump into and we can do our work to figure out our patterns and figure out if
there's anything on our side of the street that we can yeah need to do about how
we're choosing sometimes it's not our fault at all sometimes we are not oh yes
right I can affirm that you can do all of that and when with all of that There
will be safe people out there. There will be. 100%.
And I don't say 100 % about anything. Yeah. But I've witnessed it. Yes.
Not only in my own story. Yeah. But in the countless amount of stories that I get
to hold from listeners, watchers, viewers, people in real life when I get off stage
like, no, Tony, I had this happened to me and this really hurt. I lost all these
friends. And now I'm in a beautiful community. And now I'm thriving. And now I know
what it looks like to have a real good friend. So I've just witnessed it. Like I
just, I'm a believer all the way. 100%. I
love it. I want to, Tony, just in this kind of final segment, how once you found
people, you have this confessional community, you find people, you find these people
who are people you can trust, there are still within safe friendships,
this process of what we call rupture and repair, in healthy marriages with our kids,
right? So one of the things I think that happens to people when there's been a lot
of broken trust, a lot of betrayal, is then when you encounter a bomb,
lie that these people are going to hurt me. They're going to betray me. I know
what pain feels like. I don't. I mean, it just for the first time my whole life,
I battled with forgiveness. I battled with anger. I am a telotubby on the inside.
So I felt anger and rage for the first time in a very long time. And so it was
hard. And in that, I leaked that pain, that anger from my divorce leaked into my
friendship. And I want to talk about a specific moment. I won't get in too much
detail. But in our confessional community, we had a rupture. And I was right at the
center of it. Something was said that triggered me, not intentionally at all. These
are beautiful, safe people. This is why I just want to affirm, like, even in the
healthiest, most safe environments, these things happened. I got triggered. I was also
battling a little bit with alcohol. I just want to be open and transparent about
that. And I'm now sober. I'm a part of the sober community. I'm not even playing
around with it. I wasn't like drunk, crazy, addicted. But it was something I started
using to numb. And I just, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be that
person. And so I quit completely. But at the time, I hadn't quit. Motions were
high. I wasn't sleeping at all. I was on sleeping medicine, anxiety medicine. There
was just not good. And something was said in our confessional community that deeply
triggered me. And I left. I walked out of the room and I left everyone.
And it makes me emotional because one of the phrases that we have in our
confessional community is that we're never leaving the room. And I just was in so
much pain that I left. And about three months later, I felt so convicted about it
and not in a shame -filled way, but I was the one that needed to repair the
rupture. And I needed to lean in and I needed to explain what happened and why I
felt this way and what responsibility I needed to take because repair requires
responsibility. And so I got everybody on a Zoom call and I just apologized.
I didn't use my pain as an excuse. I took it on as a responsibility to
And that's repair. It's saying,
I'm sorry. I value this environment. I value you guys so much.
I value this friendship. I value what we've built. And I won't let my pain take us
apart. I won't let the pain cause a rupture that doesn't get repaired. Because the
truth is, Alison, and you know this and you've said this like it's not a rupture
that ruins a relationship it's the lack of repair that does and i'm here to testify
because i've witnessed it and i've been responsible for the rupture um that repair
is possible and it requires humility and it requires discernment and it requires
courage that's so good tony i i just want to honor your willingness to share that
story. One of my, my favorite things is when the thing that brings me closest to
tears is when someone raises their hand and said, oh, I was the one. That takes a
lot of, because I can imagine there were,
there were reasons. You were triggered. People hurt us, even when they don't mean to
hurt us. words are so feeble. I feel this way all the time when trying to be with
someone through pain. I'm so aware. I'm like, oh, words are a landmine. But we have
to use them. Yep. Right? There's no way out. And we misstep.
And boy, I just, and we do get hurt. And I just, I hear in you just such to
yeah um that's a that's a big deal to be able to because three months is an
insignificant amount of time yeah it suggests the level of the hurt to be able to
really dig deep and go yeah what happened i have to look at my side of this it
doesn't mean yeah again we're not going to talk this through and someone else might
not say hey i need you to know this is what I meant, you know, that's the repair,
but I have to show back up at the table. And I just, I appreciate your sharing
that. That's, that's going to really speak to someone listening, right, whether it's,
we're the one that has to say, it's me, I, or whether we're the one that has to
be the one that says, it's okay. But sometimes I think that part is a little bit
easier. Yeah. It's It's almost in the repair. I see it in marriage.
Yeah. Oh, it's so hard. It is so hard. It's so easy to justify. I could,
and I, you know, I know in marriage I'll say you can be right or you can stay
married. You can stay married. Surprise, guys. Right. You know what's interesting is
that when I look at the formation of repair in our lives when we were just
children, We weren't trained on that. No. You know, I think... It's not a skill we
were taught. Yeah. I mean, I think about like, well, my parents said when my
brother hurt my feelings or whatever, they were just like, say sorry to your sister.
My brother, sorry. And that was it. Now we're playing again. Now we're on the
Nintendo, you know? And we weren't taught to say, hey, I just noticed that there's
some distance between us. You know, when you're ready, do you mind talking to me
about it? Is there something that I said or did that you can help bring awareness
to so that I can fix it? Help me understand that more. The story that I'm telling
myself is that you said that because of this, this, this, and that. Those are
tools. Those are functions. Those are, that's a part of a framework that a lot of
us were not exposed to. So when we cause pain to someone and they're upset with
us. Everything else takes the front seat. Our insecurities, our shame, our denial of
it, like our running. We run away from repair. Our attachment loans. Right.
I mean, everything. And what are we going to do when all of those things come up?
Okay, we're going to have a strategy. We're going to have language in place. We're
going to be practicing conflict when conflict is not happening. We're going to be
living on the offense, not the defense.
there but I don't know how and sometimes it's bumpy reentry is bumpy and we're
afraid of that and so the path of least resistance to get back to what we were
saying is just to stay isolated versus the bumpy road of I don't know how to do
this and maybe that's just a way to start when you need to repair I don't know
how but I need you to know that what I'm trying to do is reach out you know and
I also love that you said bumpy. I just got this visual.
I always tell my friends, like, we're all on a bus together, guys. And we're going
to have some bumps in the road. But instead of just ignoring those bumps, we're
going to just make a little U -turn. We're going to go smooth out that pavement.
And then we're all going to get back on the bus and have us a party. And I just
think, like, that's the reality of what's happening. This is not all of us on a
beautiful sailboat, on a beautiful day, smooth sailing all the way. No, it is a
bumpy, sometimes hot, smelly bus that we are all on. I think about like a field
trip. We're all on the way to have so much fun together, so much life together,
but we may hit a pothole, we may run out of gas, we may have to pull up on the
side of the road. Somebody's not going to get their favorite seat. But we're on it,
And we're not getting off. We're going to be on it together. And it's beautiful.
And here's what I will say too, because I hear someone saying, don't want to get
on that bus. Don't want to get on the bumpy road. I'm not down. I'm going to get
car sickness. Like, we're going someplace beautiful. Yeah. Like,
we're going to the places where fun can actually be had, where freedom can actually
be experienced, where deep connection happens. We're going somewhere fun.
Yes. Get on the bus. Yeah. Where the joys are all the much more joyful and
celebratory for the having gone through the bumps, right? You don't get one without
the other, right? Yeah. So sorry. That's another hard reality that we have to face
that in order to experience the greatest amount of joy, we have to be open to
experience the greatest amount of pain. It's, I don't like it.
I don't want to do that. Even just saying it, I'm like, I don't even know why I
said that out loud just now, but goodness. And it's so worth it. It's worth it.
It's worth it. It really is. Yeah. Tell us about, so this is your beautiful new
book. Don't try this alone. Tell it, tell my listeners where they can find it, why
you wrote it, and what's in it for them as they're resonating with everything we're
saying. Well, you can get the book anywhere. All the books are sold, Amazon, Barnes
& Noble, Christian books, all the things. Audible's so fun. I got to record the
book this time. It's fun. It's like action -packed. I get to laugh a little bit.
Like, it's just a cool little thing. And it's actually really interesting, Allison,
that the audio book has sold more than the physical copy. And I don't even unheard
of. I love it. But it's just a super fun way to digest the book. And as far as
what you're going to get out of it, I mean, it is truly everything we've talked
about. It is how to transition friends that you need to put in a different, more
safe space, how to identify real good, godly friends. What are the traits and
characteristics we should be looking for? How to be honest about what you need as a
friend because that's a huge and big deal. Like if you can't name the things you
need, how someone should treat you, talk to you, then you're going to inevitably end
up with friends that hurt you that talk to you in ways that you don't appreciate.
So you have to know you in order for them to know you. Right? And shout out to
the best of you. Okay. I understand.
And one of the things I really love is the ending of the book because I kind of
turn it on you. We want good godly friends and we're not good godly friends
ourselves. And so we're going to talk about what that looks like right at the end
of the book for you to be a friend worth having friends. So that's the part I
really love because I do believe that we deeply desire the things that we're not
willing to work for. And so we're going to have to do our work to get real good
godly community and that's going to start with us. But I love it. I hope you get
it. Don't try this alone. It's great. You're so real, Tony. I always love our
conversations. It's, no, you just have this authenticity. You're so real and it
really tracks. And I just appreciate, even letting us into the bumpiness of your own
experience, it's, it's what this is about,
right? It's what this is about. There's, we have to keep our real souls. It's
ongoing work and I just so appreciate you and I'm so grateful that you shared your
wisdom with us today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so grateful. 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 Dr. Allison Cook .com. That's Allison with one l .cook .com.
Before you forget, I hope you'll follow the show now so that you don't miss an
episode. And I love it if you'd 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.
What do you do when someone you love - whether it’s your kids, a spouse, or a friend - keeps doing the same maddening things?
This week, we’re tackling how to approach the most frustrating dynamics in any relationship. Dr. Alison is joined by award-winning psychologist Dr. J. Stuart Ablon, founder of Think:Kids at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School.
He shares a game-changing mindset shift: most challenging behavior is about skill, not will.
If you’ve ever thought, “They just don’t care,” about someone you love, this conversation provides a proven, practical path to real solutions.
This episode explores:
The five core skills that drive every behavior
The real reason most people struggle
How to keep your cool and trade judgment for curiosity
The exact words that lower defensiveness fast
Why boundaries still matter—and how to set them collaboratively
A step-by-step walkthrough of Collaborative Problem Solving in action
For more from Dr. Stuart Ablon, check out his many free resources:
💡For free access to an interactive, self-paced course for parents, go to:
https://thinkkids.org/Self-Paced-Courses/Parent-Caregiver-Course/ Use code: BestofYou
🏥 Think: Kids at Massachusetts General Hospital
📚Changeable: How Collaborative Problem Solving Changes Lives at Home, at School, and at Work
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 86: Embracing Conflict—Why It's Essential & 4 Simple Ways to Tackle It
Episode 70: Mastering the Art of Emotional Intelligence—How to Harness the Power of Your Emotions to Improve Your Relationships
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
- Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
- Head to cozyearth.com and use my code BESTOFYOU for 40% off!
- If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Editing by Giulia Hjort
Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik
Music by Andy Luiten
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week’s episode of The Best of You podcast.
Today we’re exploring a mindset shift that can transform the hardest moments with the people in your life—whether that’s a child melting down, a partner who shuts down, a colleague who stonewalls, or a parent who pushes your buttons.
The shift is the idea that: most challenging behavior is about skills, not will. When someone repeatedly does that maddening thing, our brains tend to assign motive—“they don’t care,” “they’re being difficult,” “they’re trying to get their way.” But what if, instead, we asked: Which skill is missing in this moment? And how might we work with them to build it?
My guest today has spent three decades showing families, schools, workplaces, and systems how to do exactly that. Dr. J. Stuart Ablon is a clinical psychologist and one of the leading voices on understanding and changing concerning behavior in any setting. He’s the Founder and Director of Think:Kids in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He’s the developer and leading teacher of Collaborative Problem Solving®—the approach behind the mantra you’ve probably heard: “People do well if they can.”
Stuart is the author of several terrific books, including his latest, Changeable: How Collaborative Problem Solving Changes Lives at Home, at School and at Work. His work is practical, compassionate, and incredibly effective because it builds skills and preserves relationships.
We're gonna touch on a number of topics today, but here's what you'll hear that you can apply to anyone who's frustrating you, but also to yourself. You're gonna learn the five core skill areas that sit underneath all behavior and how crucial these skills are for all of us. You're gonna learn how to stay regulated yourself and swap out judgment for curiosity when dealing with the difficult behavior.
We're talking about why boundaries still matter. We're not throwing those out, but how to reach them differently and more collaboratively. And you're gonna learn why understanding another person's concerns, another person's perspective helps us arrive at real solutions, solutions that are realistic and mutually beneficial at home, at work, and everywhere in between.
I am so thrilled to welcome Dr. J. Stuart Ablon to the podcast today. This is truly a life -changing conversation. I have thought about it so many times throughout the day since recording it, and he's also brought along a gift for our community. Think:Kids has a self-paced online course for parents and caregivers to learn Collaborative Problem Solving step by step. For listeners of this episode, you can access it free of charge with the coupon code bestofyou. It’s available in English and Spanish. We’ll put the direct link—and the code—in the show notes, along with more ways to connect at thinkkids.org.
I’m so thrilled to bring you my conversation with Dr. Stuart Ablon.
Alison Cook (00:00.264)
you know kind of say let me let me give that another shot or if technology falls out we'll be we'll be just fine okay all right everything is recording that's the hardest part of all of this and just quickly i mentioned to you in the in the email that it sounds like you know dr paula rausch yeah
Dr. Stuart Ablon (00:01.731)
Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (00:05.912)
Sounds good.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (00:20.876)
Yes, yes, we went to the same college. We worked in the same department here at Mass General for a long, long time. So I've known her forever, yes.
Alison Cook (00:31.144)
Yeah. Did you know Lisa Krivikis by chance? Different field. She was a physiatrist, that's how at MGH and that's how we got connected to Dr. Rausch. They were friends and colleagues. so we've had a kind of a, our family has been really personally gained so much from PACT and what she's done there. and yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (00:35.958)
No, I don't think so.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (00:45.432)
Got it.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (00:56.088)
Good, okay, yeah, and she does incredible work there and a unique and a program that's so needed, so yes, yeah.
Alison Cook (01:05.236)
Yeah, yeah, I love what you guys are doing. of you collectively is just amazing. well, I would love to just get started. Dr. Ablon, for my listeners who aren't familiar with your work, and I hope all of them are going to grab a copy of this book that you've written. It's just so helpful. So wise and practical. But tell my listeners a little bit about your work specifically, where you focus and this background that you have working not only with children, but with really unique cases with
kids that are really struggling.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (01:36.558)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so, you know, I've spent my whole career at this point, which, you 30 years or so, really mostly around trying to help people understand kids and adolescents and why some of them have a hard time managing their behavior and what to do about it. And, you know, I've been able to, as you mentioned, work in some really challenging circumstances where, you you've got kids
with severe trauma histories. You've got staff who don't receive much training in trying to support these kids, and it can lead to some really difficult situations. And we've been fortunate to be able to try to help a lot of different organizations and kids and families in some of those toughest of settings. So I'm talking about in residential treatment facilities and hospitals and detention centers and things like that.
But the lessons that we've learned over time can be applied to every parent's interaction with every child. Not necessarily a child who struggles severely, but all kids can have a hard time managing their behavior at some times. And as parents, we all struggle to figure out the best way to parent our kids.
Alison Cook (02:43.061)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (02:54.633)
I think there's something so compelling and I found it in my own work, both as a therapist, but also as someone out in the community and the service work that I do that when you see that there are principles and truths that apply across the board. And this leads me to one of your biggest, I think the things that you emphasize that I think is so crucial and I want you to unpack it for us, but you really emphasize the importance of skills.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (03:10.114)
Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (03:23.619)
Yes.
Alison Cook (03:23.657)
that when anyone, it could be a kid, it could be an adult, it could be a spouse, it could be a parent, anyone in our lives is struggling when we find ourselves bumping up against this like, why? Why does this keep happening? Whether it's someone else, maybe in ourselves, that we tend to default to this idea of willpower. If I only tried harder, I could fix it. If they would only try harder,
Dr. Stuart Ablon (03:45.027)
Yes.
Alison Cook (03:50.997)
they would fix it and you found that to be a really problematic framework. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (03:51.0)
Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (03:54.479)
Yeah, well, it's sure, it's mostly problematic because it's wrong. know, forever the conventional wisdom has been that, particularly with kids, that when kids aren't sort of behaving the ways that we as parents or teachers or other adults want them to, that they're sort of doing that on purpose. And they're doing it to either get things like attention or, you know, get their own way or things like that. And actually,
When you study kids who have a hard time managing their behavior, what you realize is it's not about that at all. That something we've learned now, there's probably 40, almost 50 years of research that has shown that kids, or as you point out, anybody for that matter, who struggles to manage their behavior, they don't really lack the will to behave well. It's not that simple. What they struggle with are the skills necessary to manage their behavior.
And that's a new way of thinking about things, relatively new, but it makes a lot of sense. When you think about your average day, whether you're a kid or an adult, there's a whole bunch of skills you need to be able to employ to behave yourself well. You've got to be flexible. You've got to tolerate frustration. You've got to do good problem solving. And if those aren't skills you're good at, what it leads to is you sort of acting in ways that other people don't want you to act.
Either doing things people don't want you to do or not doing things that people want you to do.
Alison Cook (05:23.069)
It is such a paradigm shift as I've read your work and engaged with it to apply it. Even again, you can apply it with your kids, but even with someone in, you know, a sibling or where it's like, why are they doing that? They must not care about me. You know, we impute a sort of moral cause in a way, almost, and understandably sometimes because the impact is that it hurts.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (05:43.896)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (05:51.629)
Well, so that's, think, a really crucial point, which is, so why do we tend to believe that behavior is under people's control and they just must not be trying hard enough, or if they're doing things that are harmful or hurtful to me, that they're doing it on purpose? I think it's because when somebody's behaving in a challenging fashion towards us,
We're not in the best position to be able to really understand what's going on, because we get frustrated. We lose our ability to think straight. When somebody's being difficult, when they're not doing what we want them to do, when they're disrespecting us, when we don't feel like an authority figure with our child, or worse yet, when we feel scared, when we feel unsafe, we don't respond with the smart part of our brain. Instead, we react more impulsively, and we want to
Alison Cook (06:22.357)
Yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (06:44.558)
trying to regain control. And the way we humans tend to do that is reaching for power.
Alison Cook (06:50.335)
Yes. that's so well stated. It sort of pulls out the worst of us. We default. And again, that's not to excuse the behavior. And it's not to say that there isn't something that needs to be dealt with out here. But it does remind me, again, I mentioned to you right before we jumped on that my background is in the psychology of religion. It reminds me of, frankly, one of Jesus's teachings when it said when
Take out the speck in your own eye first, right? It's an opportunity. I talk about it in IFS language to take a U-turn. What's happening inside of me and my default is to go to blame and judgment, which doesn't help. And that's actually more of a reflection of what's happening inside of me than it is what's happening inside of them.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (07:30.156)
Yes, yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (07:35.087)
Correct. Correct. Well, it's a reflection, I think, of both because there's a fundamental truth, is that dysregulation, sort of losing our ability to think straight, is contagious. And so if you're a parent and your child is beginning to lose it, it's contagious. And we begin to lose it too. And now, the nice thing, though, is on the flip side, regulation, keeping your calm, maintaining control.
Alison Cook (07:49.767)
Yes!
Alison Cook (07:55.817)
Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (08:05.388)
That is also contagious. And it's in fact why many children develop skills to be able to manage their emotions because they've had a lot of experiences with a parent that helps them see what that's like. They co-regulate, if you will, and develop the skills themselves.
Alison Cook (08:22.177)
Okay, so let's break this down because so there's a couple of things going on here for the listener, right? So we have to, especially as parents, but again, in any relationship, someone else's misbehavior or frustrating behavior, it gives us an invitation not to, like you said, grasp for power, grasp for control. It gives us an opportunity to practice being regulated, right?
And so we have to engage this process of our, we have to have our own skills in place to be able to do that because we have to model it. That's how we're going to best model it, especially for our kids, but really in any relationship. So what is that skill that I need? Right? What are those skills? You've mentioned a couple of them, but suddenly it's like, I know I can't just be angry. I know I can't just try to grasp control. I've kind of figured out enough to know that, but what is it that I do need to do? Because what I
Dr. Stuart Ablon (08:55.384)
Yes. Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (09:11.98)
Right. Right.
Alison Cook (09:18.549)
to learn inside myself is what I'm ultimately modeling, especially for my kids. So what is that? What is that regulation? How do we unpack that in ourselves first?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (09:29.442)
Yeah, well, so first off, I would say that what's really helpful to equip parents or anybody with is a guiding mantra, if you will. And the notion of skill not will is helpful. But I think a more powerful version of that is the philosophy that we teach, which is kids do well if they can. Not kids do well if they want to, but kids do well if they can. And same is true of parents, any adult.
Alison Cook (09:50.943)
Mmm.
Alison Cook (09:57.718)
That's good.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (09:58.595)
People do well if they can. If you can try to remember that whoever you're dealing with that might be frustrating you, it's really hard to imagine that that person is setting out to behave poorly on purpose. You know, look, all of us want to do the best we can. I mean, isn't that true fundamentally of all of us that we're trying the best we can to handle whatever the world is throwing at us with the skills we have? And if you can remember that, people do well if they can, it can position you in a more empathic place.
Alison Cook (10:27.871)
Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (10:28.246)
And the reason that's so important is I think empathy is the cornerstone of regulation in interactions between us humans. What I mean by that is when your kid is starting to escalate, as opposed to getting pissed off and frustrated with them, if you can maintain some mindset of curiosity, of non-judgmental interest in what's going on, what are you having a hard time with, and how can I help? And if you can...
Alison Cook (10:34.955)
Mmm.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (10:56.622)
have that kind of a stance, that's the beginning of staying regulated yourself and then helping to regulate your child in this case.
Alison Cook (11:05.471)
that's so helpful. That's so practical. So even just that subtle shift from what's wrong with them to I'm curious what's, which is exactly what we're trying to do in the work of getting curious about parts of ourselves. We don't like, like, again, it translates to instead of beating myself up that I'm acting in a certain way, what we respond to is, that's so interesting. I just had a reaction. I wonder what that was about. We're extending that.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (11:21.229)
Yes.
Alison Cook (11:34.933)
to the people in our lives. I'm curious, I wonder what that's about.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (11:36.121)
Yes. Yeah. And curiosity is part of empathy, right? People, think, misunderstand the concept of empathy, the word empathy. People often think empathy means just sort of show you care or something. But actually, when I talk about empathy, that's not what I mean at all. I mean the actual definition of the word empathy, which means to understand. And if you work really hard to understand where somebody else is coming from,
Alison Cook (11:42.068)
Yes!
Alison Cook (11:59.68)
Hmm
Dr. Stuart Ablon (12:06.05)
their concern, their perspective, their point of view, what's hard for them about a situation, whether you agree with it or not, you don't have to agree with it. Just trying to understand it, that's really calming. It's very regulating. And I often say, I think it's the most powerful human regulator we have is trying to understand somebody else's perspective or point of view.
Alison Cook (12:30.145)
That's so well stated. doesn't necessarily mean even feeling sorry for. It doesn't mean I agree with. It means or disagree with. It means I get it. I get why. And that can be a process that can take a little while. So is this kind of leading into this collaborative problem solving that you talk about?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (12:36.29)
No, or disagree with. Right.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (12:50.85)
Yes, yes. Yeah, you know, I mean, we talk about this notion of, look, people do well if they can, we're all doing the best we can with the skills we have. This is about skill not will. We help people, by the way, get clear on which specific skills somebody might be struggling with, whether that's my child or myself. And there's, you know, there tends to be sort of five core areas. But then we teach people, okay, well, so now if you've got a problem with your child or anyone else,
You know, you got to think about your options, which is how you're to handle that. And what we teach people is generally you have three options. You can try to make your child do what you want them to do. You can sort of do it the way they want it or handle it the way they want it. Or you can try to work it out with them and the work it out with them. call collaborative problem solving. And that's where we teach a very specific process that starts not surprisingly with empathy, understanding your child's perspective or point of view.
Alison Cook (13:45.675)
Got it.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (13:49.987)
before you go anywhere near sharing your perspective or point of view. Not your solution, by the way, to the problem, but your perspective, your point of view, what you're worried about, your concern. And seek first to understand, and by the way, if you understand your child first, they're gonna be much more likely to listen to your point of view. And the reason I always do this with my hands is it's my way of reminding myself and others, this is how you know you're collaborating. You have two sets of concerns on the table. Not just your child's, not just yours.
Alison Cook (13:59.99)
Seek first to understand. Yeah.
Alison Cook (14:09.281)
That's right.
Alison Cook (14:16.129)
Mmm.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (14:19.532)
But both. You've heard them out. You've asked them to hear where you're coming from. Now you can collaborate. Now you can invite them to problem solve.
Alison Cook (14:25.601)
So, okay, I love this. want you to walk us through a tough example of that, but before we get there, could you give me those five skills?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (14:37.078)
Of course. Yeah, yeah. And there are really five areas of skill with a bunch of skills embedded in them. So the first one is language and communication skills. And this is why we say, look, the two-year-olds, we call it the terrible twos. One of the reasons we call it terrible twos is they don't have great language and communication skills yet. They're not able to let people know what's bothering them with subtlety. They're not able to articulate their concerns, their perspective, their point of view to engage in verbal back and forth to solve a problem.
Alison Cook (14:40.107)
Okay.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (15:05.97)
Language and communication skills are crucial and not just for little kids. This is true of us adults as well. So that's one category. Second category, attention and working memory skills. know, sort of making your way through the world and managing your behavior well requires a lot of focusing on things that people need you to focus on at certain times, whether you want to or not.
Alison Cook (15:09.665)
Yep.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (15:30.893)
and then shifting to other things and shifting back and holding a bunch of information in your head at one time, that's a whole set of skills that's crucial. Emotion and self-regulation skills, which is fancy way of saying your ability to manage or control your emotional response to stuff and your ability to control yourself, like your impulse control, for instance. Can you stop and think before you act? That's the third category. Fourth category.
Alison Cook (15:38.635)
whole set of skills.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (15:58.615)
cognitive flexibility skills, fancy way of saying flexible thinking. You know, are you somebody who tends to be a bit more rigid or concrete or literal in your thinking, more black and white, or can you see the grays? Are you somebody who does great as long as everything goes according to the plan, the routine, the schedule, but if you throw a wrench into it, if there's something unpredictable, you know, novel, you have a hard time. know, flexible thinking is so important when it comes to managing our behavior.
Alison Cook (16:25.567)
Yep.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (16:27.662)
And then the last category is social thinking skills. There's so much that goes into adaptive behavior in social interactions. From basics like how do you start a conversation? How do you gauge whether somebody's interested in what you are engaging in? How do you know how your behavior impacts others? How you come across? To empathy, that skill we've talked about before, which is a very complex social thinking skill.
And those are the five categories. And I'll tell you what, show me any kid or any adult who really struggles with their behavior. And I will show you somebody who's struggling at least one, if not five of those areas. And if they're struggling in any of those areas, it's just confirmation that this is about skill, not will.
Alison Cook (16:58.145)
Smile.
Alison Cook (17:18.649)
that. So listening, first of all, if I put my parent hat on, I almost feel overwhelmed because kids don't come into the world. We do not come into the world knowing these things. We have to learn them. And many of us arrive at adulthood with deficits in many of these areas. So number one baseline, I think we can all feel empathy. That's a lot to
Dr. Stuart Ablon (17:34.531)
Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (17:39.426)
Yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (17:43.279)
It is a lot. And the good news is a lot of times kids develop these skills despite the fact that we don't consciously try to practice those skills and help them build them. So that's the good news. But many times you're right. know, kids, they don't acquire those skills and many of us adults struggle. by the way, I don't think any of us gets a clean bill of health on all five of those categories, right? Like we all have our relative strengths and weaknesses.
Alison Cook (18:08.895)
Yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (18:12.75)
on that list.
Alison Cook (18:14.623)
That's well put. Some of them may come more naturally than others, and some of them we have to work at harder than others. Okay, so now take me into this. So we've got that as our baseline. This is what sort of the ideal... When we have some level of skill across all those five categories, we may be able to function fairly well, not perfectly, but we may be able to go through those normal relational where we can problem solve, where we can...
honor somebody else's perspective, where we can speak up for our own perspective, all of those things. But where we see a, let's say with a child, let's say where we see a real behavioral breakdown, a real issue that is causing dysfunction, how do we come along collaboratively? Can you give me an example?
of maybe an actual example from your own practice or on own life where you've detected, here's what we're missing. And it can't be academic in that moment, right? You have to engage starting with that step of curiosity. What would that look like?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (19:18.338)
Yeah, well, so the first thing you want to do if you're going to practice this kind of collaborative problem solving is you need to clarify what problems you want to try solving. And I always tell people, you can't solve a behavior, but you can solve a problem that leads to some kind of a challenging behavior. So as parents, the first thing I do in my practice is I have people list, OK, so what are the types of situations
where the behavior that you're not so wild about comes up. Is it trouble waking up in the morning to get down to breakfast and go to school? Is it spending too much time on the computer in the afternoon? Is it not getting down to their homework? Is it refusing to eat what you've served at dinner? The list goes on and on and on. And what you want to do is you want to get as specific as possible, because that's your list of problems you want to solve.
and you wanna pick one at a time and you wanna try to work on them proactively, which is very important. Don't wait until the problem starts to happen, okay? So if this is a child who isn't getting up and out in the morning in time for school and making the whole family late, the worst time to work on that is in the morning when you're all running late. Pick a time where a kid is calm and accessible, you've had some time to think, and that's when you wanna start doing this collaboration.
Alison Cook (20:45.153)
So I love that that's a reframe of don't try to solve a behavior.
try to identify a problem. Again, that requires our own regulation to not react in the moment to the behavior, but to kind of notice that's a problem.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (21:02.028)
Well, you can, you don't even have to do it in the moment though. You know, you can do it when you, when you, you know, are about to hop into bed at the end of the night exhausted. can say, okay, why am I so exhausted? What were the, what were the challenges? Where were the meltdowns today? Where did we have these conflicts? Let me list a few of them and let me think about what the patterns are here so I can get ahead of this and just start small, start in one place, pick one problem to try to practice collaborative problem solving.
Alison Cook (21:05.078)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (21:18.976)
Yep.
Alison Cook (21:29.385)
Okay, then could you walk me through, so the first step is to kind of notice when you're in your own regulated place, and then you gotta go to your kid.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (21:37.431)
Yeah. And when you go to your kid, you want to be very careful not to bring up the behavior and have them on the defensive immediately. OK. Well, they're going to get defensive if you bring up the behavior. And this smells like a lecture about how they need to change their behavior. But if you bring up the problem you're wanting to solve with them and immediately confirm that you're curious and you're interested and you want to help, it's not magic.
Alison Cook (21:43.515)
Exactly! That's the first thing I thought! They're just gonna get defensive! So what-
Alison Cook (21:51.986)
Exactly!
Dr. Stuart Ablon (22:06.06)
but it's gonna sound a little different to them. And in my experience, they'll wanna hear a little bit more. So what does that look like? In the example I gave, instead of like, hey, I wanna talk to you about morning time, because we cannot be late anymore, because your behavior is making everybody, who wants to participate in that conversation? If I'm the kid, I'm out of there too, right? But what if I started the conversation by saying, hey, you know what? I've noticed that the morning routine's not working so great so far.
And I feel really bad about that. And I'm sure there's a good reason why. What do you think's going on with the morning routine? And notice the sort of little clinical trick that I'm using there, which is I'm making the problem the problem, not the kid or the behavior the problem. The problem's the morning routine, not the kid's participation or lack thereof in the morning routine. And I'm being curious, and I'm asking for their engagement. I'm asking for their perspective.
Alison Cook (23:00.169)
Okay, that is a profound shift, what you just said. And it strikes me that it really means we have to not go with an agenda, because kids will sniff out our agenda. Especially because again, I think a lot of my listeners, and think a lot of people in general, Dr. Ablennon, I've heard you speak about this as well, are kind of caught in that punishment reward, whether we're gonna go, well, we're gonna have a consequence, right? Or we're gonna reward you if you have 10 days of...
getting to school and you're really kind of, you're kind of coming in, no, none of that. It's more of a genuine curiosity, which is what's happening here? I'm curious. Nada, let's fix this.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (23:38.979)
Yeah, and that's your agenda. You are coming in with an agenda, but the agenda isn't to impose your will upon your child. The agenda is to try to figure out what's going on. And if your kid looks at you skeptically, like, what are you trying to do? The great thing about this process is you can be totally transparent. You can say, what I'm trying to do is do a better job of trying to understand what's going on instead of just reacting. And I really want to listen to you and hear from you.
Alison Cook (23:43.894)
Yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (24:05.836)
And I think maybe if we learn some stuff together, we may have some better ideas about how to handle things in a way that'll work for both of us.
Alison Cook (24:12.862)
Yeah, that's, that is that I mean, just listening to you even as an adult, if someone came to me and I really felt like they were trying to collaborate with me, I would respond completely differently.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (24:24.716)
Yes. Yeah, you know, it's funny, do when we do trainings and we do these role plays and people want to role play a kid getting really upset and see sort of how I would handle that situation. If you approach it with curiosity and collaboration, it's really hard, even if you're trying to manufacture being angry to be angry. If somebody is saying, hey, I just want to understand what's going on and I want to see if I can help. Now, sure, are there cases where
You know, a kid has had so many conversations like this that they're suspicious. And so you say all the right words and they say some version of, right. I don't want to talk. You don't care. Something like that, right? That's quite possible that they'll do that. And this is where I give parents, you know, any adult for that matter, a bunch of guidance about what I think are the sort of tools of empathy. And not just because I've studied this for a long time.
Alison Cook (25:19.668)
Yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (25:22.606)
And it's not rocket science. What it is is you ask questions. If need be, you take some educated guesses if you're not getting much from your child. But if they say anything to you, you let them know you heard them by repeating it back in your own words. And if need be, they get upset, shut down, reassure them that this is not some tricky attempt for you just to impose your will. So in other words, if they said to you, don't wanna talk about this, I'm sick of talking to you, you're not gonna help, you don't care. You know what I would say? I would say,
Wow, it sounds like what you're saying is, doesn't feel like a conversation you want to be a part of because you really don't think that I mean what I'm going to say. Am I hearing you right? All I did was reflective listening. And here's reassurance. I would say something like, and you know what? If I felt like that, I wouldn't want to have a conversation either. So I totally get where you're coming from.
Alison Cook (26:12.872)
Yeah, yeah, you just stay in that curious space no matter what comes. Now, what is the role of boundaries with this? Whether it's with kids or with, I can just hear this question, right? Well, what if I do need to actually, I just can hear this question coming, you what if I do need to stop a behavior that is dangerous or if someone is,
Dr. Stuart Ablon (26:24.407)
I'm
Yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (26:36.948)
Absolutely. It's funny though, the reason I laughed was it's funny how we conflate collaboration with a lack of boundaries. Which makes no sense to me. It's like, I mean, when I talk about collaborative problem solving, I'm not talking about anything goes and you're just there to do whatever your child wants and you have no structure, there's no limits. No. In fact, the reason I'm doing collaborative problem solving
Alison Cook (26:48.018)
Okay, talk to me about this.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (27:06.574)
is because I have concerns as a parent. I have a perspective, I have a point of view, I have things that need to be addressed, but imposing my will is not the way I wanna get them addressed. boundaries, limits, every bit is important. mean, the whole reason you're having this conversation we're talking about right now is because you need to get to work on time and the kids need to get to school on time. That's the boundary, that's the limit. How we're gonna go about achieving it? Collaboratively. But the boundary's there, the limit's there.
Alison Cook (27:08.862)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (27:22.057)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (27:35.38)
That's good. That's good. That's good. It's a different strategy. Again, it's a skill. You're teaching us the skill that we're trying to model for them, right? Which is it's different skill versus yelling, badgering, and it's a more effective skill.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (27:49.101)
Yes. Well, look, I mean, in my experience, most families try, you know, the sort of the basics of trying to cajole or impose their will or use a bribe or a consequence to try to get the kid to do what they want them to do. And they only tend to fall back to collaboration when those things don't work. I wish some of our first responses were more collaborative and curious when something's going wrong.
Alison Cook (28:09.876)
Isn't that interesting?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (28:18.958)
Because that's really ultimately another skill we'd like to teach the next generation of adults, which is when you have a problem with somebody, instead of just lining up and seeing who's more powerful and if you can impose your will, what if the fallback, what if the immediate reflex was, let me see if I can understand where you're coming from. And then I want you to try to see where I'm coming from so we can put our heads together.
Alison Cook (28:19.156)
this.
Alison Cook (28:40.754)
It's so interesting when you say it like that, because it is often our last resort, or I throw my hands up in the air. But the word that comes to mind is humility. There's a humility in it. And humility is actually rooted in strength. Grasping for control is actually rooted in our own ego, which is understandable, but humility is actually, I'm confident enough and strong enough that I want to understand you.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (28:51.278)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (28:57.315)
Yes.
Alison Cook (29:09.152)
Tell me, Dr. Ablon, if we can have just a few more minutes of your time. As I'm listening to you, I'm sitting here thinking, this is a skill, what you're teaching us, this collaborative approach that feels very lacking even on a larger stage in our inner culture. Could you speak to it? Because I love how you just said this isn't have anything to do with not having boundaries or not having your own perspective. Could you speak to that?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (29:13.006)
Of course.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (29:26.318)
Yes, sadly, yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (29:36.835)
Yeah. Well, so I think we've gotten worse and worse as humans at listening and trying to understand where somebody else is coming from when we don't agree with their solutions. And what happens is we get into this mode of like dueling solutions. They've got an idea for how they want to go about things. And I think that's the wrong idea. Here's the right idea. And that doesn't lead anywhere good. And it leads to more and more polarization.
And what I try to do, and this has come from my work with some pretty tough kids, is I say to myself, I may not love their solution to the problem. I may not be wild about that. But you know what? I bet there's a good reason behind it. I bet they have very good concerns. And if I could unpack the concerns underneath the solution that I'm not wild about, it might open up some other potential solutions.
Alison Cook (30:16.757)
Yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (30:34.306)
that would still address their concerns, but would be okay with me as well. And that's really the skill that I think is missing right now in this polarized world that we're in, which is being open-minded to, I don't love your idea of how to go about this, but you've got a good reason, and I wanna hear what that reason is all about.
Alison Cook (30:54.56)
That is so, you just nailed it. It is that skill of understanding. I almost want you to say that again. I don't love your solution, but I understand.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (31:05.134)
I don't love your solution, but yeah, but I'm sure you've got a good concern there, right?
Alison Cook (31:10.89)
There's a valid reason underneath it that I can probably at the end of the day understand and even empathize with.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (31:16.738)
And I say that all the time to kids and families I work with, I'm sure there's a good reason. I just want to understand what that reason's all about. And if we can understand, and by the way, the same applies for adults where they may be choosing how to handle things with their kids in a way that I don't love. I don't agree with. But you know what I say to myself? I bet there's a good reason. I'm sure there's a good reason. And if I can understand what the good reason is, and I can express my concerns as well, maybe there's a different way that will.
Alison Cook (31:32.617)
Dr. Stuart Ablon (31:45.279)
address their perspective, their concern that will accomplish what they want without some of the challenges that come with the way they're approaching it right now.
Alison Cook (31:54.047)
Yeah, so that is the, just to summarize, in any relationship, I'm kind of hearing a couple of mantras here, a couple of takeaways that one is, it's any behavior that is frustrating to us is skill, not will, not to impute will, or to me, there's a moral connotation there, right? They're willfully trying to do this thing. Yes, yes.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (32:15.426)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's a judgment about their character almost, right? When, no, you know, every, I've yet to meet the kid or the adult who prefers doing poorly to doing well. We all wanna do well. And so if we're not, it's usually because we're having a hard time applying the skills that would be needed in that moment to handle the situation better.
Alison Cook (32:29.406)
Yes. Yes.
Alison Cook (32:39.776)
So reshifting our brain to saying to ourselves, what skill don't they have? And then I love this, this kind of correlating piece that you're saying is there's always a reason, there's something underneath there, that curiosity, if I can get to the root of why, or understanding their reason, why they're doing this, I may not love the outcome, but at least I'm starting with that empathy. And that's gonna take me so much further in the relationship.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (32:54.414)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (33:05.228)
Yeah, and I...
Yeah, and if I can identify the concerns that are underneath the solution I'm not so wild about, it opens up the opportunity for collaboration as long as I don't identify the child's concern and then impose my own solution, which would be awfully ironic because what I want to do is I want to say, OK, I got beneath the solution that I wasn't wild about to understand why. Let me give you my why now, what I'm worried about, not my solution, but
My why. And now we both have our whys on the table. Let's see if we can come up with a solution that will address both our concerns. In other words, it's mutually satisfactory and obviously realistic and doable too.
Alison Cook (33:49.485)
That is light. That is unbelievable. If we could all do that. That's yeah.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (33:54.689)
And it's not easy. It's not easy. But I will tell you this. We talked about having these conversations proactively. If you go into a proactive conversation being really crisp, really clear on, what am I worried about? Not what's the outcome I want, because I shouldn't have that agenda. But what am I worried about? And I can put that in my back pocket for now while I just concentrate on unearthing, uncovering my child's concern or perspective. Then.
Alison Cook (34:22.528)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (34:23.404)
When the time's right, I'll whip out my perspective. And now we're ready to collaborate.
Alison Cook (34:28.65)
That's amazing. How can people, I know you had mentioned you have a resource for my listeners, but how can people learn more? They're listening and they wanna learn more about this collaborative approach in your work. What's the best way to find you and what you're doing?
Dr. Stuart Ablon (34:43.532)
Yeah, sure. So I am very proud to direct a program, which is here in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, called Think Kids. And at Think Kids, we support parents, teachers, all kinds of folks in trying to learn this approach. And we actually have a self-paced course for parents and caregivers where they can learn in detail.
about this approach and have it applied to their own particular family and kids. And we can provide a link for that. And if people want to use a coupon that we've created for this episode, best of you, they can plug that coupon in to be able to access that training free of charge, whether that's in English or Spanish. And there's all kinds of other resources, including parent classes.
all kinds of things that are right there on our website at thinkkids.org. That's probably the first place I'd suggest people go and people can easily find my personal website and resources too on the
Alison Cook (35:51.403)
That's amazing, thank you. These resources are so needed and I'm so grateful for all your years of research, your work in the trenches, everything you do is informed by both things, right? Your work in the trenches and in the research and I'm just grateful. I'm grateful for your wisdom and we will link to all of that in the show notes and just grateful for your time. Thank you for, know, most of my listeners are not necessarily in Boston and...
can get to this. So the fact that you're making so many of these resources available digitally is just amazing. Thank you.
Dr. Stuart Ablon (36:24.386)
Well, my pleasure. appreciate you having me on and sharing some of these ideas with your audience as well. The more people who can be exposed to some of the basics of this, the better for kids, for the next generation of adults, for us parents right now. So I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for having me.
Alison Cook (36:43.361)
Yeah. Thank you. All right, I'm gonna just.
What if you weren’t meant to trust blindly—but to trust wisely?
Trust is sacred—and when it’s broken, it’s easy to shut down or swing toward over-trusting. In this episode, Alison explores how to cultivate a steady, discerning trust—one that honors both your boundaries and your desire for connection.
In this episode, Dr. Alison explores what it means to build wise trust: the kind that’s discerning but still open to love. You’ll learn practical steps to protect your heart without hardening it, and how to partner with God in cultivating grounded, courageous trust that leads to real connection.
In this episode, we explore:
How broken trust impacts our nervous system and relationships
The difference between naïve trust and wise, grounded trust
How to protect your heart without closing it off
Practical steps to rebuild trust - with yourself, others, and God
Why choosing openness is one of the bravest things you can do
If you’ve been hurt, disappointed, or afraid to let people in again, this episode will give you language, perspective, and hope for what it looks like to trust wisely - and love freely - again.
📥 Grab your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here
📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 22: How to Build Trust With Yourself.
Episode 117: Healing in the Messy Middle
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!.
If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU and get on your way to being your best self.
For 20% off your order, head to Reliefband.com and use code BESTOFYOU
Head to moshlife.com/BESTOFYOU to save 20% off plus free shipping on the Best sellers Trial Pack or the plant-based trial pack
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Music by Andy Luiten
Editing by Crema Video
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript
From the moment we are born, we are wired to rely on others for safety.
Kind of the shared trust. If I drop my kids off at school, right, that they're
gonna be safe and that the teachers are gonna be safe. That kind of trust that is
being eroded every single day we need that shared trust. When trust is broken,
something inside us fractures inside, shrinks. We pull back. Here's the good news and
I want you to hear me say this trust can be nurtured, it can be grown and it's
our job to keep our hearts open.
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October 10th is World Mental Health Day and
this year we're saying thank you to therapists. BetterHelp therapists I've helped over
five million people worldwide take a step forward through brave questions, a safe
space to cry or a small win that changes everything. If something's keeping you up
at night, talking to someone can help. For me, one simple question from a therapist
can help me completely transform how I approach a problem or a situation and that
clarity changes how I show up for myself and the people I love. With better help,
that's H -E -L -P, you can get guidance from a fully licensed therapist online.
They'll do the initial matching for you using a short questionnaire, drawing on 12
years of experience in a strong match rate. And if you don't feel well -suited with
your first match, you can switch anytime. This World Mental Health Day, we're
celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people take a step forward. If
you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that
journey. Our listeners get 100 % off their first month at betterhelp .com /bestofyou.
That's betterhelp -h -e -l -p .com /bestofyou.
Hey everyone and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. Today
we're diving into a topic so many of us are struggling with right now. It's trust.
To be honest, I felt pretty disoriented lately, especially when it comes to our
national and global culture. I don't always know who to believe in the news.
I don't always know who to trust from the pulpit, in politics, especially not on
social media. I do know who my safe trusted people are in my real embodied life.
But if I keep my eyes too long on that larger world outside of my own local
sphere, it can feel really disorienting and overwhelming. And I hear this from a lot
of people that I talk to, we're living in a time where this broader sense of trust
is unraveling and it makes us question, sometimes it makes us question ourselves,
what or who can I really trust? It ripples down from the global environment into
our own souls. And I think that's a little bit of what we're seeing happen with
these polarizations in our larger community, because we don't have that sense of
shared trust of common humanity. And so it forces us sometimes or prompts us,
I should say, sometimes to build up walls in our own souls, maybe inadvertently,
right? We wanna pull in. I don't trust anybody. I don't trust anybody except for
maybe a couple of people and God, or on the other hand,
sometimes we outsource our trust. We feel disoriented, we don't know who to trust,
so we latch on to a tribe, right? Like a group of people or a speaker or one
person, we say, I'll just go all in with this person. It's safer to go in with
this group, right? We sort of outsource our trust to a larger group because it's
just easier. It's just too scary. We don't know where we fit. We don't know who to
trust. We kind of lose our own discernment. And neither of those extremes is
healthy. It's not healthy to sort of pull in and just stop trusting altogether, but
it's also not healthy to sort of put your allegiance in with one person or one
community and one group and trust them blindly and not have discernment that starts
inwardly, that starts in your own soul. I want to start with a working definition
of trust. Trust isn't just a belief. It's a felt knowing. It's in your body.
It's embodied. It's the confidence that someone or something is reliable,
good, and safe enough to lean on, that their words and their actions will align for
the most part. Nobody's perfect, but consistently over time. When you trust someone,
you place something of value in their hands. It might be your ideas,
it might be your work, it might be your vulnerabilities, it might be some family
member, it might be your children, But you believe that they will honor and value
what's precious. Here's what I think most people don't understand about trust.
It's not static. It's not a one -time transaction. It's dynamic. It's relational.
It's always evolving. Trust can be broken. It can also be rebuilt. And it's always
earned over time. So I want to give you a picture. For those of you watching, I
have this heart figuring that a friend gave to me in my hands. It's breakable,
it's fragile, and let's say it represents my soul, right? Everything precious inside
of me. Trust isn't about handing this soul,
this literal heart to someone and walking away and assuming it's a one -and -done
kind of thing, right? "Yep, you've got my heart. It's yours. Take good care of it."
That's not exactly what trust is. Instead, imagine you hold something precious.
You hold your soul. You hold your heart in your hand. You learn to hold it a
little more loosely. Over time, you might start to show more of yourself to someone
else. Over time, you recognize this is someone who will help me hold it,
right? Their hands come underneath yours. There's a shared holding.
Over time, as someone proves steady, you might relax your grip a little bit. You
might even let them hold more of your heart. Right? At the same time,
you're also holding their heart. On a larger scale, more people might come in.
There might be many hands holding your heart, and you're holding many other people's
hearts too, right? It's a shared holding. We don't give trust away.
We share it. We hold it together with other people. On a larger scale,
trust works this way in our communities. Social scientists call this kind of shared
holding the glue of society. Without it, our families fracture and our communities
kind of fall apart. Rachel Botsman, she's a researcher on trust. She calls this a
confident relationship with the unknown. And I think about this every time I call an
Uber, like I'm kind of the shared trust that I'm going to get into this Uber and
I'm going to be safe and my Uber driver is going to be safe. Or if I drop my
kids off at school, right, that they're going to be safe and that the teachers are
going to be safe. Or if I send an email to a colleague that, that that colleague
is going to hold what I've shared with honor and with respect. That's a shared
trust in our communities and it's that kind of trust that is being eroded every
single day. We need that shared trust and it doesn't mean that everybody has to
believe the exact same things we believe but we need that shared trust as the
fabric of our societies. Scripture places trust at the very center of life.
Over and over we hear in the Bible, "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and
lean not on your own understanding." That's that shared trust. Trust in the Lord.
The Lord's hands are so big to hold your heart with you. Trust begins with God,
the one who is always steady when everything else shifts. But Here's the thing,
guys, the Bible doesn't stop there. Trust isn't only vertical. It's also woven
horizontally. Paul writes that love always trusts.
Loving communities hold hearts together. Throughout scripture, God's people learn trust
not only through their prayers vertically, but also through the ways they lean on
one another. Israel in the wilderness, the church and in acts, right? The households
that Paul greets by name in his letters, there's a shared trust between Paul and
those communities. Trust is always personal and communal. In other words,
you can't compartmentalize trust. You can't say, I'll trust God, but I won't trust
other people. It's not how trust works, or I'll trust these people who all believe
the same way I do, but not these other people who I share a community with. It's
not how trust works. Trust has to be shared in our friendships,
in our churches, in our neighborhoods. And where this idea of shared trust is
practiced, right? This is where it's practiced in these places. It gets broken, it
gets wounded, and it can also get prepared. This is why broken trust cuts so deep.
It's not just disappointment, right? It strikes at the core of what we're made for.
We are made to live in this sort of shared trust. Trust is an luxury. It's a core
human need. From the moment we are born, we are wired to rely on others for safety
and nourishment. When trust is broken, a betrayal by a friend, a leader,
misusing power, a loved one letting us down, something inside us fractures inside,
it shrinks, we pull back, we pull that heart in, it's understandable, we might pull
our heart in or our nervous system might kick into hypervigilance, our stomach can
turn into nuts, we might have a hard time sleeping, our hearts start to race, we
want to go into protection mode, right? We grip tighter. We want to control
everything. Sometimes we want to withdraw. We want to just hide our hearts, our
souls out of sight so no one can hurt us. Sometimes we just numb, right?
We inject our hearts with whatever it is that will take away the fear and the pain
and the anxiety of broken trust. I've noticed these tendencies in myself.
sometimes I've wanted to just tuck my heart completely away. If no one can see it,
no one can break it. You know, that's been my motto at different times in my life.
It also happened spiritually. Distress can make us really cynical. It can make us
subtly apathetic toward God. Or we might grip tighter to religious certainty to the
leaven of legalism, Judgment and criticism of others, that's actually coming from
cynicism by the way, or we might withdraw slowly, stop practicing our faith and just
slip away because we just don't trust God anymore. And the problem is that while
distrust might feel safer in the short term, it always is costly in the long term.
It keeps us from God, it keeps us from others. It keeps us from the joy and the
goodness and the beauty that God designed our souls for and that our world so
desperately needs from us. So if trust is feeling hard for you right now,
I want you to hear me say this. You are not failing. It's not weakness,
but it is a signal that I want you to pay attention to. Whether you're tempted to
sort of cling to certainty or Whether you are tempted to just kind of give up all
together, please hear me say there is another way forward.
The older I get, the more I want to live intentionally, from how I spend my time
to how I nourish my body. That's why I love Mosh bars. You might have seen Mosh
on Shark Tank. It was founded by Maria Shriver and her son, Rick Schwarzenegger, to
spark a conversation about brain health through food, education, and research. Mosh
joined forces with leading scientists and functional nutritionists to go beyond the
average protein bar. Each Mosh bar includes brain -supporting ingredients like
ashwagandha, lion's mane, collagen, and omega -3s. Plus, a game -changing ingredient you
won't find anywhere else, cognizant, a premium neutropic that supplies the brain with
a patentant form of citricoline. And the taste is amazing. My personal favorite right
now is the chocolate chip cookie bar, but there are nine flavors including three new
plant -based options, so there's something for everyone. If you'd like to give back
while fueling your body and your brain, Mosh bars are the perfect choice. Head to
moshlife .com /bestofyou to save 20 % plus free shipping on either the bestsellers
trial pack or the new plant -based trial pack. That's m -o -s -h -l -i -f -e dot com
slash best of you with code best of you. Thank you, Mosh, for sponsoring this
episode.
Here's the tension. We can't afford to trust blindly. We don't want to be naive.
That wouldn't be wise. But we also can't afford to live without trust. So what do
we do? Well, for me, when I started noticing this disorientation in my soul,
I started to just ask myself a simple question. Where does trust come easy in my
life? Like, where do I almost not even have to think about it? I just trust, you
know, my husband, my kids. There's just some people in my life that are bedrock.
There's just a sturdy foundation of trust. And then I started noticing, where in my
life does trust come hard? I just find myself getting cynical. I find myself getting
disoriented. I'm like, I don't know what to trust. Oftentimes for me, that's when
I'm online. It's with social media, sometimes the news, sometimes the larger political
landscape. That's just where I can get sort of tempted to get cynical.
And so once I started to notice that, which just helpful to me because it gives me
a simple and quick way to go, "I'm going to move toward the things and the people
I do trust when I notice that cynicism," right? That's when it's time to turn off
the news or turn off social media or not listen to podcasts for a while and just
really focus on my embodied life, my neighborhood, my closest circle of friends,
the work that I do, this work that I to these embodied, tangible places that feel
more real, more grounded, more trustworthy. So often for me, that's my local
neighborhood. That's my local environment where I can be a part of change even when
there has been broken trust, but I can also kind of know in an embodied way where
trust really lives. It also means doubling down on trying to be trustworthy myself,
I want to, what I bring into the world to be trustworthy is best that I can,
I'm not perfect at it, but to try to be true, to try to be authentic, to try to
be someone whose actions align with what I think. And when I focus my attention on
how I can become a more trustworthy person, it helps me kind of counterbalance or
counteract that cynicism, right? because I'm not focusing on trusting out there. I'm
like, how do I become a more trustworthy person? So that's a little bit of what
I've been trying to do, move toward what feels trustworthy and try to become a more
trustworthy person myself. I wanna leave you with three practical steps you can take.
And they're based on the name it, frame it, brave it model from my work in my
book, I Shouldn't feel this way, you might think of it in that context. Maybe
you're telling yourself, "I shouldn't feel so cynical. I shouldn't feel like I can't
trust anyone. I shouldn't feel like I'm struggling to trust God." Right?
Just start there with the naming. With compassion, don't beat yourself up, but just
noticing. I noticed that I'm getting kind of cynical. I'm getting kind of untrusting
of anyone around me. Start there. For some of you,
naming it might mean naming that you're trusting too quickly or too easily.
That maybe for you, you take that heart, whatever object it is that represents your
soul and you give it away too fast and you wind of getting hurt and part of your
naming is I think I'm I'm too quick to outsource my trust and and maybe for me
I'm I'm not really doing my part of co -carrying right co -carrying the weight and
and I need to figure out how to do that right maybe that's how you're naming where
you are on this trust journey. Secondly I want you to move into framing right
Framing, whatever it is that you notice. Framing is the work of discerning with God,
getting curious about what this is about for you. When you're framing a relationship
with trust, you might ask yourself, similar to what I was asking myself, things
like, "Where does trust come easy for me right now? What people do I trust fairly
easy? I know they're going to be there for me. Where does trust feel really hard?
Where are those places where I'm just like, not, not going to trust that person,
right? Just again, notice that and just ask yourself what that's about.
Is there validity to that, right? Maybe there's wisdom in that. And so it's not
that you're being distrustful. It's that you're being wise, right? I'm not trusting
there for a reason. Now, if you notice that, acknowledge that with God, you know,
God, I don't think those are trustworthy places. So I need to filter them out. This
is what boundaries work is about, right? But it's not because you're cynical,
cynicism comes when we kind of keep trusting people and they continue to betray us,
right? But healthy trust comes when we go, I don't actually think that's a
trustworthy person or a trustworthy place. And so I'm going to remove myself from
it. I'm going to protect my heart from that place or that person in a healthy way.
Because then I move toward the people I do trust, right? I'm not going to hide or
withdraw or numb. I'm going to share my heart and my soul with people who have
proven Worthy. That's healthy trust. That's not cynicism,
but that requires a process of discernment, right? Am I withholding and withdrawing
and retreating, but not really moving toward healthy trust? That's the work of
framing is really taking the inventory of the people in places you do trust, move
toward them with intention, right? You're building where you don't feel trust,
where you're not sure, where you've been hurt repeatedly and setting healthy
boundaries in a healthy way, releasing those folks, not giving them access to your
soul or to your heart. Not because you hate them, not because you're angry with
them, but because you've acknowledged through wisdom. That's not a healthy place for
me. You're giving yourself the gift of agency when you do that. You're building
trust with yourself, with God, and you're moving toward healthy co -sharing of trust.
If you struggle with nausea, Relief Band can be a game changer. Relief Band is the
original anti -nausea wristband that quickly relieves and prevents nausea and vomiting
associated with motion sickness, anxiety, migraines, hangovers, morning sickness,
chemotherapy, and more. It's a band you wear on your wrist and you can adjust the
intensity depending on how you feel. It's 100 % drug -free, non -drowsy, works quickly
before or after, symptoms start and has zero side effects. The new Relief Band
Premier Plus model provides advanced nausea relief, includes a digital clock and uses
smart skin -sensing technology to preserve battery life. Relief Band isn't magic, it's
science. It's FDA approved, clinically proven, and recommended by doctors nationwide.
So if you want to cure your nausea problem fast, join the hundreds of thousands of
people who are nausea free with Relief Band. Right now we've got an exclusive offer
just for the best of you listeners. If you go to reliefband .com and use promo code
best of you, you'll receive 20 % off plus free shipping. So head to r -e -l -i -e -f
-b -a -n -d .com and use our promo code best of you for 20 % off plus free shipping.
And then finally we get into the braving step, and this is especially for those of
you who feel like your heart's been shattered. You just feel like, I can't trust
anyone, I'm barely hanging on trusting God, let alone another human, right?
My heart just feels so shattered, I just kind of want to hold it so tight so no
one ever hurts me again, right? For those of you who feel that way and I get it
and there's no shame in it, the braving step is all about what I call microsteps.
Not big, bold gestures. Don't give that heart away, but microsteps of trust.
And those very simply might just look like letting someone carry a very small task
for you, you know? It's almost like testing, not to put someone on trial,
but just to test, just, you know, I'm just gonna see if that person, if I ask
them to do something, or if I invite them to something and it's tiny, there's a
little bit of risk, not very much. See what happens, you know, they seem
trustworthy, I don't know, I'm scared to trust anybody, but I'm gonna take a micro
step toward trust or maybe you share one semi -vulnerable truth about yourself you
just take a small risk you know I'm gonna I'm gonna share with this friend a real
thought that I have you know it's I haven't been really vulnerable for a long time
you might even label it for that person listen this is hard for me but I I want
to tell you something I've been thinking about and here's what it is and and then
you notice How do they respond? Do they hold your heart well or not?
And if they don't, you don't have to share that trust with them again, right? You
can pull back and then you can take a micro step in a different direction. Maybe
trust for you is giving yourself permission to try something new like I'm doing with
this video, you know, where I'm like, okay, I'm going to put myself out there. This
is hard, you know, maybe it'll be a big flop, right? I'll be okay, right?
But I'm going to put myself out there and take a step and see what happens. See
who ends up holding this space with me, right? Giving yourself permission to take a
risk, right? And don't go so far with something that's going to shatter you again,
but a small calculated risk that you go, you know, even if this doesn't go well,
I'm going to be okay, right? But I'm going to try something because I do want to
grow. I want to grow more hands around this heart of mine, whether it's my work,
whether it's my heart, whether it's my beliefs. I want to see if there are more
people who can hold it. That's what we do when we take brave steps. Trust is not
all or nothing. It's not. It starts with these small openings, these micro steps,
these tiny steps of a little bit of vulnerability that over time build strength.
You start to see who's trustworthy with your heart and with your soul and with your
mind. I want to just close here with the word about digital trust because so much
of our world is digital and we do have to figure out who to trust out in the
digital space. Here's the thing that's true. Our brains and our nervous systems are
wired for cues, right? Trust grows in repeated interactions and shared environments.
And that's really hard to replicate online. It's really hard to replicate digitally
where there's no real feedback loop, right? That intimacy can feel real,
but it's one -sided, typically. We don't know how that person would respond to us in
real life. And so it can be tricky to discern trustworthiness online. There's a
couple of things you can look for. I think it's, it's not impossible, right? There
are things we can look for to, to develop a sense of who we trust and who we
don't. What are the ones that I think about is who's this person accountable to,
right? Who do they, what systems and, and what checks and balances do they place on
themselves, right? Do they admit when they're wrong? Are they consistent over time.
Do they honor shared wisdom? Do they turn to scripture? Do they look to science?
Do they look to other experts, to community, or do they set themselves up as the
only authority?
How do they treat the most vulnerable? The widow, the orphan, the poor? How do they
speak about people who are vulnerable? You know, even if they have differing opinions
about how our governments should treat folks, should treat folks, what's their posture
toward those who are hurting the most? I think that's an important measure of
trustworthiness. But just to be discerning, be discerning. People it's so important
for us to be discerning about who we expose even in the digital world that hurts
our minds and our souls too. We are living in tough times when it comes to trust,
we just are. But I will say this, the fact that we feel that actually is a good
sign. It means that it matters. It means that our souls are intact, right? The fact
that our souls feel fractured, the fact that our souls are longing for something
more beautiful, more good, co -sharing, right? The fact that our souls want places of
work, schools, universities, institutions where we can trust that for the most part
we'll get each other's backs as human beings. The fact that we long for that and
the fact that we're feeling a little disoriented and shattered right now is a real
good sign of health to be honest. So take heart in that sense if you're feeling
some of that cynicism or some of that fragility don't let it become cynicism but it
is a sign of a soul that's intact. We were designed to live in community with
other people who care for us and for whom we care. That's part of God's design for
our souls. Here's the good news. And I want you to hear me say this. Trust can be
nurtured. It can be grown. And it's our job to keep our hearts open, not blindly,
not naively, but open to trust. And here's what I want you to consider this week.
I love this for you and I'm excited. I'm going to do it with you. I want you to
find an object of your own that represents your own heart, just like this one I'm
holding here. It can be anything. And I want you to reflect on it this week
prayerfully and ask yourself, who is holding your heart represented by this object?
Who's holding it with you right now? What people or communities have shown themselves
steady and trustworthy in in your life. Just notice that with gratitude and give
thanks for those people.
And also notice, where do you notice distrust rising up, where you're tempted to
tuck your heart away, to hold it back to withdraw and maybe even grow cynical. And
I want you to also notice that and name that and talk to God about that. And then
I want you to ask yourself What's one small step you can take this week toward
building trust? Maybe it's leaning into a relationship that has proven to be safe.
Maybe it's creating distance or setting a boundary where there hasn't been safety,
right? To prove to yourself and to God that you are trustworthy with your own
heart. Maybe it's taking a break from social media, maybe it's taking a break from
the news to protect your heart and then moving towards someone in your real life to
have those conversations with instead of doing it online. My hope is that this
space, whether you're listening or watching, can be one where your heart feels held
and that together we can keep growing in trust in God, in each other,
and in the deepest parts of ourselves. 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 drallisoncook .com. That's
allisonwithonelcook .com. 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'd 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.
What do you do when someone’s behavior leaves you feeling small, confused, or constantly on edge?
That uneasy feeling isn’t random, it’s often a signal that something toxic is at play.
The Bible urges us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves - to stay discerning, not naïve, in our relationships. Yet many of us brush off harmful patterns because we want to keep the peace, avoid conflict, or because our empathy and loyalty run deep. The problem? Those very strengths can make us more vulnerable to toxic strategies.
Dr. Alison names four of the most common toxic behaviors - manipulation, gaslighting, constant criticism, and triangulation - and shows you how to recognize them before they take root. She unpacks how to tell the difference between a one-time mistake and a repeated pattern of harm, and she offers practical tools to protect yourself without losing your compassion.
In this episode, we explore:
- The difference between mistakes and toxic patterns
- 4 common toxic behaviors and what they look like in real life
- The core root beneath toxic strategies
- How to deal with false guilt and set yourself free
If you’ve ever struggled with guilt, second-guessed your instincts, or felt trapped in a cycle of blame, this conversation will give you language, clarity, and hope for moving forward with wisdom and strength.
📥 Grab your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here
📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 2: What Should I Know About Gaslighting?
Episode 110: How to Be Wise When People Are Difficult—Biblical Strategies For Keeping Your Emotional Health & Mental Sanity
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!.
If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
Check out cozyearth.com and use code BESTOFYOU to get 45% off. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, and embrace your cozy days with Cozy Earth.
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Music by Andy Luiten
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript
Hey everyone and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. - I'm so glad you're here with me this week. I'm so grateful for so many new listeners who are finding the podcast. It's just so great to see so many of you joining me each week as we come together in this work of soul mending of becoming the healthiest version of ourselves emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And recently I was presenting at a conference. It was a spiritual formation conference, just a beautiful gathering of people. I met many of you there, which always just brings so much delight to my soul. Sometimes this work of podcasting where I'm kind of talking to you and I, I sense your presence with me but I don't get to meet you and see your faces and give you a hug and it was just amazing to get to meet so many of you and so many of you came up to me and told me how much this work means to you and I just want to thank you for that. It really means a lot to me to get those opportunities to connect with you in real spaces and one of the workshops that I gave was on my book I Shouldn't Feel This way.
It's all about the process of building emotional intelligence, of learning to name what's hard, naming emotions, naming what's wrong, naming what's going on inside of our souls, framing it, figuring out how to take what we've named and frame it so that we can brave it. We can actually take action in our lives. There's three parts to that process of becoming an emotionally intelligent person, right? It's that awareness piece, that naming piece, and then it's that regulating piece, figuring out how to frame what's happening before we dive into the connection piece, right? Connecting what's happening in my soul to someone else with whom might need to have a conversation, with whom I might need to set a boundary, with whom I might need to take a brave action. And as we were working through all of that, it's a lot of material in the workshop, I thought about one really important component of naming.
And I go through this in a very specific chapter toward the end of the book, I shouldn't feel this way, but it's naming toxic strategies and I always hate that I have to bring this topic up in my work but it's so important because unfortunately in this world we are gonna bump up against people who are gonna use strategies to try to hook us or to try to pull us or lure us into behaviors or conversations or even relationships that won't at the end of the day be healthy for us. And if we're not aware of those strategies, we can get hooked in ways that aren't good for us.
The Bible talks about not being fools. It talks about being wise, being clearheaded, being aware of what's happening around us. Don't be a fool is a repeated refrain in the book of proverbs and it's up to us to equip ourselves and to know how to recognize toxic strategies that others are using around us that are going to take us down paths we don't need to go down. In fact, this happened to me just recently. I was with someone and something in my body whispered, "Be careful here. Be careful." I wasn't sure why in the moment they seemed perfectly nice on the surface, but something just didn't feel right. And so I paid attention to that signal. I stayed friendly and polite, but I subtly shifted my energy so that I wasn't giving this person access to precious jewels, right? Vulnerable information, personal information that is mined to steward with care.
And in that moment, it looked like not volunteering personal information, redirecting overly personal questions and keeping the conversation on neutral topics instead of giving away pieces of my private experience. And I kind of just shifted into that, but it's because I've done this work for a long time. And later as I had time to unpack it, I realized how far I'd come. I've learned to detect these subtle signs of manipulation or control or someone with false motives. And I've learned to protect myself much more effectively and seamlessly now and it saves me a lot of pain down the road. And I know that so many of you listening know exactly what I'm talking about, especially if you're an empathetic person, if you're highly responsible, if you're really sensitive to the nuances of others, it's so easy to get sucked into other people's toxic strategies to hook you. And these strengths can actually make you more susceptible to those behaviors.
And one of the things I'm passionate about on this podcast is helping you detect and name those strategies, not so that You can blame other people or suddenly become cynical or skeptical, but so that you can stay wise and when you stay wise, you actually become more effective, more truly helpful, more truly loving of other people. Our love of other people is rooted first and foremost in our wisdom, in our discernment in our ability to see through the strategies ultimately of the enemy of our souls that other people get caught up in, right? And so when we can be wise, we can actually become more effective in helping other people get freed from their toxic strategies too. And that's why I wanted to re -air today's episode.
This episode struck a chord with so many of you last year and I wanted to bring it back with fresh years and a few new reflections because in it I pull out four of those most common toxic behaviors that trip us up and I walk you through how to recognize them and how to protect yourself. Before we get started, I want to ask for your help. We love your input on an upcoming episode. We're preparing on the topic of comparison. When does comparison most trip you up? Is it on social media? Is it within your family? Is it at work watching a co -worker get promoted? Is it related to health or body changes? Is it seeing someone else's spiritual life, parenting milestones, finances, or even within your marriage? Where do you feel that inner pinch most of I'm behind, I'm not enough, or why not me? And what helps you move back toward steadiness and joy?
We'd love for you to give us a call. You can call us at 307 -429 -2525 and leave a voicemail that we'd love to feature on a future episode. And just let us know, what do you notice about comparison in your life? Where does it show up? What questions do you have about it? And do you have a brief story even about how comparison strains your peace and how you worked through it in a healthy way? Again, that's 307 -429 -2525. We love to hear from you about comparison or really any other questions that you have for us here at the Best of You podcast.
Okay, let's dive in to today's episode. As you listen, notice what lands in your body. Maybe jot down maybe one behavior you want to get curious about, one boundary yo might want to experiment with, or one conversation you're ready to approach differently. Remember, you don't have to convince anyone to change in order to choose health for Self, small, steady steps add up over time.
I'm so grateful that you're here. Let's jump in.
So today I want to dive into four toxic behaviors I think everyone should know about and how to protect yourself. So first of all, what are toxic behaviors? What do I mean by that? The word toxic simply means dangerous, destructive, or harmful. It's any sort of behavior that is designed to hurt you.
Some behaviors are annoying. We don't like them, but they're not actually harmful. When we're talking about toxic behaviors, we're talking about behaviors that are damaging. They're doing harm on some level. The key point to remember about toxic behaviors is they're a consistent pattern of behaviors over time.
Any one of us can be toxic in a moment. Any one of us can lie, can guilt trip, can maybe even manipulate, can lash out angrily, can triangulate. Any of these things we're going to talk about today, every single one of us has probably done at some point in our lives.
If we're honest with ourselves, we struggle with certain toxic behaviors more than others. We can all be toxic in a moment, but here's the difference between a mistake and a pattern of toxic behaviors over time.
Number one, frequency. Making a mistake is part of being human. It's often an isolated incident. It occurs infrequently. A pattern of toxic behaviors occurs repeatedly over time. These harmful behaviors continue to recur despite the consequences of those actions. There's a clear pattern of these behaviors over time; it's not a one-off mistake.
Number two, intent. Mistakes that we make are usually unintentional. They might result from a lack of knowledge. They might result from a lack of understanding in the moment. They might result from our own stress. We get overwhelmed, maybe we melt down, we do something we wish we didn't do, we get stuck in a moment and we grasp for a strategy to get ourselves out of the moment.
We do something that later on we go, oh, I could have handled that situation better. That's a mistake. A pattern of toxic behaviors tends to be more intentional, and even if a toxic behavior was not initially intended to harm, if someone refuses to modify that behavior after its effects are made known, that might reflect a harmful intent.
This gets a little bit into the buzzword narcissism–you can go back to episode one to learn more. When someone is narcissistic, they are not capable of caring how their behaviors Impact you. Maybe they're completely sold over to self-preservation, but it's still harmful intent because that person is not willing to change or to grow or to heal.
That leads us right into the third differentiating factor between someone who makes a mistake and a toxic pattern of behaviors over time, and that's willingness to change after making a mistake. Someone who feels remorse takes responsibility and shows a genuine willingness to learn from the experience so that they can avoid repeating it.
That's what you do when you make a mistake. Now, listen, we're not perfect. A really bad habit that someone has developed over years can take a long time to change. We're not asking for perfection, but we are asking for ownership and responsibility. And we are asking for steps toward improvement with toxic behaviors. There's typically a lack of genuine remorse or taking responsibility. Instead of that, there's denial, there's justification, there's rationalization.
“If you wouldn't do this, I wouldn't have to resort to this toxic behavior”. There's blame shifting. I'm going to blame you for my toxic behaviors. Or there might be repeated empty promises to change without any real action. And we see this: “Oh, I'm so sorry. It'll never happen again”. And then it's Groundhog Day. And that person keeps doing it. They're not actually taking responsibility for those toxic actions.
Now listen, toxic patterns of behaviors lie on a spectrum. Some folks demonstrate mostly toxic behaviors–there's very little good. And in those cases, you have to ask yourself, why am I continuing to be in a relationship with this person when the impact of their presence on my life is mostly harmful?
That's one end of the spectrum. There are also a lot of people that are more in the middle of that spectrum. And what that means is maybe they have a toxic habit that is repeated that they don't change, that they're not showing signs toward growth, but there's also some good.
And those are some of the most challenging relationships. You might want to continue on in a relationship with that person because there's some good there. There are good reasons, there are positive benefits to the relationship.
And in those instances, you have to figure out how to quarantine and protect yourself from the toxic behavior while still enjoying the person's good qualities. So if you want more on that, on the nuances of those boundaries, check out my book, The Best of You. It's a lot about the nuances of healthy boundary setting in relationships.
When you think about that spectrum, for example, maybe there's a person in your life, a friend or a parent or a family member who tends to manipulate you to get their emotional needs met. They don't want to hurt you. And there are good things there. Maybe they're really loyal. Maybe they do show up for you when you need them. Maybe they help out with your kids but the pattern of manipulation in this one area really does hurt you.
That's an example of where there's some good. But there's also some harm and you need to be able to name that harmful behavior in order to protect yourself from it so that you can enjoy this person's good qualities. There are two important byproducts of learning to name toxic behaviors. Number one, you will learn how to protect yourself. Okay. This person tends to do this. I'm not in this to go call them out on their stuff.
I want to become a healthier version of myself. So the more I can see that behavior and name it, I can begin to extract myself from that toxicity, I'm extracting myself from a toxic dynamic so that I can stay healthy so that I can grow so that I can keep moving forward on the path God wants me to be on.
And now that I know what this is and that it's in fact toxic, I can start to untangle from it and keep moving forward toward growth. That's number one, but number two, as you disentangle from toxic behaviors, you will begin to have healthier boundaries. And guess what that does–that empowers the other person to make their own choice.
You'll find out really quickly if that other person begins to change with you and grow as well. That's amazing. You've been part of a healing process. You've unleashed more healing through healing yourself and extracting yourself from toxicity. That other person is now going to get freer too.
On the other hand, that other person may recognize that you're setting different boundaries. They may recognize that you're shifting the dynamics in a relationship and they might not like it and they might get more toxic. They might continue with their toxic behaviors. They might even ratchet up the intensity of the toxicity. That's also their choice. That's their choice.
And as they do that, you will need to continue to protect yourself and move toward health. So this process of learning to name and identify toxic behaviors is about getting healthier yourself, removing the toxins as best you can from your relationships.
It's also about empowering other people to make healthy choices. Not because you're trying to get them to change, but because by getting healthier and extracting yourself, it will automatically unleash a ripple effect of healing. That other person will have their own choice to make. You're not in control of the choice they make, but you are at least giving them that opportunity.
Here are the four toxic behaviors I want to talk about today. Number one is manipulation. Number two is gaslighting. It's a buzzword, but it's an important one to understand in our culture today. Number three is constant criticism. And number four is triangulation.
Now this is not an exhaustive list. There are a lot of toxic behaviors. But these are four that I see frequently in the people that I work with in my own life and the people that I serve. All of these behaviors have one thing in common. These are all forms of manipulation and control. We manipulate other people to avoid doing our own work. We try to control others instead of taking control of ourselves.
That's the root of all toxic behaviors. I don't like what's happening inside of me. I don't like what I feel. I don't like how I feel about myself. I don't like how I feel in this situation. Instead of taking ownership of myself with God's help, I try to manipulate you. I try to control you. I try to get other people to do the work that is mine. To do that is the root of toxic behaviors.
When you begin to recognize these toxic behaviors, you stop letting other people manipulate and control you. It was never your job to do this work for them. It's their job to do their own work. When you recognize these strategies and stop being hooked by them, you free yourself to be a healthier person and you remove that avenue that this other person has been using inappropriately, which gives them that choice.
They get to choose then what they're going to do with that. And their choice is not your responsibility.
So let's talk about manipulation. Manipulation is a form of control. It's a more insidious, often indirect form of control. When we say someone's controlling in an overt way, these tend to be domineering people that get really aggressive and create power moves telling you what to do, what to think, or what to feel, and that's a form of toxicity.
Manipulation is a more indirect or covert form of control. Now, this is really important, so listen closely. Someone who's manipulative is trying to influence or control your actions, your emotions, your decisions to serve their interests, and their interests are selfish. They're not trying to help you. The effort to manipulate is at the expense of your wellbeing. And it's certainly without your consent.
Often this is done really subtly where you might not even realize you're being manipulated, and it is not for your good. It is for the person who's manipulating to feel powerful, to feel better about themselves. Again, as I said before, they're not doing their own work. They're trying to manipulate you to behave or think or feel or act in a certain way that makes them feel better about themselves.
Here are some examples: someone who guilt-trips you tries to get you to feel bad, even when you haven't done anything wrong. Someone who's guilt-tripping you doesn't respect your personal boundaries. Maybe you tell your friend, I can't make it this week and I'm so sorry. I wish I could be there. I can't. I've got these five things going on in my own family.
And instead of honoring that, and saying, oh, I'm disappointed. I wish you could make it, but I completely understand. That's a healthy response. I'm disappointed. I'm taking responsibility for my own emotions. And I also completely understand and I honor that decision that you made. That decision makes sense to me. I get it.
Someone who guilt trips or manipulates you might say something like, I've done everything for you. I dropped everything to be there for you. And you can't do this one thing for me. They're manipulating you, they're making you feel bad. You've actually made a wise decision, but they're trying to make you feel bad because they can't tolerate the disappointment or for whatever reason, they can't tolerate the fact that you've said a healthy no.
Now, remember, we can all do this in a moment. This becomes toxic when it becomes a regular pattern over time. When someone is constantly disrespecting your boundaries and guilting you to make you feel bad for healthy decisions you are in fact making.
Another example of manipulation can be passive aggressive digs. I guess you're just too busy for me. That's a manipulative statement. You're trying to get the other person to feel bad. In contrast, taking responsibility for your own emotions would be to say, oh man, I'm bummed. I'd love to see you more. I love having you around, but I understand.
You're honoring that the other person has made choices. Now listen, this is nuanced because we are allowed to set healthy boundaries for ourselves in response to someone else's boundaries. If you're in a relationship with someone who you feel like is too busy for you, they're never available, they never call you back, they're never showing up for things, and that hurts you?
You get to protect yourself. It's not okay to try to manipulate the other person to get them to show up for you. That's not okay. But what you can do in that situation is move on to another friendship, or you can even communicate that and say, man, I would love to have more time with you. I think you're amazing. I wish we had more time together.
I see that you've got a lot on your plate and I really want to honor that. I've got to step back and I need to invest more in these other relationships.
That would be a healthy response to someone who you've realized, oh, they're too busy for me. They don't have time for me. You would be proactive to shift away from investing in that person, not to punish them, not to threaten them, but simply to align your decisions with the reality.
This person doesn't have time for you. That would be a healthy response, but to try to continually manipulate that other person to do something they clearly aren't doing or don't want to do, or haven't decided to do, or can't make time to do, is toxic. It's toxic.
You can't manipulate or control somebody into being in a relationship with you. It's not fair to yourself or to the other person. Again, we'd sometimes do these things because we don't know better. We're like, oh man, I'm hurt by this other person. I don't know what to do. We resort to some of these toxic behaviors. All of us do at times. But when you become aware, you are then responsible to change.
If someone is guilt-tripping you, they're trying to manipulate or control you to get more of your time, to get more of your money, to get more of your volunteer work, to get more of your caretaking in whatever way. You need to recognize when someone is manipulating you versus when there's a legitimate need.
And if someone is manipulating you, it can be really hard because you feel bad. They're masters at making you feel guilty. You have to recognize, I think I'm being manipulated here. This person never respects my boundaries. They always want more than I can give. They're always trying to get me to do things I'm not comfortable doing.
There's a consistent pattern of that. And I hate how I feel. That's a red flag. When you're repeatedly operating out of guilt, I call it guilt-driven love. That's a red flag. And your job is not to get the other person to change. Your job is to recognize that and figure out before God, what is my actual responsibility to this person?
What is the actual need if there is any? And what is my actual responsibility to this person, if there is any? Often your actual responsibility to this person is very different from what they're trying to manipulate out of you. Your job is to recognize, I'm being manipulated here. I've got to stop responding to every single one of these digs, every single one of these manipulative statements aimed at making me feel guilty.
I've got to pause and inside myself, name it. Ooh, I think I'm being guilt-tripped here. Use that comma God–I think I'm being guilt tripped here, God. The first thing I've gotta do is try not to respond to that guilt trip, separate out from it, get really logical about it. What is the actual need? What am I actually responsible for?
Find some safe people to bounce that off of, ask a couple of safe people. Hey, do you think this is actually my responsibility? Does this seem like a fair ask to you? Gain some objectivity, and then set those healthy boundaries going forward.
Next is gaslighting. Gaslighting is a really toxic form of manipulation. It ratchets up the toxicity. It's a form of psychological abuse. It's when someone uses lies and deception to manipulate you into questioning yourself or feeling crazy.
They're messing with you. They're trying to manipulate you into doubting yourself, doubting your memory, or doubting your perceptions of reality, your own instincts, doubting what you believe to be true. And they're doing this to try to get you to stay dependent on them, to exert power over you so that you won't leave them, so that you won't maybe out them.
Maybe they're doing something wrong and they're trying to keep you feeling crazy so that you won't unleash the power of truth. They're terrified of that. They don't want their own stuff to come to the surface. So they try to manipulate you so that you won't actually get to the truth of what's happening. Here's an example, a classic example of gaslighting.
Maybe your spouse has started drinking again and you confront him on it. You say, hey, it seems like you might be drinking again. I've noticed you seem more bleary eyed, you're staying out late. I'm curious what's going on. First of all, they deny it. They lie. “No, I'm not”. Then they accuse you. “You're crazy. You're paranoid. How dare you accuse me?”
So there's two components. They're lying to cover up their own tracks and then they're turning it on you to make you feel bad.
Maybe you have a parent or a family member, a friend who's talking behind your back or slandering you or doing some really harmful things behind your back and you confront them on it. You go to them and say, hey, what's going on? Are you doing this? Are you talking about me? Did you spread this gossip about me?
And they deny it. “No, I would never do that. How dare you accuse me? You are ungrateful”. Do you see what's happening there? They're making you feel crazy. You feel like a bad person because you confronted them. It's so toxic because you feel bad. And in fact, you were right about it. You question yourself. You doubt yourself. It leads to so much chaos and confusion in your own soul.
Number three, constant criticism. We all need to be able to receive constructive feedback. That's a part of growth. That's a part of becoming a truer version of ourselves. My husband and I use the metaphor of lettuce in the teeth. We need people who have our backs and say, hey, I hate to tell you this, but you got lettuce in your teeth.
And that could be like, I hate to tell you this, but the way you talk to that person, ooh, that wasn't good. You might need to go back and apologize. We need people in our lives who help us see our blind spots, who point out when we're showing up with lettuce in our teeth, even though we don't like to hear it.
That kind of constructive feedback that's rooted in trust, that's rooted in safety, that's rooted in relationships where there's mutual consent, you've agreed with a friend or with a loved one or with a family member–hey, would you let me know if I'm out of bounds? I need your set of eyeballs on this. Because I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure this out.
I need you to let me know if I'm out of bounds here, if the way I'm talking to our kids, or if the way I'm showing up at this small group, or if the way I'm showing up with these other friends of ours, if there's anything I'm doing that you think is out of line. We need those types of people in our life. Constant criticism is completely different.
It can actually be a form of verbal abuse. It's when someone is continually, consistently over time, undermining you, pointing out perceived flaws, criticizing your actions, your appearance, your abilities. It's toxic. When you're the target of constant criticism, it's as if you're receiving a million tiny paper cuts to your soul constantly. It can show up with shaming comments. It can show up with sarcasm. It can show up with insults. It can show up with broad sweeping statements of judgment.
For example, you're always so disorganized. Can't you do anything right? Are you really going to wear that? Do you really want your hair to look that way?
It can also come out as sarcasm. Not everybody can be as perfect as you are. That's a dig. These comments leave you feeling wounded. Now again, we need constructive feedback. Sometimes a partner or parent or a loved one or you as a parent might need to say, oh, I don't know if that's the shirt you want to wear.
There's a way to give constructive feedback. It's hard. You have to think about how to give the people that you love constructive feedback in their lives. Criticism, sarcasm, passive aggressive comments, constantly pointing out someone else's flaws is toxic.
And here's the thing. Someone who's constantly criticizing is not doing it for your good. They're not actually doing it to help you. That's that intent piece. They're not trying to help you improve or grow or change. They're trying to make themselves feel better than you. It's born out of deep seated insecurity and a fragility of self. It's not about trying to help you improve. It's about trying to make themselves feel better.
And it's really toxic. You are not created to thrive in a toxic environment that is cruel, shaming, or harsh. Even if a part of you knows rationally, I know this is about them, I know this isn't about me, I know they're insecure, it doesn't matter. It still wounds you. It still wounds you. None of us is created to thrive in those settings.
God designed our souls, hearts, and minds for warmth, for care, for connection, for compassion. I think of the scripture where it says God's kindness is what leads us to repentance. So even when God points out that lettuce in our teeth, even when God comes to us and says, oh, Alison, I don't think you should have done that.
I think you were deceptive there because you were scared to be brave. I think you were a little bit hard on that person, a little judgmental of that person. Do you hear the tone in my voice when God shows me those things? God isn't shaming me.
It hurts. I don't like it when God points out when I made a mistake. I don't like it when the people I love point out, oh, Alison, I don't think you showed up exactly as your best self in that situation. It hurts, but it doesn't shame me. That kindness leads to me going, oh man, you're right. I could have done better. I need to make it right.
The truth sets us free. It liberates us. It helps us become a better person. It doesn't shame us. It doesn't crush us. Constant criticism makes us feel desolate and helpless and like we'll never be good enough. It doesn't help us. It harms us. It's really toxic.
Lastly, I want to talk about triangulation. I think it's one of the toxic patterns of behavior that is talked about the least and very quietly does a lot of damage, especially in families and in close friend groups. Triangulation is when one person pulls you into the middle of their conflict with a third person.
Instead of working through their problem directly with the person involved, they might do any of the following: they might vent to you about the other person, but never address their own frustrations with the other person. They might ask you directly to fix their problem with the other person when it's not your place to enter in.
So for example, maybe your mom comes to you and vents to you about how your dad has been treating her. And the implication is you should go talk to your dad and get him to apologize to me. You should go talk to your dad and get him to give me more money. You should go talk to your dad and get him to change his behaviors.
It is toxic, especially when parents do it to a child, but even in a friend group. Maybe a friend comes to you and says, man, I don't like how our other friend treats me, I think you should talk to her and get her to see the error of her ways. It's really toxic. It's a form of manipulation. That person's trying to get you to do her work for her.
Sometimes they do it indirectly. They tell you all the stuff that bothers them about this other person. And you're left holding the baggage. You're left holding a suitcase full of burdens that aren't your burdens. Maybe you don't have a problem with the other person, but now you've got the suitcase.
You've got the baggage and you don't know what to do with it. It leaves you feeling really anxious. It leaves you feeling really guilty because you feel bad that you're not fixing this problem for the other person, but you also feel bad because you don't want to go to this other person that you don't have a problem with and give them the suitcase of baggage.
You're left by yourself with a suitcase full of baggage that was never yours to carry. You absorb all the weight of the conflict without any clear path to resolve it. And when this occurs consistently over time, maybe within a family, maybe within a close friend group, you're also not getting the attention you need.
You're being viewed as a mediator or as a dumping ground for other people's problems instead of as your own distinct person who is worthy of a two-way reciprocal relationship. And I see this all the time with folks who are highly empathetic, who are caretakers, who are helpers, who are trying to help other people.
They get put into the middle of other people's problems. Now there are healthy ways to seek third party counsel. Sometimes we need to bounce off of another friend a problem that we're having. We need advice. We need wisdom in healthy ways.
I actually tend to think of the story of Mary and Martha in the Bible as an example of triangulation. The story is found in Luke 10:38-42, and in the passage, Martha's busy with extensive preparation. She's trying to get everything on the table. She's trying to make sure the event gets pulled off while her sister, Mary is sitting quietly at Jesus' feet, listening to him.
A lot of us can identify with Martha. That's annoying. Listen, I'm doing all the work. Come on, help me out. There are a lot of ways to interpret this passage, but one of the ways that I like to think about it is in terms of triangulation.
We don't know what Martha's intent was. We don't know if she did this regularly. We don't know her backstory. This might've been a one-off, but instead of going to Mary with her gripe, she goes to Jesus and complains about Mary. Don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her she should be helping me.
She goes to Jesus with her gripe about Mary. And if you notice, Jesus sets a boundary. He says, listen, Mary's made a choice and I'm good with her choice. You've made a different choice. What's to say that your choice is better?
Jesus does not indulge her attempt to pull him into the middle. He doesn't say, oh, you're right. Mary, you really should help Martha here. He sets that healthy boundary in that situation. We see Jesus setting healthy boundaries with toxic behaviors. All throughout the New Testament, he was a master at setting boundaries with toxicity. What do we have to learn from Jesus? It's about protecting ourselves from these toxic behaviors.
Number one is start with yourself. Start noticing any of these patterns in yourself without shame, because the number one best way to protect yourself from toxicity at the hands of others is to become really aware of it in yourself. Oh man, sometimes I do that. Sometimes I triangulate because I don't know how to go to the person directly. Lord, help me change that.
Here's the thing. When you begin to name and notice your own unhealthy strategies, you become really aware of them and you gain a lot more confidence in seeing them in the world around you. Because when we're indulging in our own toxic behaviors, we don't want to call other people out because we don't want to call ourselves out. So number one is to notice without shame, oh, these are some things I do.
I presented at a workshop last weekend and at the end of the day I asked them what they got out of it. And one woman raised her hand and she said, you know what I got out of this workshop? She said, I'm not very good at accepting other people's boundaries. And I almost teared up. I was like, man, that is profound. The fact that what you got out of this was, I'm the one that's not so good at honoring other people's boundaries.
That awareness is so key, not only to becoming a healthier person yourself, but also to recognizing toxic behaviors in other people. The best antidote against toxicity and others is to be really honest with ourselves before God.
Number two, if you're dealing with someone who is regularly indulging in these toxic behaviors and without showing any remorse and without really responding to you, be aware. It is going to stir up a lot of guilt and a lot of painful emotions inside of you when you start to change, and you need to anticipate that because when you start to set boundaries with toxic behaviors, it can feel really uncomfortable and folks will try to use that against you.
They know they can make you feel guilty. They'll know they can exploit your good heart, your high responsibility. Be aware that guilt doesn't mean you've done something wrong. It might mean you've done something incredibly brave.
You've got to really work on that core strength, telling yourself, I'm trying to get healthier. This other person might not like it, but I know that disentangling from their toxicity and moving toward health is ultimately better for both of us, even if that other person doesn't see it that way. Even if that other person doesn't see it that way, you're taking God's invitation to get healthier. Even when they don't see it that way.
And then lastly, I want you to think about the difference between “word boundaries” and “action boundaries”. Boundaries do not require anything from the other person. You're not trying to get the other person to change their ways. You have no control over that. You cannot change another person.
Most of us want to get the other person to understand what they're doing. We want them to recognize, oh my gosh, I'm engaging in toxic behavior. I need to stop. That happens sometimes, but it often doesn't. Your goal is not to get the other person to understand the error of their ways. Your goal is to remove yourself from the toxic behavior.
You're not trying to get the other person to change their ways. You have no control over that. You cannot change another person. Your goal when dealing with toxic behaviors is to take effective action to remove yourself from the toxicity as much as possible. So many people get fixated on wanting to get the other person to change or at the very least to understand what they've done wrong.
It's really hard for us to believe that another person doesn't care. They're so absorbed in these toxic patterns of behaviors. They can't see how their behaviors are harming you and that hurts us. And we do need to grieve that. There's grief involved in setting healthy boundaries. We have to grieve what we can't get from the other person. And it's painful to watch someone choose to continue in their pattern of toxic behaviors.
But the bottom line is that obedience to God and a commitment to your own health and wholeness means that you can only take charge of your own responses and actions. You cannot change another person. If you try to get that other person to change, you are in jeopardy of trying to control or manipulate them.
You only have control over your own responses, your own reactions, and the steps you take to move away from toxic behaviors.
You might communicate with a word boundary, but if you choose that route, your goal is to state the action you are going to take in response to the toxic behavior. It's something that you should be able to do without their help, without their permission. Even if they don't like it, you're going to let them know what you are going to do to change the dynamic going forward.
So for example, you always start with the good. Start with something positive, especially if you're planning to stay in the relationship or it's the first time you've communicated. I appreciate you. I value our relationship. I've noticed that our conversations often veer into discussing your issues with dad or with mom or with my sister or with this other friend of ours.
This triangulation is uncomfortable for me. It stirs up anxiety inside of me and I'm not going to participate in it anymore. In the future, if you bring up your issues with this person, I'm going to excuse myself from the conversation. I'm going to get off the phone or I'm going to walk away.
This is a boundary that I need to set for my own health. Full stop. That's it. And do you see how you're naming a behavior? You're naming it. But you're saying, this is what I'm going to do to not participate in this anymore.
That's it. And then you have to make good on that with your actions. You don't have the conversation with that person anymore. If it happens again, you use an action boundary. You remove yourself. That's it. Now, again, depending on the nature of the relationship, depending on the level of toxicity, the other person might ratchet up the toxicity. They don't like it. If that's the case, you need to be wise. You might take someone with you, use the buddy system to go into that conversation.
Don't do it alone because you need someone there to help anchor you. You might have to do it over the phone. You might have to do it over text. You might have to do it in writing. That's okay. Depending on the level of toxicity, sometimes that's what you have to do to let the boundary be known.
The goal is to get yourself out of interacting with that toxic behavior. But again, notice you've taken responsibility for the actions. You're going to remove yourself. The other person doesn't have to do anything.
Now I want to give a note: with someone who uses gaslighting tactics, words almost never work because people who gaslight are a master of manipulating words. No matter what you say to them, they're going to say, you're paranoid. You're cruel. I can't believe you're going to do that. That's evil.
They're going to turn anything, no matter how healthy, no matter how well worded the script is, they're going to turn it and use it against you. That's what gaslighters do. So in the case where there's a lot of toxicity, words won't work. You're going to use action boundaries. Action boundaries are a very legitimate option in the case of toxic behaviors, especially when you're pretty sure this person isn't going to take it very well.
They're not going to like it. Action boundaries are really powerful. An action boundary means that you let your actions do the talking. They're communicated through changes in your behaviors. Instead of using words to communicate, you simply refuse to engage. And there are a lot of ways to do this. You might excuse yourself from a call. You might leave the room. You might use grounding exercises.
You might stop being alone with the other person because it's not safe. You have to only be with them in group gatherings or group situations. You use the buddy system to have someone with you when you have to be with that person, depending on the level of severity. You let your actions do the work of creating that boundary.
And in some cases, you have to leave the relationship altogether. Because like we said, there's no good that counterbalances the harm. And you have to leave that relationship altogether.
Now, listen, this is all a lot harder than it sounds. Depending on the level of toxicity, you might want to reach out to a professional therapist to help you. There's a lot on this in my book, The Best of You. So look at those resources, get support for yourself. But the most important thing I want you to understand today as we close is that naming a pattern of toxic behaviors is an act of love. It's a gift you give not only to yourself, but also to others. It's not loving to indulge or enable somebody else's toxic pattern of behaviors.
It's not loving to them and it's not loving to yourself. Whether or not the other person recognizes that gift that you are giving them is beside the point. You are creating an opportunity for both parties, yourself and the other person, to brave a different, healthier path.
You are freeing yourself to pursue the healing and goodness that lies ahead. And you are releasing the other person to making their own choices. You can love someone and leave a toxic pattern of behavior. You can forgive someone and maintain firm boundaries. You can value someone and refuse to engage in their toxicity.
Jesus said, be as wise serpents and innocent as doves. We long to embody the purity of doves soaring above life's challenges. But the problem is that while we are still inhabiting planet earth, we are at times going to have to inch our way through the murky and chaotic underbelly of this life created by toxic behaviors.
It's part of reality and pretending otherwise won't change it. I want you to be wise. I want you to be shrewd. And I also don't want you to lose your innocence. That's the goal here as you name and recognize toxicity for what it is. You will find your way through it. You will move out of its snare and into the healing, the honesty, the loving mutuality God wants for you, and you will appreciate the joy of what real love and genuine goodness looks like all the more for the pain you've endured.
You are worth the work that it takes to move away from toxic behaviors. Your brave actions honor God. It honors yourself. And I promise you, whether it feels this way or not, it honors the other person.
Where do you turn when heartache threatens to take over your whole life?
This week, Dr Alison is joined by Amber Smith to talk about her journey from crushing grief to quiet, hard-won hope. Many of you know part of her story: the unthinkable loss of her three-year-old son, River, in 2019.
Together, they talk about the raw reality of grief—how faith can be both anchor and wrestle, how a marriage can survive when each person’s pain looks different, and why welcoming joy again is not a betrayal of what you’ve lost.
If you’ve ever faced heartbreak or walked alongside someone in deep pain, this conversation will meet you right where you are - whether you’re on your own bathroom floor or standing beside someone who is.
In this episode, we explore:
- Amber’s story of losing her son, River, and the spiritual transformation that followed
- The “before and after” shift that tragedy brings to faith and identity
- How she and her husband, Granger Smith, fought for their marriage
- Why grief can quietly become an idol
- How holding space for grief can bring a family closer
This episode blends honesty, tenderness, and practical wisdom, exploring what it means to choose life and love while discovering God’s presence in moments when hope feels distant.
📥 Grab your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here
📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.
📚 Find Amber’s Book here: The Girl on the Bathroom Floor by Amber Smith
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 76: Finding the Faith & Strength to Move Forward after Loss & Heartache With Granger Smith
Episode 133: From Feeling Numb to Meaning-Making — Navigating the 6 Stages of Grief
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
- Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!.
- If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
- Give online therapy a try and see how it can help you become more present, more aware, and more connected to the life you want to live. Visit BetterHelp.com/BESTOFYOU.
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Music by Andy Luiten
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
TRANSCRIPT
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. I'm so
glad you're here with me today for this incredibly powerful and vulnerable, we get really candid in this conversation with my guest, Amber Smith. Many of you know part of Amber and her husband, Granger Smith's story, the thinkable loss of their three-year -old son River back in 2019. And if you want more of that backstory from Granger's perspective, be sure to go back and listen to my earlier conversation with him. It was episode 76 and we'll link to that in the show notes.
Amber is here today to share her side of the story, which she's writing about in her brand new book. It's called The Girl on the Bathroom Floor, held together when everything is falling apart. It comes out in just a couple of weeks and it's just such a raw and unflinching look at those moments where pain, fear, and grief seem to hit the hardest. Sometimes they're behind closed doors, they're in your car hidden in your closet or in Amber's case it's on the bathroom floor and the book is also hopeful I mean amidst unspeakable loss.
Somehow, Amber was able to honor the pain while keeping her faith and her hope alive in the promise that no matter where you are, you are held by a God who grieves with you and offers you a way through suffering. In today's conversation, Amber and I talk about
- what life looked like before and after River's death and how her faith transformed in the aftermath,
- how she and Granger chose each other in the midst of the grief, and
- the very practical ways they held on to their marriage when pain looked different for each of them.
- The faith practices that anchored her and her family through their grief, and the tender, complicated joy of welcoming their son Maverick while still holding space for ongoing sorrow.
- And Amber and I also each share very personally about how it's complicated at times to honor grief within a family where each family member is processing loss in different ways and what it looks like to honor each person's journey and how holding space for different experiences of loss within a family doesn't drive you apart. It can actually bring you closer together.
Amber Smith is a Christ follower, a wife and mother of four. She hosts the Arise with Amber podcast and speaks at her local church and is the founder of the River Kelly Fund. She and Granger live with her children, London, Lincoln and Maverick on a small farm in central Texas. Amber's voice is tender, courageous, real, and she's also really practical. I think this conversation will meet you right where you are, whether you're on your own bathroom floor today or walking with someone who is, I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Amber Smith.
Alison Cook (00:29.215)
I'm just so thrilled to have you here today, had such a powerful conversation with your husband, Granger. And I hate that the circumstances of life have prompted these stories. And yet I'm so grateful that you've gifted us with the benefit of wisdom through so much suffering. wanna just for the reader's sake, I wanna start by reading.
Just for the listeners sake, I wanna start by reading a short note that you start the book with, because I just think it so beautifully sets the tone, Amber, for this book. This book, this beautiful book that you've written, The Girl on the Bathroom Floor, that is just such a powerful, honest story of suffering and of hope. Here's what you write. This is a book.
about hope, a book about transformation even in the midst of unimaginable suffering. It's the story about discovering not just who I was, but who God created me to be. It's a story about searching for who God is and where he is in our pain. This is a book about a girl who was, about a girl who died when her son died, and about a girl who raised to new life in Christ.
You have lived this Amber and I'd love to just kind of start where you start in the book you open it on the bathroom floor in a moment of absolute pain I think it was just about a year maybe 14 months after you had buried your beautiful three-year-old baby boy River He had drowned in your backyard pool with unimaginable tragedy and
In this moment where you open the book you had miscarried. Is that right? Can you take us back to that moment?
Amber (02:30.966)
Yeah, I started there. I think because that's where I was on most of my journey was the bathroom floor. And I wanted to start there because that was another deep layer of pain that I was brought to. But I was in such a different place mentally and spiritually and emotionally. And when I miscarried a year after we lost River, I fully had done deep work of grief. I fully came to the full trust and
goodness of our sovereign God and I knew that he would bring me through this pain. knew that if he had brought me through what I had gone through, the traumatic events that led up, or that happened after the death of my son, if he could lead me through that, then I knew that he would lead me through this and I knew that there was purpose in this. So I started there because we're gonna all face suffering in this life and you might suffer more than once, which was probably a lot of our case.
but that God had met me there and led me through that deep pain and I knew that he would do it again.
Alison Cook (03:32.085)
It's so powerful. It's true. mean, it's, I kind of want to talk about that next. When Rivers accident happened, it's almost as if your life split understandably into before and after, right? How do you remember the texture of those days before Rivers death? How, what were you like before his death? What was your relationship with God like and then I want to touch on how that lives in your memory with who you are now and how you understand God now.
Amber (04:09.218)
Yeah, when that night happened, by worldly standards, we were happy. I mean, my husband and I had a good marriage. We had three healthy kids. We lived on a little piece of land. My husband was a singing, songwriting, touring musician. He was selling out arenas. He had number one singles. We were joyful. We felt like by the world standards, like, this is awesome. Our life is great. But spiritually, I had just began seeking the Lord a year before we lost River.
Alison Cook (04:16.437)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (04:32.297)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amber (04:38.99)
I wasn't raised in a Christian home. I didn't grow up with that foundation. And I just felt a pull. The Lord was drawing me in a year before. I had just started going to women's conferences and reading devotionals and doing Bible studies and going to church with my kids for the first time. And that's when our tragedy happened. And I can look back now and see that God was preparing me for what I was about to go through. Like I see that year when he was planting little pieces of scripture on my heart. He was putting women in my life who would walk me through.
Alison Cook (05:00.24)
Mm-hmm.
Amber (05:08.846)
this dark time, I didn't see it then, but I see it now, that he was carefully placing those people in my life and giving me bits and pieces of his word that I was gonna have to lean on a year later. And I, you're right, it's a before and after. I was a different girl before that. I was very much living of the world. We would have called ourselves cultural Christians. We would have said that we knew Jesus, but we weren't living a a surrendered life to him. I, the girl that I was died that day.
by the pool with my son. But the girl that emerged through what God brought me through is a more beautiful version that I could have ever thought. And not saying that I'm beautiful, but what God did in my life was a beautiful resurrection. I mean, He saved me through the loss of our son, and I'm forever grateful.
Alison Cook (05:59.135)
So your story in a lot of ways, Amber mirrors Granger, right? That that cultural that we were good people, we were doing right by the world, you know, we weren't. And then this happens, but that wasn't enough to sustain you. And I see in your eyes when you talk about that death to life experience, how real it is.
Tell us a little bit about your marriage and how, I know that the statistics are not kind to couples who lose a child. There's a way in which that, understandably, right, that incredible tragedy and the way different people cope can pull a couple apart. You and Granger looked at each other in the hospital garden and you swore to each other, we will not let this terrace apart. What did that look like for you?
How did you keep that that to each other? Not just in a superficial way, right? But in a day to day when your grief is pressing in on each of you in different ways in every side, what did that look like? And I know my listeners are struggling with that in many ways. It's not just my grief, right? It's like, I also have to kind of carry my own grief, but then have to bear witness to the grief of my spouse and it's different on different days. Give us some thoughts on what that how that played out in your marriage.
Amber (07:33.911)
Yeah, I've been through a lot of divorce in my life and I mean a lot. And I just remember I either thought, okay, I'm never getting married or when I get married, that's it. It's once and that's it's till death do us part. And we made that vow to each other, to each other and before God. And we meant it. And when we went out into that garden, we made that vow. We're going to choose each other. It's going to be really hard. We don't know what this is going to look like, how we're going to go home, how we're going to be a family again, how we're going to have joy again, but we're going to fight for each other and we're going to fight for our kids.
And we did, and it was messy. It wasn't perfect. We both grieved very differently. Granger might be having a really, not a really good day, but a day where he was feeling some light and I would be really low and vice versa. And then you're dealing with your kids' grief on top of that. And it's just a mess. And it really is. And the only way that we were able to do it was truly just having grace for one another, knowing when to pull back and when to lean in, not getting angry.
Alison Cook (08:18.196)
Yeah.
Amber (08:32.79)
at the other one for how they were feeling. I wanted to look at photos and pictures of Riv every day. It made me feel so close to him, but it broke him. So I couldn't get upset because he didn't want to see a photo. I just had to understand that he was grieving in his own way and that we just did our best that we could each and every day.
Alison Cook (08:50.942)
Is there any one practice or phrase or even just any one spiritual discipline that you would return to that would re-anchor you through the storms, through the messiness, whether as a family or as a couple?
Amber (09:09.176)
I think for me to get to that point took a long time. This was a very long journey of grief. I cried every day for an entire year. But I think what I hold onto and what I held onto, 2019 was my most transformative year, was Proverbs 3.5, and it's trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Because we are not God, we don't understand why things happen the way that they do this side of heaven, but we know that we can trust our Lord.
And we know that because we get to know who He is as He reveals Himself to be in Scripture. And then I guess as for the grief, something that we would say instead of, how are you doing? We would say, how's your heart today? Because we know how we're doing. We're doing terrible. This is awful. But when you say, how's your heart today? We can say, you know, I'm really sad right now. Or I actually had a really good hour, you know, but I'm really missing Him. So it just allows you to answer it in a different way.
Alison Cook (10:02.45)
I love that. Just a subtle shift with each other that provided the safety for honesty. Nobody had to say, I'm doing okay. You know, it was like a very real way of everybody. I would imagine through that kind of group, my family, I married into a family, Amber with a lot of loss at the get-go. My husband was a widower when I met him.
with two young children. So they had lost their mom. He had lost his wife, whom he loved. I met them, I met the family about a year after this loss and we dated, we took our time because we, and one of the things I noticed is we had to create space, just like you're saying. It doesn't go away and also life continues. You don't sit in it and so.
Amber (10:49.23)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (10:51.53)
What I noticed coming into that, not having gone through it myself, but joining with a family that was grieving from the earliest moments, was that honesty that surfaces, that can, again, if you don't create space for it, we'll end up ripping you apart. But if you do, it brings you even closer. To this day, we all honor Lisa in our family. She's a part of the family. I never met her.
Amber (11:14.925)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (11:18.72)
But I have a relationship with her because she is the mother to my children. Right? And so we honor her to this day, even though I've now been in my kid's lives longer than she was. And so I think that's why, as you're saying that, I asked the question because we had practice as one of the things we would do is just assume grief. And so the question would it be, how are you feeling today? The question would be, is it small, medium or big? Right? Yeah. And so some days it's small.
Amber (11:42.284)
Yeah. That's good, yeah.
Alison Cook (11:47.797)
It's there, but it's small. Some days it's big. And that just allowed that baseline of, course it's going to be there. And what you said about pictures, very similar, very similar. Some folks didn't want to look at pictures. Some do. it does. And it's hard to talk about, which is what I so appreciate about your story in this book. You're not minimizing the pain by talking about God's presence in it.
Amber (11:57.698)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (12:16.68)
and how God does bring such unbelievable joy and intimacy and growth and healing through even unimaginable things. But it's a very nuanced thing to talk about.
Amber (12:16.846)
Yeah.
Amber (12:32.462)
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of why I wrote the letter in the beginning was because there are people who are, you know, we're six years down the road. We've learned a lot. But there are people who are on day one and on day one, you are in shock, you're in fog, you're so angry. You don't want to hear all the things that God has a plan for this awful thing. And I just wanted to relate to that girl because I was her or guy. You know, I was her and
Alison Cook (12:55.87)
Yes.
Amber (12:59.104)
it's okay to be in that place for a little bit. I just don't want them to stay stuck there. Because that's where the enemy is. And so just allowing space for that to say, is really hard and I'm walking with you and you're not alone. But when the time is right, you can do this. You can fight through this.
Alison Cook (13:16.188)
Yes, and there you describe in the books, both a feeling kind of a wailing, just those moments when you're flat on your face on the bathroom floor, and also moments where you felt God's silence, where you didn't feel the hope and the redemption. Can you share with us a few of those moments and kind of in the moment what got you through it, even when the feeling wasn't there?
Amber (13:46.297)
I think allowing myself to feel all of those things. I mean, I think in grief, at least for me, I was in such a state of shock and fog for an entire month. I didn't fully let go for a month. But when I came home a month later and I was all by myself, I just gutterily cried. I let out animalistic cries for my son and just allowed myself to grieve. And just giving yourself grace and space to do that really helped me.
Alison Cook (13:49.077)
Yeah.
Amber (14:15.702)
And going to the scriptures, because just because we feel something doesn't mean it's true. Just because I didn't feel God at a certain time didn't mean he wasn't there. But we can't know that unless we go to God's Word and unless we see that he is with us all the time. He never leaves us, never forsakes us. So just kind of going back to God's Word anytime I felt distant or the enemy coming in or lies from the world or really, really sad, I would just have to go back to the truth of what God's Word says.
Alison Cook (14:43.38)
when you talk about the lies of the world, there's a couple of ways. One is through the pat answers and they're trying to push you through it. Well intended often, but very hurtful. But the other is you guys received a lot of criticism publicly, which is just insane to me. What did it feel like to live through that? You know, where you kind of on both sides of things, people don't whether they're being critical. whether they're trying too hard to be positive, how did you find safe people who knew how to hold you through whatever you were feeling?
Amber (15:55.705)
I think realizing because we were in the public eye, because Granger's Music was taking off and we had a YouTube channel, I think people felt access to our lives. But that is one reason why we kept our videos up and we wanted to share because this is real life and terrible things happen and real people grieve. you're right, we were met with such criticism and it was really hard. mean, especially for a mom and a dad who deeply love our kids.
Alison Cook (16:05.078)
Mm-hmm.
Amber (16:25.208)
Like we would do anything for them just to have people saying the hurtful, hurtful things that they said. It just made me think, you I doubt that any of those people would have said it to a grieving mother's face. But we live in this world where we're protected and hidden behind these keyboards and don't even have a profile picture. And we just say whatever we want without a filter and without thinking. But it just made me realize that it truly shows the spiritual condition of someone's heart for them to be able to say that. And just to know that we are in a spiritual war and the enemy will do anything to break you down. And sometimes he'll use the mouth of other people. So we really had to cling to our close circle and shut out the world. If you were not in our arena and don't know us and don't know our family, then we don't have to listen to the outsiders and what their criticisms have to say.
Alison Cook (17:13.758)
Again, it's not fair that you have to develop those tremendous boundaries and resilience muscles, but it is one thing that comes out of something like this is you develop those clear filters about whose voice you're going to listen to and whose you aren't.
It’s just unbelievable. The other thing, Amber, that I think I want to touch on, you write about it in the book so well. Again, it's such a nuanced thing to write about. It's such a hard thing to talk about because you're so real about the grief, about the pain. I see it in your eyes now. You're not minimizing it. And yet you also write about realizing that even your grief could become an idol.
And that is just such a transparent, authentic, observation, confession. Talk to us a little bit about how you began to realize that, the nuances of that. When does it become something that we take on as sort of an idol and versus a lived expression that we see in the Bible? We see it in the Psalms. We see it in Jesus' life, right? How did you begin to understand that distinction in your own life? So powerful.
Amber (18:36.61)
I think so many things can become idols in our lives. mean, our careers, our marriages, our kids, and even our grief. I think if we begin to take on something as our identity, like if I just lived my life as I'm the woman who lost a son and that's all that I ever was, that is making an idol out of my grief. And I just was grieving really hard on the bathroom floor one day and I felt in my spirit, enough, seek me.
Alison Cook (18:42.006)
Yeah.
Amber (19:04.374)
And I had just been, I realized that I had made my child an idol. I was seeking river so much in my pain and I desired to be with him and I longed for the life that we had. And I realized I was taking the focus off of my savior and I was just focusing it solely on my sorrow. And it was a really powerful moment for me to realize that because we do love our kids, but our kids are a gift from God. you know,
Alison Cook (19:28.83)
Yeah.
Amber (19:29.846)
we can't stay stuck in that grief or it will become our identity and it will become an idol in our lives. And so the Lord just revealed that to me and that was a turning point for me to arise up off the bathroom floor. Yeah, and God just did that. Yeah.
Alison Cook (19:45.971)
It reminds me of the Ecclesiastes. There's a time to mourn. There's a time for joy. There's a time to dance. There's a time for tears, right? There's that, those seasons and through all of it, God is the one at the center. It also reminds me when you talk about that, how even in the mental health world, you can make a diagnosis an idol. You can make anxiety your idol. know, anything, these are, are health, helpful. These are real things that we deal with.
Amber (20:10.19)
YUM
Alison Cook (20:15.366)
and also they're never all of who we are. It's really powerful.
Amber (20:18.786)
Yeah.
Yeah, anything that takes you away from seeking and focusing on the Lord can become an idol in your life.
Alison Cook (20:27.476)
Yeah. You describe Maverick's birth as I think just so beautifully as both a joy and also an ache. It was a complicated experience for you. It was a restoration, but also never a obviously a replacement. Tell us a little bit about that about your experience of honoring the joy again. We've talked a lot about the podcast about how sometimes when you've experienced great loss, it can be hard to let yourself feel joy because that loss is always right there next to it. What was that like for you?
Amber (21:03.362)
Yeah, think anytime that anyone feels any sort of joy after a loss, you do feel guilt about it. You feel like, can you be laughing or how can you be smiling? How can you have joy in this moment when you just buried your child or buried your spouse or lost your job? But having Maverick was not in our earthly plan, but the Lord graciously blessed us with him. And it really was grief and joy coexisting because I was so thankful that I was given the chance to be a mom again. I was so thankful for his little life, but I was also still so sad over the loss of my son.
And he, Maverick, you we got criticized for that too. Maverick is not a replacement for River. Maverick is a beautiful new chapter in the story that God is writing for our lives. And Maverick has a purpose too. And I can't wait to see what that is, but we shouldn't be made to feel guilty for keeping on living. You know, people say I would die for my children, but will you live for them?
Alison Cook (21:49.206)
Yes
Amber (21:58.775)
I had a husband and two other children. You have to make the choice to keep living. And with our eyes focused on Christ, I will see River again. I will see him again in heaven. And for now, I get to have the joy of this new blessing of Maverick that I did not think that I was gonna get to have. So it's this constant pool of grief and joy. I still some days have grief and joy. I'm sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. And those can be parallel, and that's okay to both feel those in the same moment.
Alison Cook (21:58.975)
Yes. I just, behalf of all of humanity, I am so sorry that anybody even ever would suggest that. Anybody who has known love knows that. And again, in my family of grief, I am in some ways that person. Am I replacing somebody? I can never replace my kid's mom. Never. I know that.
They know that I could never replace my husband's love for his first wife. I know that he knows that love isn't about love is adding. It adds love. never takes away. know, love is not a zero sum game. It multiplies. And I just I think it's beautiful that you and Granger continue to experience the joy of your family.
Amber (23:11.235)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (23:22.292)
and of your kids even as you honor this little boy who's always a part of your family and who you will be reunited with and who will be reunited with his siblings including...
Amber (23:27.288)
Yeah.
Amber (23:30.69)
Yeah.
Yeah, and same for you. mean, you would never wish that pain on anybody, but by the grace of God, your husband got to love again, and your kids get to have a bonus mom who loves them so much. And so it is. It's an addition. It's not a replacement. It never would be a replacement.
Alison Cook (23:39.658)
No!
Alison Cook (23:45.948)
Exactly.
Alison Cook (23:51.241)
It's never a replacement. just drives me crazy. I, I've received a little bit of, you know, people will say to me, how, how, how does it feel to be second? I'm like, I'm not second. That's not, it's not a, you don't understand. and it's only something God can fully, it's something you can only fully comprehend in the spirit, right? That God weaves.
healing and he weaves new life and he weaves new love out of what's broken and never replaces but somehow mysteriously through the goodness of God there's new graces there's new joys his mercies are new every morning and so thank you for letting me just as I've watched your story a little bit I've I've learned and and benefited from hearing some of you reading your book from my own story as well and I I know so many people
are going to benefit because life is complicated. Everybody's had loss on some level.
Amber (24:55.02)
If you haven't, you will, it's coming. It's just something as humans we all share is the suffering in this world, but we also share the hope that we have.
Alison Cook (25:02.164)
Yes. I want to just close, Amber, in your final chapter, you write five years out. If you could speak to the woman who's listening, who's still on her own bathroom floor today, what would you want her to know?
Amber (25:23.502)
that that bathroom floor moment is not the end of your story. That sometimes that can be the beginning of something really, really incredible. And that she's never alone. That God isn't finished yet. That there's so much life left to live. just that I am so sorry for whatever he or she is facing. And that it's okay to feel those things, but just don't stay stuck in that place. Because there is so much more.
And I would just encourage her when the time is right to get up off the floor and fight and choose to keep living, but keep your eyes on Christ.
Alison Cook (25:49.332)
Yes.
Alison Cook (25:55.646)
Yeah, yes, I love that. Choose to keep living and keep your eyes on Christ. It's the only way and it's a way that is good and it's not always easy but it is so good and I'm just so grateful for you for sharing again this beautiful story with us. The Girl on the Bathroom Floor by Amber
Emily Smith, it's available wherever you get books. Amber, where can my listeners find you if they want to connect with you and learn more about your story besides the book?
Amber (26:29.888)
If you want to connect, I'm usually always on Instagram. I love chatting with people through Messenger and helping people through the hard parts of their life. It's at Amber Emily Smith. And then my website is arisewithamber.com.
Alison Cook (26:41.962)
That's beautiful. Thanks Amber. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Amber (26:46.232)
Thank you so much.
When the world feels on fire, how do our souls find rest in God alone?
This week’s two-part episode is close to my heart. In the wake of recent violence, I first pause to reflect on what it means to choose love in an age when outrage feels easier.
From there, I turn to a conversation with my friend and mentor, Dr. Stephen Macchia. Steve has spent decades guiding people into deeper intimacy with God through practices of silence, prayer, and community. Together we explore the barriers distraction creates, why being truly listened to is so healing, and how slowing down opens space for God’s presence in our lives.
This episode is an invitation to lay down outrage, pick up compassion, and step into the quiet spaces where God does His best work.
📚 Books you wont want to miss from Dr. Steven Macchia:
- Praying the Parables of Jesus by Dr. Steven Macchia
- Crafting a Rule of Life by Dr. Steven Macchia
📚 Also mentioned:
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 75: Your Secret Weapon Against Stress & Anxiety - How to Transform Your Mind Through the Power of Prayer
Episode 88: What to Do When Change Stirs up Anxiety, Uncertainty, or Confusion
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
- Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
- Better sleep starts today! Get a birch mattress and test it out for 100 nights risk-free PLUS a discount for being a listener by visiting birchliving.com/BESTOFYOU.
- If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
- Get 50% off a nightguard at checkout when you code BESTOFYOU at shopremi.com/BESTOFYOU
- Check out cozyearth.com and use code BESTOFYOU to get 45% off. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, and embrace your cozy days with Cozy Earth.
- Head to moshlife.com/BESTOFYOU to save 20% off plus FREE shipping on the Best sellers Trial Pack or theEW plant-based trial pack.
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript:
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. I'm so glad you're here with me this week because this conversation is a really special one for me personally, and I also think it's one that's going to minister to you especially as we are dealing with so many hard things right now in our country.
Before we dive in, I do wanna pause and acknowledge the complicated emotions so many of us are carrying after the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk last week. We've seen far too many violent acts in recent years on school campuses, in public spaces, in universities, and it's absolutely tragic. Real people are hurting in your lives, in my life. Maybe people are hurting for different reasons, but people are hurting.
And moments like these remind me that our work, yours and mine, as soul menders really matters. Our work on the podcast here together and everything I do is to help you cultivate a healthy soul, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And as we become healthy souls, you and me together in partnership with God Spirit, we become what this world needs. Changing our world out there starts with us.
It starts with our inner lives. It starts with every single one of us doing our part to bring more goodness, more kindness, more real love into the deepest corners of our souls so that we can spill that love out into our families, our neighborhoods, and our world. Part of why I've taken some time to gather my thoughts and figure out how I want to respond and why I almost shy away from political takes online is because I needed to have these conversations in my real life first.
There is absolutely no substitute for the hard conversations we need to have with each other in our embodied lives. And as I've had those conversations this past week, it's led me to two pieces of wisdom or insights that I'm trying to put into practice in my own life and I wanted to share them with you, especially as it relates to this work of soul mending. The first one is simple. We have to learn how to be people of love. We have to learn how to love people who see the world differently than we do. As followers of Jesus, we don't actually have a choice.
It's baseline. We have to be people of love. A healthy soul is a soul filled with love and it's hard to love Someone who's beliefs or viewpoints or lifestyler decisions or behaviors or actions feel like a threat. I get it That's real and I don't want to minimize what you're feeling what I'm feeling in any way But Jesus does it give us another option? We have to learn to become people of love this past Sunday Our pastor spoke on the parable of the Good Samaritan and it felt exactly Right to my soul when the man in that parable asks Jesus who is my
First, try this with me for just a moment. Think of someone who is hard for you to love. It might be that person with a yard sign that makes your blood boil or someone you just had an interaction with at work or at your kid's school or even in a friend group or even in your church community. Maybe picture them right now as you're listening and just notice what you notice inside your soul as you think of them. You might notice that some part of you bristles or feels resentment or that twinge of envy or anger or frustration or a feeling of injustice.
Maybe even a part of you feels hatred. I hate that person, they've hurt me. Listen, that feeling is most likely there for good reason and I don't want you to shame yourself for what you notice, but I do want you to pause for a moment and recognize this is where the love of God starts, is when you invite God's love into the places that are feeling that anger, that resentment, that frustration, that bristle, that even that hatred inside your own soul first.
You might even pray in that moment, "God, this part of me so angry, so threatened, so resentful, please hold even that part of me with your love. Because here's the thing, first John 419 says it perfectly. We love because God first loved us. It starts inside us. I'm not asking you to put yourself in harm's way, to debate or agree or to do something you don't feel in good conscience you can do, but we do have to cultivate a loving posture in our own souls.
And it starts by noticing those moments of hatred, of anger, of unforgiveness, of harboring resentments inside our own souls first. Secondly, and this one's more practical, but it's important to me and I want to speak to it. It's where I was the most rattled through these events. I want us to prioritize our real embodied lives over online outrage. And I want us to help our kids do this too. We used to be able to disagree without rage.
I remember a time before the internet, before social media, when we could have debates and disagreements and discussions without rage. I'm guessing if you're closer to my age listening to this, you remember those times too. I grew up in a very a very conservative state, what we think of now as a red state, a Christian family, and I went to a very liberal secular Ivy League college clear across the country in a different part of the country where most people thought very differently than I did. This was years ago. And guess what we did in those days, pre -social media, pre -internet? We had conversations. We had coffee together. We debated in classrooms and we could do that during that time without hating each other,
without labeling each other as the problem. I remember vividly in one class I held a very different perspective than almost everyone else in the class and you know what? None of us left the class hating each other. I think my perspective challenged some people.
They listened to me and I in turn gave them the courtesy of listening to them. We learned from each other and we stayed friends and neighbors all within one very small embodied community. We came together in a way that I rarely see happening in this day and age. What made me think of that memory is I was in all honesty looking forward to a debate that was scheduled to be held this week on my alma mater on the campus where I went to college back in the day before social media. It was between Charlie Kirk and Hassan Piker, two men who come from completely different worldviews, different sides of the political spectrum, different ideologies, different belief systems. And I was looking forward to it because I learned from listening to people with different worldviews, listening to people who think differently, almost always when I listen to someone whose viewpoint is different
from mine, somewhere inside my soul, I can say that's a good point. I may not agree with their conclusion, but I might understand where they're coming from. And you know what that does inside of me? It promotes compassion, a shared sense of humanity, humility. It makes me hold my own viewpoint with a softened grip, and that humility is good for my soul. I recognize that while I have certain convictions, I am not God. Ultimately, only God sees the whole picture, the full picture, who accounts for all of humanity. And I honestly believe with all of my heart that the internet, the deep recesses of the internet and social media are tearing us apart. They're preying upon the worst parts of our souls. I'm not saying there's no good online, there is. But there's a lot of darkness out there.
Rage gets rewarded online. It becomes addictive. I see it in myself. It lights up a part of our brain and I rebuke it on behalf of all of us in the name of Jesus. It's a lot harder to hate someone that you disagree within your real embodied life. You have elections. You vote against people. You debate vigorously in the town square. You might see that person in the grocery store line and greet them, or you might sit next to church with them, and you may not see the world exactly as they do, but you're part of the same embodied community.
That's where we're supposed to work this stuff out, not in comment sections. So my second challenge for you and for me today is to make sure we are processing these events, these very challenging topics and events with people in our real lives before turning to social media and most of all I want you to be working with your kids to do this too. Social media relationships are not real. They are not two -way. We are passively taking in data and not engaging with real embodied people. We know from the research what this is doing to our young kids. For resources on how to get your kids offline, check out The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Hyatt. We are trying to get him on the podcast because he has a new book coming out specifically for kids. But I believe the work that he is doing is profound and important to this present time. If you do use the internet or social media, as I do, make sure it's helping you grow compassion and humility, not to foster rage.
And then most importantly, we all have to ask ourselves, where are there people in my real embodied life that I disagree with? How can I take a step toward that person in love? Where am I gathering to talk with people who don't always think exactly like I do and who help hold me accountable to compassion, to justice, to mercy, and to love. We are called to love people in our embodied lives and not only people who are just like us. We are called to love people who are different from us, not only for their sakes, but also for our own souls.
Remember, 1 John 4 19 says it this way, "We love because he first loved us." I pray you receive God's love today in the deepest parts of your soul because it is my belief that it is out of that love you have received from God that you will be able to make a difference and become a person of love in this broken world. My hope is that this conversation you're about to hear will help us do just that.
***
My guest is Dr. Stephen Macchia, someone I consider a spiritual mentor and guide. Years ago, I went through a two-year program he designed called the Emmaus Experience, and I can honestly say it was one of the most profound vocational callings of my adult life. It shaped how I understand my own work as a therapist, writer, and follower of Jesus.
Steve is the founder and president of Leadership Transformations, a ministry that exists to cultivate vibrant spirituality and attentive discernment among Christian leaders and teams. He’s spent decades inviting people into the deep work of spiritual formation—away from hustle, distraction, and noise, and toward rhythms of prayer, community, silence, and rest.
In our conversation today, we talk about:
- Why distraction is one of the greatest barriers to intimacy with God and with one another.
- How silence and attentive listening can transform our relationships.
- The power of spiritual companionship and why every soul needs both solitude and community.
- And we’ll explore Steve’s newest book, Praying the Parables of Jesus, which invites us to engage scripture in a slower, more contemplative way.
If you’ve ever longed for a deeper intimacy with God, if you’ve felt the pull of hurry and noise and wondered how to create more space for your soul to breathe, this episode will meet you right there.
I cannot wait for you to hear from Steve. His words always leave me a little quieter, a little more grounded, and a lot more aware of God’s presence in my life.
So let’s dive into this conversation with my friend and mentor, Dr. Stephen Macchia.
***
- Well, I'm just so thrilled to have you here with this time with you today,
Steve, you've played such your work and your presence in your life has played such
an extremely important role in my own life. We'll get into that a little bit more
throughout our conversation. But I want to start just right where the listener is,
the person tuning in. We talk a lot about the intersection of faith and mental
health on the podcast. And one of your sayings that I always think of it,
always stuck with me is this idea that you, we emphasize different syllables.
Did I quote you? You say that so perfectly. - That's right, that's right. - Yeah,
and-- - That's right, this syllable has to be on the right. - Yes, and so we're not
working apart from one another. we're emphasizing different syllables and you're
emphasizing this spirit part, the soul formation,
which I love. And again, was game changing for me in terms of how I viewed my
work as a therapist. I'd love to just start right here and now with what are you
seeing as the biggest barrier that keeps us from experiencing this deep loving
intimacy that we so long to have with God?
- Yeah, I think it's summarized in one word. Then the one word would be distraction.
The biggest barrier to intimacy, whether it's a human relationship or a relationship
with God, is that our eyes are focused elsewhere, and that's what distraction does.
It holds our eyes elsewhere. My wife Ruth was a preschool teacher for many years,
and she would get down on her hands and knees and say to the children, "I need to
see your eyes, I need to see your eyes." And when she could see their eyes, then
she knew that she had their attention. She'll say that to me. Steve,
I need to see your eyes. And I know exactly what she's saying because I'm
distracted. I'm trying to do multiple things and I'm not paying attention to her.
And so I think when we're distracted, we're totally unable to focus on God or each
other. - That is so, such a great summary and there are so many distractions ever
increasing in our day -to -day lives. I sometimes look back with a sort of longing
on the pre -internet era, let alone the pre -social media era,
the pre -iPhone era, you know, it's, we weren't, it was sometimes a little bit
easier to keep some of that clutter of noise out of our lives, even though it's
always been hard, but that certainly is added to it.
Well, the promise of social media of all kinds is, and the internet and everything
that's available to us today is that the promise was that it would make our lives
simpler and slower, and it did the opposite. It made our lives complex and faster.
Yes. And both of those are against the work of the soul. Okay.
Okay. I love it. Against the work of the soul. So let's go back a little bit,
Steve, because your story's so interesting. You started out in ministry. You built
some pretty amazing things in New England, where, You know, the soil is a little
rockier in some ways for this work of spiritual formation of faith practices.
Although I tend to think of it also as incredibly rich. There's a little bit of
both and there, as you and I both know. But at some point, something shifted for
you. You were maybe following, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but maybe
a more traditional ministry leader path. Something drew you deeper into that work of
spiritual formation where you emphasize a whole different aspect of soul care than
most of us are familiar with. Can you take us back to that moment and what
prompted that change?
Well, after about 20 years of what I would call more traditional ministry, I was
working in a church for 11 years on a pastoral staff was great, great experience,
all of it was wonderful. And then I was in charge of a group called Vision New
England, which is a multi -denominational multi -administry network of folks around our
sixth state region. And it was all good. Everything was great. But I was really
trying to do so much, And I was pushing everyone around me to accomplish and you
know, live out that sort of that Protestant work ethic, you know, we'd rather burn
out than rust out. We'd rather be as busy as possible and accomplish great things
and set goals and go and accomplish. No matter who was in a way,
we can just sort of toss them to the side and get our goals accomplished. And I
realized that there was something going on inside of me that wasn't very healthy.
And I said to a friend who I trusted, I said, I'm looking to talk to someone that
doesn't want something from me. I need a neutral listening ear and voice.
And that's long story short, is when I started spiritual direction. I met this
Episcopal monk who came into my office with blue jean overalls and a t -shirt and
open -toe sandals and I was in this professional mode of dressing up and every hair
in the place kind of thing. And as soon as he opened his mouth, I knew he had
something that I desired. He had a slower pace.
He had a tentative countenance. He had a way of being with God and with me that
was profound. It was mysterious and beautiful. And that began a 35 + year
relationship in direction with the same person who I see on a regular basis as my
spiritual guide, my spiritual companion. So I would say single -handedly getting
engaged in spiritual direction with a trusted companion, trained and trusted companion
was the turning point for me. And everything about my life,
I would say, has changed as a result, some instantly and some more long term in
terms of a chipping away. But that experience of having a companion who was walking
with God and encouraging me to do likewise was definitely the catalyst for everything
since. And so you started this ministry called leadership transformations.
That was one of the things that flowed out of this pivot in your own life.
And it's marked, as I understand it, by some key components of the spiritual life
that go all the way back. They're not new, they're ancient, but in many ways have
gotten lost in our modern, as you're saying, kind of hustle culture that seeps into
the church, what are some of those key features? And I know from it,
I know from my own personal experience and we'll get into that. But from your
vantage point, this, you've, you've, you've talked about the word slow, attentiveness,
being with companionship. You know, it seems like from that came this ministry.
What are the key components, the key foundational pillars that you're trying to pull
lovers of Jesus into and away from this more kind of hustle,
trying to get things done, trying to do good things for God mentality.
It's a great question. And I would say that the number one spiritual practice that
we're all desperate it for, frankly, is what I would call spaciousness,
a spaciousness with God. In other words, finding the time and creating the space to
have unhurried, uncluttered, unhindered time for the sake of your soul,
which would be your walk with God, your relationship with God. So a prayer closet
experience is something that's very important that I strongly urge and encourage
everyone who is seeking to walk with God and in community to have.
It was Bonhoeffer who said, you know, the one who loves to be with others, be
careful because you need some time alone and be careful if you're only wanting to
be alone. You need time together. So it's with aloneness and a community and it's a
community and contemplation, another way to put it. So we learn how to pray, but we
learn how to relate to one another. And that's really where you excel is,
and that's where these two disciplines are combined, formation and healthy
relationships, because our experience with God is gonna be as deep as we can go
relationally. And if we're unable to go deep relationally with each other,
we're not going to go deep with God. But if we're able to go deep with God,
that'll help us to embrace the reality of who we are as individuals seeking to have
meaningful relationships with others. So it is hand in glove, Allison,
but if I were to put the emphasis on a particular syllable there, it would be soul
care, the care and nurture of one's soul. - Yeah. - And there is nothing more
important than that. And yet, because we live distracted lives, we put everything
else in front of that.
- So I wanna share a little bit here about how I experienced that, how our paths
crossed. And there's so much that came out of these two years. And we're going to
talk about this for your podcast. So I'll send my listeners over to hear more of
the story on your podcast. But just at that intersection of I love how you're
saying community and contemplation, the both and the aloneness and the togetherness,
neither of which we're very good at. So I came into your world,
this ministry that you're doing through a two -year retreat program. There were
quarterly retreats. And the rhythm that was just so life -changing for me,
there were silent portions of it where we would have silent meals. We would be with
each other sitting at the breakfast table, but not speaking.
- It is so powerful. If you've never done this, it is such a unique way to be
with other humans with the absence of all the noise and the words. We would have
time alone where we would literally be in our prayer closets or off on a walk.
So there was built -in time for that kind of aloneness. There was aloneness together.
And then there were structured times where we would share our stories.
And what I loved about that, Steve, is the structure. There was an order to it.
We would each get a certain amount of time, maybe 10 minutes, I don't remember
exactly, with themes. And over the course of four quarterly retreats,
you could get pretty deep in what you shared. And so for the first one, I think
we told our spiritual autobiography sort of in 10 minutes So you have to kind of
do the work of looking back and what was so powerful and I'm I'm saying this for
the benefit of the listener because I've never Experienced anything like this was
more powerful than therapy there dare I say I mean it was so powerful So I I just
that's that's the passion in my voice about this. I would share my story and at
the end of it, silence. We put a timer on and we would sit with my story or
whoever was sharing their story in silence, holding it. And Steve,
we don't do that. Usually we share our story and immediately everybody jumps in to
fix it, to give advice about it, to interpret it, to tell us we shouldn't feel
that way. All we did was sit and hold the story. At first it was very
uncomfortable for me. That first, I was like, what is happening? But over time,
the rhythms, and then there were more rhythms. You know, there was, we can get into
that, but because then we would take another round where people would reflect back
verbatim words that they heard you say without interpreting,
without giving advice, just saying I heard you say lonely four times.
And that is just an unbelievable, from a psychological perspective, an attachment
perspective to feel that secure holding was life changing for me.
And so I share that with you both to just honor and validate what you and
thousands of people already know about how the power in this work, but it was so
different than anything I'd ever encountered in a small group, even in discipleship
and mentorship. And I guess I want to ask you,
you know, how I'm not even sure what my question is other than to say, I think we
need this. I think what you're doing speaks to something so deeply inside of us
that need to be seen and held in a very slow,
methodical, kind of orderly way that we just often don't encounter. Well,
when you think about the most intimate moments of life, very few words are spoken.
Yes. It's presence. It's an embrace. It's eye to eye contact.
I mean, we fall in love through the eyes. We love another through the eyes.
And when we can't see each other's eyes or when we see each other's eyes as sad
or disappointed or tearful or turning away, all we need to do is just be present
with the other. And it's in that presence that the mysterious work of healing and
intimacy with God occurs. And we think it needs to be chock -full of words.
And it actually doesn't. And what your testimony is, is the testimony of many others
who have gone through our programs. People will say, "I've never been listened to
like that in my life. Now, think about the power of that statement. I've never been
listened to like that in my life. If we do one thing in this world to change the
trajectory of this craziness that we're in, it would be, I think, around
attentiveness, around listening. And so I talk about it and write about pure
listening and you've described it. It's, you don't fix a person,
you don't correct a person, you don't compare your story, you don't one -up the
other person's story. You're simply there. And if you're going to say anything,
say exactly what they said. Don't interpret. Because when we begin to interpret,
then the person who hasn't been properly listen to is saying to themselves, they
didn't listen to me. That's not what I said. And the bold and courageous will say
that. They'll give voice to that. But many will just smile and, you know, tolerate
it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we should only speak when we're invited to
speak in those moments. The rhythm of that of that practice I took with me into
relationships,
even as my work as a therapist, because there was a time, I think the last round
was you can give encouragement. You know, the last round was maybe share a way in
which others touched something about me, or here's what it made me think about,
where we might get into some of that. But it's
after. We've given the fullness of our attention to the story. Yeah.
And to the person, the person's story, which is precious and it's unique and it's,
it may be difficult, it may be hard, it may be painful, but it still has,
you know, the work of God on it and he wants to heal every ounce of our pain.
Yes, if we let it and in those settings, that's where a lot of healing occurs So
Steve for the listener who's hearing this and maybe hasn't Been a part of such a
community and can't imagine You know, maybe they can't for whatever reason Take the
time to join one or their churches don't offer something so they're listening going
I want that how do I find it. What would you say might a couple of steps be
little both little tiny steps we can do just in our own lives and even bigger
steps that we can take to begin to bring this kind of listening and slowness into
our lives? It's a great question because experientially it's rare these days and what
we're trying to do is we're trying to push that rock up a hill, if you will, and
knowing that everything about the busyness and the noisiness and the confusion of our
world is distracting us and keeping us from these rich encounters with God and with
each other. But if we can at least be a catalyst for saying something like,
could we just pause for a moment and not dive into the conversation yet. Like
imagine if we were to just, let's take a minute of silence. - Yeah. - We want to
be together, but let's just have a minute of silence. I encourage teams and
individuals and couples and small groups tie the time that you're together in
silence. So if you're together for 60 minutes, that's an hour long session.
Take five or six minutes and just be together in silence. It will dramatically and
radically change the experience that you have when you start talking to each other
radically. I'll say the boards that are coming in. You're coming in from your busy
workdays and you're huffing and puffing to get here and you've just had a quick
meal and You had to deal with your kid's homework assignment, you know, whatever it
is that you're coming in with. Let's just settle together into a common space where
we can listen to God and each other and it comes through silence. It comes through
that crucible of transformation, which is silence and solitude. But it's dramatic for
both the alone space and my per closet and my communal space with others and we're
not doing either very well. Yes. I love it's the both and it's not just because
yes, it's not just spend more time alone. And I love that. I mean,
you could even do that with a friend or with your spouse or at the dinner table,
say we're going to sit in silence before we start dinner. You know,
we say the grace and then we all are, we sit, we practice sitting in silence for
a minute to just let our, let our bodies settle. Right. I bet that changes the
nature of the dinner conversation. It does. It does. I've seen it over and over
again. I've been on retreats with people I don't even know, never met. And for the
whole weekend, I'm not talking, saying a word to them. But by the time the thing
ends, I feel like hugging them because I've so enjoyed the time together.
And we haven't said a word. But that's how the Spirit of God works.
He works mysteriously. He works quietly,
secretively at times, you know, and then he makes some pops out makes himself known.
Yes. And yeah, I just I think we were too much of in a fix it mode for
everything, including our relationships. There's a form of humility in it,
right? We where we're kind of setting aside our left brain in our words,
our desire to kind of setting that aside and recognizing just the presence Read
g I love what you said there was another thing I wanted to grab on to you said
you might say to a friend I don't want to jump into conversation Can I share this
with you almost labeling it for someone? Yeah. Yeah, can I just share this with
you? And would you be willing to just hold it with me? Oh
Very good, that's a very simple thing you could do to just say it can we just
maybe even begin with silence and then kind of just share something with you.
I'm not looking to be fixed or corrected or changed. That Ruth will say to me,
"Steve, I just want you to listen to me. I don't want to. I'm not asking you to
fix me. I'm asking you to listen to me." Yeah. Yes.
Steve. I think we need to learn how to listen. Yes, all the way back to learn how
to listen, which means we can't be distracted. We have to have souls that can be
still with one another as someone who practices stillness and solitude.
I'm curious, what's one practice that you personally return to over and over when
your own soul feels dry or far from God or distracted. What one practice re -anchors
you time and again? Without a doubt, it would be simple breath prayers and probably
my favorite one is Psalm 62 verse 1. "My soul finds rest in God alone.
Seven words that have changed my life. My soul finds rest in God alone.
It doesn't find rest in this world. It doesn't find rest in even relationships as
good as they may be. It doesn't find my, I don't find rest in work. Everything
else is adrenaline, but when I can find a space to have Sabbath moments.
I'm just using a simple breath part to get me to that space, to get me out of
the distracted space and into the focused and attentive space that's uncluttered.
And, you know, that's hard to get to. So I'll just very simply just say,
"Oh, Lord, my soul, my soul, my soul. "Oh, find rest in God alone," and I kind of
speak to my soul in that regard or give voice. It's interesting in the various
translations, it'll go, "My soul finds rest in God alone," or "My soul,
comma, find rest in God alone," or "Truly,
my soul finds rest in God alone. It's nuanced ever so slightly,
but each has a power to it. Yeah. So I'm either commanding my soul,
just slow down and rest. Yeah. Or I'm reminding myself of the comfort of the
presence of God in the midst of crazy, full, full to overflowing lives.
I feel that when you say that in my body, there's something, when you say breath,
right? There's a whole body response to that, right? That we feel deep.
And again, I think for so many of us,
and I don't, I think doctrine is important. I think right thinking is really
important. And when we're so bent in this sort of thinking relationship with God,
it's new to experience that feeling of what you just said,
which is a lived, a holistic experience of my soul. You drop down into your body.
- Right. - Right, that's incredible. - And to use the breath prayer,
it's sort of like breathe in the breath of life and breathe out the anxieties and
the frustrations and then breathe in the joy of the Lord and breathe out everything
that's bothering you and consuming you. So it's very simple,
choose your own, but for me those little seven words in Psalm 62 have been,
they've been life changer for me in many - Yeah. - Very simple. And then I can get
into the word and then I can pray. That's the other thing that I learned from this
Episcopal monk friend of mine. He taught me how to pray. And basically,
don't do all the talking. Figure out a way to let God do the majority of the
talking in your prayer so that you're doing less of the talking. So much of the
time we're thinking about our prayers in terms of what we articulate, and oftentimes
it's not what we're articulating, it's how our soul is being prepared to receive the
gift from God, His Word, His love, His grace, His kindness, His forgiveness,
the very things that God loves to give to all of us as his beloved children.
It's a two -way conversation. Yeah, yeah.
to chat with trusted people, but when it comes to real issues, complicated challenges
that we face in our lives, sometimes we need more than casual advice. We need to
talk with someone who is trained to help us, and that's where BetterHelp comes in.
Therapy has been such a game changer for me personally because I know I'm talking
with someone who's actually credentialed and focused on helping me grow. And with
BetterHelp, you don't have to spend weeks hunting for the right fit. You've been
matching people to licensed therapists for over 10 years with a 4 .9 rating from
more than 1 .7 million reviews. And if your first match isn't the right one, you
can switch at any time for no extra cost. As the largest online therapy provider in
the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse
variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their
first month at BetterHelp .com /Best of You. That's BetterHelp, H -E -L -P .com /Best of
You.
This leads us, Steve, right into this brand new book. It's beautiful. I was just
looking through my copy. It's called Praying the Parables of Jesus,
and it's an invitation, really for readers to engage scripture,
prayer in this more contemplative way. So tell us a little bit about what prompted
the book and how it leads people in this way of not just saying more words to
God, but really being with God in all of we are. Yeah,
it's that's a great summary. It's a it's a desire of our heart of our hearts as
Sue Skinner, my artist friend and I collaborate on this. She's she was the visual
person. I was the word person. And we have this dream together of bringing the
parables of Jesus to life. There are 40 plus or minus parables.
So we're featuring 40 that we think is the sort of the focal point of Jesus'
simple little stories that so often we think of in childhood, you know, we think
that all children would like these stories. But the more I spend time in each of
the parables, the more I realize, oh my goodness, God is so serious about his
kingdom that every single one of the 40 parables point to the kingdom.
It's all about the kingdom of heaven. And there's a picture, there's a simile for
every single one. The kingdom of heaven is like and fill in the blank and that's
where Jesus excelled. He was basically explaining the here and now and the future
kingdom that we're invited to participate with him. He was so serious about the
kingdom that that's all he referenced and all 40 if you were to look at in terms
of the main theme. It was all about being with him now and forever.
And he was really speaking against the religious leaders of the day who were putting
rules and regulations out that barely anyone could keep up with. And Jesus came to
set people free. He came to give them life and joy in their walk with God and
their delight with one another. So again, it's that vertical horizontal thing coming
together in each of the parables. These parables are amazing, absolutely incredible.
They stand alone, there's contrast, there's a simple story that goes with it,
but it really penetrates the heart. And so what we've done is we've taken two very
ancient spiritual practices called Lectio Divina and Visio Divina and brought them
into each of the parables by way of the message, by the way, it's Eugene Peterson's
rewrite of the entirety of the scriptures and how He wrote out the parables,
so we're pulling from that. We dedicated the book to him because he's one of our
spiritual heroes.
And then it's just an invitation to read the parable perfectly,
reflectively, and take a look at this visual that may help you pray the parable
when you see how an artist has conveyed a part of that parable for you.
- That's beautiful, I love it. It's-- - A deep dive. - Yes. - But it's,
yeah, invitation. - It's an invitation, again, to everything we're kind of talking
about to enter in with our whole selves.
Again, not just our thinking brains or not just our, our souls that are distressed,
you know, but to really, I remember as part of the Emmaus group that I did with
you, you, one of the assigned readings was, I think it's called Eat This Book by
Eugene Peterson. And that book itself is such a great book,
but it's, it does a lot of what you're, it invites you into a holistic experience
of scripture that again many of us haven't just when you when you taste it it's
like oh but it's hard to even describe because you're still just marinating in
scripture but it's it's kind of from this more um I don't even you know it's hard
to put words on it but from this more contemplative space where it dwells within
you, which again is maturity, you know, I think sometimes we think maturity ends at
the head as opposed to bringing us deeper into our whole bodies.
- Totally. And yeah, lektio and visio in its simplest form is the repetitive read of
the same passage of scripture. So you're looking at this parable and you're reading
it several times. You're not, you're not jumping ahead, you're not looking around the
parable, you're diving into that parable and seeing what God has for you.
And every time I've used electio with groups and we go out for an hour by
ourselves and we sit in a particular passage of scripture and come back into the
circle, there's never been a repeated store in that circle.
Everyone discovers something that's for them. That's amazing. That God gave to them.
That's amazing. And so that's what Lectio and Visio really provide for us as hungry
souls wanting to know more about the heart of God. And you can follow this Lectio
pattern anywhere in the biblical text, not just the parables. - One other resource,
before we close, that I want to shout out to my listeners, 'cause I just think
it's such a helpful resource. It's your book called "Crafting a Rule of Life,"
which came out, I don't know when, several years ago, but I know so many people
who've gone through it because it teaches, the book shows, it explains these
different practices like you're describing here that are new to some people. But then
the back part of the book takes you back creating your own rule of life, which has
nothing to do with sort of a rule. It's a way of leaning into,
I think, who's the quote, the unforced rhythms of grace? That's another one I
learned from Emmaus. Who said that? - Yep, that's a Willard. That's a Dallas Willard.
- Dallas Willard, the unforced rhythms of grace where we put ourselves in the path
of these encounters with God. Could you just tell us a little bit about crafting a
rule of life and how that is another way that we can scaffold these encounters with
God? - Yeah, first of all, we correct myself. Unforced Rhythms of Grace is Eugene
Peterson's interpretation of the passage in Matthew. Willard would say we need to
learn the sort of the unhurried way of eliminating hurry,
basically, from our lives. So anyway, just to correct for those who knew better and
are listening to my voice on Um, yeah, it's,
it's, um, the rule of life has nothing, as you said, has nothing to do with rules
and regulations. It is all about a way of life and a way of life is either going
to be something that's, that's toward God and his purposes for our life,
or it's going to be wandering on our own. And I like that imagery of the vine
and, um, a healthy vine needs a trellis from which it grows and blossoms and
flourishes. If a vine does not have a trellis, it ends up wandering on the ground
and it does not produce the fruit that it's supposed to. In fact, God called the
people of God in the Old Testament at one point, "Wandering vine." You're a
wandering vine and you basically need to come back home. And so I look at the rule
of life. I mean, yeah, crafting the rule of life as something that brings us home,
brings us home to the true person, the best of you. - Yes, yeah.
- The one person that God made you to be in all of your uniqueness and all of
your beauty and all of the gifts and the abilities and the storyline of your life.
and you begin to unpack that, understand that. And when you begin to live it, you
realize you don't have to keep looking over your shoulder wishing you were like
someone else. Instead, you look upward and straightforward to say, "God,
how do you want me to live my life fully for you?" So we have things in common.
It's like a thumb and a thumbprint. We all have thumbs and the thumb does what the
thumb's supposed to do. but your thumbprint is different than mine. And let's
accentuate the idea that your life is unique as mine is,
as everyone is listening to our voices is. If we can set people free to become
fully who they are and live more purposefully into that, then they're putting their
vine on a trellis And it's flourishing and blossoming, just like a healthy vine
should. I love this. And I think that, you know, this is probably overly simplified,
but from many of my listeners, I see a lot of this work of spiritual formation and
these, the rhythm of life, uh, I mean, the rule of life as sort of an expansion
of what so many of us got, which wasn't all bad, which is you have your quiet
time in the morning, read the Bible, pray, go about the business every day, go to
church on Sundays, say grace before meals. You know, these are not, these are, these
are beautiful rhythms, but they can so easily become wrote,
or if, let's say, um, my personal time, you know,
feels dry. And, and so then I set it aside, but I feel shame because I, you know,
I I don't know I and I have listeners right into me. They say, you know, I've
been growing. I've been learning about myself I've been growing in emotional health
and in some ways now my old rhythms my old rituals feel dry And I think to
myself, oh that that's because there's we're incorporating in new layers new meaning,
you know, we're Expanding all the different ways that we encounter God and those are
part of it. All of those different ways are part of how we encounter God. And I
found in that book, "The Crafting of the Rule of Life," it includes, you know, it's
reading the scripture, prayer, worship, all of those things, but there's just so much
more too. And again, this is ancient. This is not new. These are ancient rhythms.
There's just so many more ways that we can encounter God in our daily lives.
So I just found it incredibly helpful to me to just expand some of that myopic
viewpoint that parts of me had kind of thought, this is the way, you know, this is
the way, and if these ways aren't working, you know, there's something wrong with
me. - Right. Oh, that's good. It's expansive, but it's also deepening.
- Yes. - In one's self -awareness, and we're not very good at self -awareness either.
- Yes. - We've listened to lies and we've created lies.
And no, we need to listen to the truth and speak truth and lean into the truth of
who you really are, who you're meant to be. - Yeah. - And yeah, it's gonna take
some collaboration with the Holy Spirit and with people who know us best and love
us most. - Yes. - And And that I do think is very important. Turn to the people
who know you best and love you most and want the very best for you. They'll help
you figure this thing out and expand it as well as deepen that awareness.
It's interesting too that Saint Benedict, one of my other heroes, ancient heroes, he
was one who really formalized an understanding of a rule of life. And for him,
it was all about these two same things, contemplation and community. In fact, if you
look at his rule of life, it is all about that. But the opening word, the first
word is listen. Yeah, it's like, listen, listen to God,
listen to your personal life experience, pay close attention, and then lean into what
you hear what you're noticing from the word of God, from the voice of God,
from the voice of the community of God.
Yeah, listen, it goes back to listening again. That's right. And so essential,
so very important. I love that we bookended the conversation, the listening.
Where can my listeners find your work, find your resources, Find the new book,
all the things, Steve.
SteveMachia .com is my personal website for the books that I've written.
LeadershipTransformations .org is the ministry website. So, SteveMachia, M -A -C -C -H -I
-A, SteveMachia .com and LeadershipTransformations .org.
We'd love to welcome anyone that's your friend is our friend Allison. - I highly
recommend, I mean, you've been doing this for a long time. I know there are folks
coming along now. John Mark Comer is one who are kind of bringing these ideas well
into the mainstream, which I think is awesome. You have been working out these ideas
for years. These are such trusted resources and I cannot recommend your work enough.
- Well, thank you, Allison. You're very kind. I so appreciate your friendship, and
I'm so delighted with the ways that your ministry is expanding,
exploding really with your writing and your podcast and your speaking and just so
proud of you. Just delighting with you and for you. And And praise God,
awesome, well done, good and faithful one. Thank you, Steve likewise. Thank you for
joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if
you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or
wherever you listen to podcasts and click the plus or follow button. That will
ensure you don't miss an episode and it helps get the word out to others. While
you're there, I'd love it if you leave your five -star review. I look forward to
seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you
are, you honor God, you heal others, and you stay true to your God -given self.
The world has changed, and raising kids now requires a new kind of courage.
In this encouraging yet practical episode, Dr. Alison is joined by counselors and best-selling authors Sissy Goff and David Thomas of Daystar Counseling in Nashville. Together, they discuss why anxiety is showing up earlier and more intensely in children, and how parents can respond with both empathy and practical tools.
Sissy and David share creative ways they’re helping kids build courage, resilience, self-control, and perspective. From therapy dogs and illustrated children’s books to powerful stories from their counseling practice, Sissy and David deliver hopeful reminders that your calm matters, and practical strategies can help your kids step into the world with more confidence.
This episode explores:
- Why childhood anxiety is rising, and how it looks different in boys and girls
- The surprising ways technology impacts emotional health
- The unintended consequence of overprotective parenting
- Practical tools that help kids develop resilience, risk-taking, and healthy coping
- When to seek counseling for your child
This episode is a hopeful reminder: Kids don’t need a perfect parent. They need a present one who believes in their courage and helps them practice it.
For More from David and Sissy:
check out their website, https://www.raisingboysandgirls.com and pre-order the DayStar Dogs books here:
📚Pippa Learns to Share the Spotlight: A Lesson About Jealousy
📚Happy Finds Her Calm: A Lesson in Self-Control
📥 Grab your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here:
📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 65: Vulnerability, Parenting, and Letting Go of Control
Episode 85: The Goal of a Healthy Family & 6 Roles We Take On In Dysfunction
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
- Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
- Better sleep starts today! Get a birch mattress and test it out for 100 nights risk-free PLUS a discount for being a listener by visiting birchliving.com/BESTOFYOU.
- If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
- Give online therapy a try and see how it can help you become more present, more aware, and more connected to the life you want to live. Visit BetterHelp.com/BESTOFYOU.
- For 20% off your order, head to Reliefband.com and use code BESTOFYOU
-
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Music by Andy Luiten
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week’s episode of The Best of You.
Today we’re diving into a topic I know so many of you are navigating—how to help our kids develop real courage and resilience in an anxious world.
We touched on this theme last week with Trey Tucker, who works primarily with Gen Z young adults. And today, we’re going to look at the same concern a little earlier in life—through the lens of children and families.
In this conversation, you’ll hear:
- A simple way to become the “calm your child can catch,” even when you’re stressed.
- Why anxiety in kids often looks like anger, control, or distraction—and what to do in the moment.
- How to decide when it’s time to consult a professional (and how to frame counseling as part of your child’s care team).
- Two kid-friendly tools you can try tonight to right-size big feelings and build brave muscles over time.
We’ll also talk about an amazing new resource for kids that uses stories to teach emotional skills in a playful, shame-free way. It’s creative, evidence-informed, and honestly…fun.
All right—let’s get to it.
Alison Cook: Today I am joined by two voices most of you already know and love they are counselors and best -selling authors Sissy Goff and David Thomas. Together they have helped thousands, is it probably more than thousands, of families through their work at Daystar Counseling in Nashville, their best -selling books and their top -ranked raising boys and girls podcast. If you're not subscribed to it, go hit the subscribe button because they are doing such good work to help parents. They are now,
I'm so excited to have them now. They are bringing that same wisdom to kids through a brand new illustrated series called the Daystar Dogs, which I love. These stories feature their, we'll get into it more in the episode today, but their stories feature therapy dogs, Lucy, Owen, Happy, and Pippa. And here's the thing that think is so cool and listen to these qualities, these emotional skills that they're going to help your kids with. Courage, resilience, self -control, and jealousy.
That's just four of them. I mean, do we all need help trying to empower our kids through courage, resilience, self control and jealousy. I am so thrilled to welcome David and Sissy Goff to the podcast today. Thanks for being here. We are always so delighted to be with you and honored to get to have this time.
David Thomas: Any time our paths intersect with you it's a good good day. It's always it's so fun
Alison Cook: We got to do it live sometime. That's the only thing we haven't been able to like I need to we need to get down there. Well I am so excited to launch into this. I kind of, because we're sort of back to school, we're sending kids out. Let's touch on this kind of anxiety word that's everywhere. We're talking about how kids are more anxious. There's actually a recent CDC study that's talking about how anxiety is actually raising in younger and younger kids. What are some of your top tips for parents to help their younger kids develop more courage and resilience, especially as we're thinking about them heading back into the school year.
Sissy Goff: Well, you just said this on our podcast and we are so team Allison on this that the very best thing you can do as a parent is to do your own work. And so we were talking about the very idea that just like anxiety ripples over onto the kids we love so does calm and so does the reminder that we can live in both spaces that we can feel anxious and nervous and worried and we can still do hard things that it's both things and so we felt like there was not much that speaks to the heart of kids with those kind of messages like a dog and that's why we'll talk more about that I'm sure but that's why the dogs are communicating the message but
I do think for parents it is so easy and in fact talking about research research says the two most common parenting strategies in light of anxiety are escape and avoidance so we see our kids in distress and it feels like good parenting to pull them out of that distress and In fact, that communicates the message, which we're not intending to, but it communicates the message, yeah, you can't do this without me.
You are dependent on me. You can't do hard things, which is never what we're trying to communicate, but it's what is translated. And so when a parent can say, can hold both things of, of course you have big feelings that this feels scary and you know what? You are so much capable than you have any idea. There is so much courage, not that you have to rise up to, but there is so muc courage that God put inside of you already.
Alison Cook: That's so good. That's so good. So much more is caught than taught in a way they catch our own sense of belief in them. Why do you think dogs are so helpful? I mean, I love my dogs. We were talking about this. We all kind of love our dogs. But why do you think there's such helpful kind of tools for or why do you think there's such helpful illustrations for teaching children how to navigate their own heart emotions?
David Thomas: It was for us a really easy decision and a natural progression. We currently have six therapy dogs on staff in our practice and so a lot of doodles. We do. We love doodles and we talk about how much work they do that makes our job 10 times easier, you know, how many kids and adolescents have walked into this space feeling nervous, fearful, overwhelmed about that first appointment. Any parent who's taken a child you love to counseling for any of us who've gone ourselves, that first appointment can feel somewhat overwhelming and it's amazing how often we have seen kids settle early into the experience just impeding the dog, just in talking about their own dog. We're starting our conversation right there and telling a story about a dog they love and how often we have seen evidence of kids telling more than I think they ever plan to tell in the company of a dog. And so because they do so much of the great work and the teaching in our space, it felt like this natural extension of what we do that the dogs would lead in terms of teaching these emotional skills that we felt were so important. - There's something so safe about dogs. -
Alison Cook: Yeah, that's beautiful. -
Sissy Goff: Well, and I will tell you the reason we started having dogs, so my first dog as an adult was a little Maltese named Noelle, and there were some people working at my house one day and I couldn't leave her home, so I called our dear friend and boss Melissa and said, "Could I bring Noelle to work for and she said to her and so that day, you know, we have all had this experience and I was sitting with an adolescent girl who told me she wanted to take her own life. And so I called her mother, had her mother come to the office and I needed to go sit with her mom and tell her what she had said to me. And so I left Noelle with this teenage girl and went and talked to her mom. And when I came back, Noelle was in the girl's lap licking her tears and she just intuitively knew Noelle just knew she needed to lean in with this girl and and that afternoon I called Melissa and told her the story and she said bring that dog every day and so now sweet little Noelle has this legacy of all these dogs that are such an important part of our work and so many parents will bring their kids the first time to counseling and say the only reason I got my child to agree to come is 'cause y’'all had dogs. - Which we love.
Alison Cook: I love it, I love it, that's beautiful. I wanna get into a little bit, how you're seeing some of these different things show up differently in boys and girls. It's one of the things I love about your work and your partnership. Before we get there, I wanna ask a question I hear so often from parents, and that is, how do I know when It's time to take my child to therapy?
David Thomas: such a great question. It is and we hear it often as well And we would say two things to that first we'd say to parents if If things are inquestion if you feel uncertain about that decision we always believe it's a great call to Consult with your pediatrician Come in and meet yourself with a therapist first and just ask questions because it may be that We do a lot of what we call parent consultations in our work where we may just give Parents a to -do list and leaving of some things for them to try at home That could be as much support is as needed in that season or in that conversation We might hear evidence of youknow, I think it would be beneficial to go ahead and jump start this process So I think a consultation is just a good, safe place to begin, whether that's with your pediatrician, whether that's with someone who does the work like we do, so that we're making sure we're giving the right amount of support. Not too little, not too much. Secondly, we would say we certainly want to watch for evidence of where something with the kids we love might feel problematic or difficult versus debilitating. So think, for example, you've got a kid who is sometimes teary on the way to school and feels really nervous about walking in the building. That's super common for a high percentage of kids, particularly in the first few weeks of the start of school. We're not overly concerned about kids who are teary on the ride to school, maybe even hesitant walking in but can find their way in the building and teachers report are settling in and experiencing learning and friendships and all those things, we're worried about the kids who can't get in the building, who, it's not just a tummy ache, they're throwing up before they leave the house, or it requires an administrator to come out to the parking lot and help get them into the building, that it's become so debilitating, it's difficult for them to experience the normal and good things we want kids to experience of learning and relationships. And so That's maybe a way to think on a concern you might carry for a child or out of lesson you love. Is it problematic or is it debilitating? Is it getting in the way of life for them? Because we don't want to wait until it's getting in the way of life and it's snowballed to that place.
Sissy Goff: I love that. I think my favorite story ever, and I can't remember if I've told you this before, but we had a mom come in once and she said that her daughter was pushing back and we see so many families who the kids don't want to come the first time. And we will say to parents, if you can get them to the building, every counselor who works with kids has convinced a kid to come in the building before. That's fine. But this mom was saying how her daughter was pushing back and she said, why do I have to go mom?
And this brilliant mom said, honey, my job as your parent is to build your team. And we
have people on your medical team who are your doctors and we have people who are on your academic team that are your educators of course I'm gonna have people on your emotional team and they're gonna be your counselors and so we may not go for six months we may go a few times just so you have a person so that when something does come up you can say hey mom I'd like to go see Sissy again and then we just you have a relationship and we just step right back into that place I just thought what a beautiful way to describe that to a child. Isn't that awesome?
Alison Cook: Wow, I love that. It's, I'm wanting to tell my listeners, they need to go listen to our conversation that we're gonna have on your podcast because talk about a secure, safe place that you're creating for your kids. That's so beautiful. What a great way to kind of normalize that team around our children that this is normal. That's so helpful. I love it.
That's so practical. If you're worried, do a consultation. Talk to your doctor. Talk to a therapist. Ask them. Get some benchmarks for what might, but I love the normalization of, this is just a part of our team, you know? That's beautiful. That's so helpful. All right, so I wanna talk a little bit about how have you yourself in your practice in your work how are you seeing anxiety manifest itself in younger girls in particular?
Sissy Goff: Well I would say I mean a lot of the parents I see of younger girls the girls are typically the firstborn not always but so much of the time and I believe the primary coping strategy for them. In lieu of any other healthy coping strategies becomes control, which I think any of us who are first born can say that continues through adulthood. But I think for a lot of these girls, they don't yet have the words or the understanding to say, "Hey, Mom, it makes me feel anxious when you change my schedule and I don't have any input," or when I don't know what's coming. And So they start to feel things in their body and then they lock down on, "I thought this was supposed to happen," or all of a sudden they just have a lot of anger or a lot of big feelings and get very rigid and very demanding even in what they expect and what they think should happen next. And I even see it happen in kids over birthday gifts or Christmas gifts that they can get really rigid about something they think they want and for a parent it feels like entitlement but really it's more about control and so I think with I mean we know all behaviors
communication from kids and so anytime there are big feelings I want parents to really track okay what are the patterns when are we seeing this come up what are the circumstances around it and is it about control and rigidity because when it is I think often anxiety is driving that train rather than just pure anger or entitlement. So that's one I really wanna pay attention to with younger girls.
Alison Cook: How are you seeing anxiety show up in young boys?
David Thomas: It's interesting to hear you answer Sissy in the way you did because if I were to assign two words that I think best reflect what it looks like on young boys, I would say anger and control. And it's often a rigidity and inflexibility resistance to trying anything new.
Interestingly enough, I see a lot of first born boys who struggle in this space.
That's not to say there aren't plenty of seconds and thirds I've seen who struggle
in that space, but a high percentage of first born boys who are also high
achieving, high performing, highly successful academically, athletically in a lot of
those spaces. So I think it's two sides of the same coin so often. They're doing
amazing things in the world and putting an overwhelming amount of pressure on
themselves simultaneously. So I would say those two in particular, but one other
interesting piece to note, I think with boys, young boys in particular,
is that I think anxiety can masquerade as the symptomology of ADHD because I think
when boys are carrying a lot of excess worry and fear it takes up a lot of
cognitive real estate so they often look distracted and inattentive under focused and
so really bright boys who are missing some basic instructions that again from an
outside view could just look like classic ADHD but as we dig underneath it's some
anxiety that's feeding and feeling it, it's just taking up so much brain space that
if we can clear out that anxiety, often we see less evidence of what looks like
true attention hurdles.
Alison Cook: How have you guys in all your years of working with young
boys and girls, how have you seen anxiety change in how it shows up or what influences it.
David Thomas: Oh, that's a great question. I do think we're seeing it show up younger and younger.
And I mean, there are so many things that we could talk about that are really
influencing it. I mean, certainly technology. We know that. We know that from
Jonathan Haidt's work. And I think that is not just I think we tend to think
that's social media but it's also just the amount of images that are changing I
mean if you're to watch a new show even for kids from today versus something from
the 70s when we were growing up the amount of I don't even I'm not a filmmaker in
any way so I don't know how to describe this in a way accurately but the
- It happens so fast.
Alison Cook: Yeah, interesting.
Sissy Goff: And I remember a psychiatrist we were
working with over a teenage girl in tandem, and she said to me, just the
stimulation that's happening when a child watches a screen now is mimicking an
anxious state in their minds, in their brains. - Interesting, wow. - And so it's not
just once they hit social media age, it can be bluey stages too. And so I think
want to pay close attention to that obviously but I think I would be so curious
Allison in your work what you would say to this but I think we're seeing more and
more parents who are doing this really good important work of as we've been talking
about today healing from their own stories and in doing that I think they're
overcompensating sometimes for what they missed And so they are doing this beautiful
job of hearing and understanding their kids, being attuned to their kids emotionally
and not necessarily arming their kids to do the important work of stepping into the
hard things with coping strategies. So it's more like we're hearing them and
understanding them and holding space for their emotions, But then we're not equipping
them to walk out into the world and to know that they can do these things.
Alison Cook: That leads me that the Owen learns he has what it takes book,
right, which is focusing on resilience. And how do you see a need for resilience
showing up?
David Thomas: I would say I think there is an overwhelming need.
Because for all the opportunity that exists for kids and adolescents in this day and
time, we see all the evidence of them feeling less equipped, less capable than ever.
And if I were to think about how that looks uniquely with boys, Allison,
it's fascinating for me to have done this work for 30 years at, look back at
shifts and the evidence of things being really different and I'm not just fascinated
but deeply concerned about currently the number of boys turning 16 who have little
to no interest in getting a driver's license. Where I saw no evidence
of that on the front side of my work. Like I'd have to think back to if I ever
encountered an adolescent young man that didn't want to pursue that, or wasn't even
chomping at the bits to do that, and seeing less and less evidence of that now.
They don't really wanna pursue the independence and the opportunity because, we'll
talk about this word a lot, it involves risk to move into that space, to study for
the test, to take the test, and maybe fail the test and have to take it again.
And alongside that, I'm seeing fewer adolescent boys than ever who are interested in
getting a part -time job interested in asking to a homecoming dance and how that
graduates up to less interested than ever and the statistics reflect this to apply
to college you know there's been a significant shift in the number of boys applying
to the undergrad students and that's not to say every young man's journey is to
pursue a four -year education. But it is to say, I don't want him to close the
door on that opportunity simply because he's had so little practice in the place of
risk. And if I were to scale that down to the elementary age years, I'm seeing
fewer boys than ever who are interested in being a part of a team.
- You know, dipping back into what Sissy talked about with G, you know, content to
just be home playing video games, content to only have conversations with friends
when I have a headset on, as opposed to going to a birthday party and having human
interaction. Because again, all those things involve risk. It's risky to join a team.
It's risky to ask a girl to a dance. It's risky to apply to college. And I'm
seeing greater evidence than ever of boys moving away from risk, which is why the
Owen book felt so important to begin to address that on the front side of
development.
Alison Cook: It's so interesting. So this is just listening to tie that to
resilience, right, the risk -taking. And this is my anecdotal take on this.
I'm curious, is, you know, I feel like the way that we were parented, where there
was sort of that almost living, you know, seen and not heard, right? And so we
sort of learned resilience the rough and tumble way, like we couldn't wait to get
our driver's licenses, right? And then there was sort of a correction
toward parents being more attuned, parents being more present. But it almost-- and
this is a too simplistic way to say it, but almost feels like an overcorrection. Is
that-- Yes. OK, yes. Yeah, right? You're both nodding your head and stronger.
There's a there's a both and there right there's a both and that is so necessary
in being a present parent it's it's not gosh okay that is just so interesting so
okay so let's talk about these books so in Owen that I'm curious about this link
so in Owen learns he has what it takes there's a feelings chart so why is this
feelings chart so Important for these young boys in particular as as you're wanting
them to develop these risk -taking muscles this Resilience.
David Thomas: Yeah Well, I think it starts with if I can't name my experience, you know, it's back to the wisdom of naming and taming I can't tame anything that I can't name. I can't Figure
out what it looks like to our conversation to take a risk if I can't accurately
Identify the fear that's getting in the way of me taking the risk and so I think
It hope was that just that might be an invitation to kids and parents doing more of
that connecting of the dots. In addition to, you know, Owen's story is really about
how that fear started to get in the way of him doing some of the very things he
wanted to do. Yeah. In addition to his work with me here in my practice at
Daystar, we did some volunteering at our local Children's Hospital and on the very
first visit after months and months of training this dog to be a therapy dog We
show up for our first visit and we're in the hallway outside of the first room
with this Adorable little guy who's sitting on his bed in the hospital room and I'm
so excited to walk in and begin the work and Owen is Paralysed like he is in a
sit position, I cannot get him in the room, and all of a sudden I start to
realize he's overwhelmed by a lot of new things he's not yet encountered, you know,
the white coats and the noises and sirens going off from the machines in the
hallway and people pushing carts up and down and there was a lot of stimulation
going on around him and it got in the way, it triggered some fear and so all of
a sudden he's not wanting to step forward into this room and missing this incredible
opportunity this little boy who wants to be with him and who I think needed that
visit and Owen needed to be with this boy and so I literally had to pick the 70
pound dog up and carry him into the room and put him on the bed so that he could
have this great encounter and Alison and I have to tell you and I may cry as I'm
telling you the story Sissy and I had a parent write us a letter that we just got
at Daystar and she'd been reading the Lucy and Owen books to her daughter who's
preschool age and she was reading them running up to the beginning of the school
year because her daughter historically has a lot of trouble the first couple weeks
of school and separating out which is super common for a lot of kids and sure
enough on day one they showed up at school. Despite a warm up where she got to
meet her teacher and her mom was really hopeful it might go a little differently
this time on day one she was just clean to her mom crying so hard and the teacher
motion to the mom that she could come on in and sit with her for a few minutes
in the classroom hopefully in a way that would settle her and she said I was
sitting in the floor with her and kind of combing her back and hair and she
whispered and her mom's ear she said you know, sometimes Owen's dad had to carry
him in the room too when he felt scared and I wept reading that letter and
thinking about that was everything the two of us hoped would happen with these books
is that it would be the beginnings of kids making those connections and even if she
could, you know, say through that experience, "I'm afraid right now." And so that
was everything we could have hoped might might happen with writing these books and
being able to press in on the front side of development.
Alison Cook: That's beautiful. Yeah, where meet kids right where they are.
Okay, so then we have Lucy learns to be brave, which is such a great title.
I love this for girls. So you include in this book a thermometer chart for children
to fill in. So how does this tool help our young ones be brave?
SIssy Goff: Well, we talk often about how more kids than ever,
if we were going to think about emotions on a one to 10 scale, more kids and
earlier than ever are going to 10. There's not a sense of two to four or two to
five. So And older ones have expressed it well to me. They don't say,
I feel nervous. They say, I have anxiety. They don't say, I feel sad. They say,
I'm depressed. I had a mom, I think it was probably three years ago now who said
to me for the first time, and now I'm hearing this phrase all the time. But she
said, I think my seventh grade daughter has rejection sensitivity dysphoria. - Oh boy.
- And yes, exactly. And I tried to say this one.
wanting to help at an early age kids learn to have a sense of perspective and to
have a sense of I mean Lucy my little dog who I adored that I had for 15 years
for her one of her biggest fears was hiccups the first time I ever got the hiccups
in front of her I was counseling a mom and Lucy ended up trying to climb on top
of this woman's head to get away from me because she was shaking and so terrified
of the hiccups and so I use that in the book as an example of let's you know
let's make a two a two and let's make a six a six and a hiccup as a two and a
six is maybe you know something scary happening in your family and nine is certainly
that and so I think helping them have that sense of perspective early on can really
be a game changer for kids and it's so funny, Allison, because I literally have
not, this is so, I think how God works often, but I have not thought about that
book in the context I'm about to attach it to until we have this conversation
earlier with you about attachment and I think the Lucy book is largely about
attachment because it's the sense of discovering how very loved you are by by the
grownups in your life, by God, means you are safe to go out and explore the world.
- Yes. - And within that context, a two becomes a two. - Yes. - And a five is a
five. - Yes. - And so that is exactly what the Lucy book is about. That when she
discovers how much I love her, she's safe to do these hard, scary things.
Alison Cook: Oh, that's so good, and that's so empowering. As a child, you begin to trust that inner sense of, you know, this is how, I remember as our kids got older, we would ask
them, is it, you know, feeling anxious or feeling, is it small, medium, or big? And
then as they got older, they could say it's small. They could self -reflect in a
way that's like, and it's small, you know, it's like, I'm fine, I can go to
school. But, and there was that ongoing trust of if it's big, I'm gonna do
something different, but is it small and you're kind of helping, I love the
thermometer metaphor in that, in that idea of helping them at a very young age,
understand those distinctions. Okay, so you've got two more books coming out. These are coming out in November.
And I want to know, I mean, listen to these titles, Happy Finds Her Calm, and
Pippa learns to share the spotlight. So we're looking at self -control and jealousy.
What led you to land on those two key topics for these next two books?
Sissy Goff: We had so much fun writing these two books. I think we both cried writing the Lucy
and Owen books because they were dogs we adored in that we have lost since then.
But happy and Pippa we giggled our way through both of those books and I'll talk
about Pippa will you talk about happy. So Pippa is a big sister who loves the
spotlight. She's actually an only child, only dog, who loves the spotlight and she's
wearing a tutu and she's doing all the things and everybody is so attentive to
everything she does. And then she finds out she's gonna have this baby sister and
Pippa, for the first time, starts to really struggle with jealousy. And that is a
universal experience. And I have not come across any books that I really loved that
could help older siblings. I mean, certainly there are books that talk about that,
but we start to talk about emotions as colors and how it's not one or the other,
it's both so much of the time. And I can love my younger sibling and I can feel
fear about that too. And sometimes the fear can morph even into anger.
And so Pippa's jealousy comes out as anger. And so helping kids start to tease
those apart and understand how all of these different emotions live inside of us.
Just that idea of naming it helps sustain it. So good. And so Pippa learns to,
at the end, her little sister's in a two -two -two and they're in the birthday
parade together, which is so much fun for both of them.
Alison Cook: I love that. That's great.
David Thomas: And with happy we really did laugh our way through the writing of both these books.
In fact at one point we were having so much fun we said our editor we may never
write another book for grown -ups. This is so enjoyable. But our hope within that
was that parents and kids were gonna laugh together too as they read these stories
because we both believe that Laughing and learning can happen side by side. We
always say that to parents. Like when we're talking around some harder things, let's
laugh together too. Let's laugh at ourselves. Let's laugh with the kids we love. And
we talked a little earlier about how the lack or lacking the skills to regulate can
get in the way sometimes of attention and focus, just as fear can. But one of the
things we also talk about within the happy book is how the other thing it can get
away get in the way of is reading the room and missing some cues and so happy has
a lot of moments where she's too much for her friends and not finding her calm is
getting in the way of relationships but one of the other things that I hope happens
in this book in the discovery is that we would love if a lot of parents might be
willing to Purchase a copy of this book for a teacher that you love because Happy's
teacher is the real hero of this story. Happy gets to therapy dog school That's
where it takes place and her teacher is just a rock star and all the different
ways that she helps her Strategize at school that spills over into home So that
these things aren't getting in the way of all of what she's wanting to accomplish
build relationships have friends, enjoy school. So our hope is that a lot of
teachers feel really seen and encouraged through this story as well. - And Happy's
teacher, by the way, is named Cat with a K, based off of the teacher that we've
both used for our therapy dogs.
Alison Cook: I love that. I love that. I love the whole
collaborative approach you take, even in the stories and your work, it's reflective
of your work with teachers and parents and counselors and you know it just it's all
you know I love how that's reflected in the story right there's all sorts of folks
kind of coming alongside our kids who can be empowered to help them grow and
together you know if we look at this series we've got courage resilience self
-control and jealousy so how do addressing how do we when our kids are addressing
these four sort of core areas. How is that creating a foundation for emotional
health? What does that look like when our kids, you know, when we're really looking
at our kids and we're kind of, you know, we've got our own inner critics aside and
we've got our own perfectionism aside and we're like, you know, I think my child is
doing all right. You know, I think they're, you know, how do we kind of gauge that
in our kids against these these these four kind of topics that you're helping us
engage with.
Sissy Goff: That's a great question and I I think it is so fun for them to be
described through children's books because we are we would guess that the majority of
readers are not reading themselves but their parents are reading to them. Yeah. And
so the fact that it is creating connection and conversation as they're reading and
hopefully talking about these very issues together I think is gives the parent an
opportunity to do some empathy work, to do some modeling of these things,
to learn to ask questions. We have we have not only a therapeutic tool in each
book but we have conversation starters with kids so if that feels hard to know
where to start but I think to everything that we've been talking about I think the
idea that a child is learning to say this is what's happening inside of me yeah
this is what's happening inside of me this is why I feel it and here's what I can
do about it yeah and Sometimes what I can do is just like your kids, I feel all
this, but yeah, it really is small. Or I know, I love in the Owen book that it's
the analogy is Owen wanted to step backwards, but he learned to step forwards.
That I can feel these things, I can understand them, and I can still step forward
into purpose, into meaning, into connection with other people into whatever is in
front of me. That is an opportunity to grow and to learn.
David Thomas: And I think the only thing that I would add to that is I love the quote from
Frederick Douglass that says, "It's easier to build strong children than to repair
broken men." I think there's incredible wisdom in those words and I think it excites
the two of us to think about building these skills into the youngest of kids that
they would be practicing in these ways that they would be having these kind of
conversations with it with their parents and laying this foundation on this side of
development and I was thinking just as you were asking that question Allison I will
never forget a couple of years ago I was leading a group of second through with
great boys and one of the boys came to group that week and his parents over the
weekend had told he and his sister that they were getting a divorce and he was
reporting that to this little group of second and third grade boys and he started
crying his little voice cracked he started crying telling it and there was another
little boy who a year before had navigated that exact same transition and as this
little guy was trying to tell the group about what had happened. This other little
boy who lived that already started scooting closer and closer him. I don't think he
even knew that it was happening to where by the time the little boy finished his
reporting he was almost touching knee to knee and looked at this little guy and
said I remember when it happened to me and I promise you're gonna be okay. It
doesn't feel like that right now like I watch this beautiful interaction happen
between two elementary -aged boys and I had this thought midway through it thinking I
cannot even imagine the two of you as adult men like I started thinking 30 years
down the road and thinking to be practicing these things right now practicing empathy
practicing active listening practicing all these different emotional skills on the
front side how that's gonna inform who you are as men in the world, how it's gonna
shape your own marriages, how it's gonna flow out into your own experience of
parenting, so I think it's just that great reminder of the earlier we can teach
these skills, the more we can practice these skills on the front side of
development, I think it can be game changing for kids in their future relationships.
Alison Cook: I love it. I love, and I love the introduction, because I can even imagine as a
parent being, you know, if your kids struggling with something, you've read this book
and you're like, let's remember Owen, you know, Owen is, you know, or let's, you
know, what would Lucy, you know, that you're, you're, you've kind of got that, it
kind of removes the shame or, you know, it kind of brings in a playful to your
point, a playful way to kind of bring back those ideas and to help empower your
kids. I love it. You guys are doing so much good in the world to help parents
build these Strong kids. Are there other projects you have coming down the pipeline
that you can kind of tease for us or get us excited about? I know you guys are
always working on some some great projects
Sissy Goff: We definitely are always working on whatever we feel like the need is that's coming up with parents and kids We're seeing and and out of this concern about Anxiety out of this concern about the lack of resilience and to David's point, boys that are not getting their driver's license, I would say girls who are reaching out socially less than ever before, afraid to try and make friends. There just has been a almost, I mean, I think debilitating experience is probably too strong, but to some degree that feels true that kids are
not being, not only who, I think the grownups who love them know they can,
but what brings more confidence for them? They're not stepping into those places. And
so we just have become increasingly concerned about that. So there might just be
something for parents that really speaks to how to help your kids discover strengths,
skills, and strategies practically in their daily life no matter how old they are,
no matter what situation they're in that help them discover how capable they truly
are.
Alison Cook: I love that what you're doing is coming out of your lived experience on the
ground working with kids and parents. You're in the trenches, you're seeing, oh this
is what's going on, this is what needs addressing, and then you're creating resources
to reach so many people. It's so amazing. I'm so grateful. You too. Tell my listeners where they can find you and find the series and learn more about
your work and upcoming projects that you'll have too.
David Thomas: One way is we have a podcast called Raising Boys and Girls. We are just launching a season called Parenting Personalities. We're gonna talk about birth order,
extroversion, introversion, how the Enneagram informs parenting and attachment.
We just had an amazing guest, Dr. Allison Cook, and we want you to end for that
episode.
Alison Cook: That sounds like a great series.
David Thomas: RaisingBoysandGirls .com always is where you can find everything we're doing. And we also, on Instagram, @RaisingBoysandGirls in Sissy Goff are just trying to help in all
the ways, parents, kids, all the Thanks. - That's amazing. Well, we will link to
everything in the show notes. I'm so grateful that you're creating these resources.
Such a beautiful way to steward the talents and just the incredible work that you're
doing on the ground to help kids. So, so grateful for you both.
Thank you for your time.
So grateful, my gosh. - Thank you, Alison.
Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would
mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify,
Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts and click the plus or follow
button. That will ensure you don't miss an episode and it helps get the word out
to others. While you're there, I'd love it if you'd leave your five star review. I
look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday and remember, as You become the
best of who you are, you honor God, you heal others, and you stay true to your
God -given self.
In this episode, Dr. Alison is joined by counselor and podcast host Trey Tucker for an honest conversation about the rise of therapy culture online, the pitfalls of over-identifying with a diagnosis, and how parents can help kids build resilience instead of anxiety.
Together, they unpack:
- The rise of “TikTok Therapy”—what’s helpful about therapy content online and where it falls short.
- Why so many people are tempted to define themselves by a diagnosis—and how that can keep us stuck.
- The difference between true boundaries and emotional avoidance.
- Parenting without panic: how to model calm presence instead of passing anxiety on to the next generation.
- Why resilience, not fragility, is one of the greatest gifts we can offer our kids.
Alison and Trey bring different perspectives with a shared passion for nuance, honesty, and practical hope. It’s a refreshing, thought-provoking dialogue that will encourage you to think differently about therapy, identity, and how we show up in family life.
📚 Learn more about Trey’s work at www.ruggedcounseling.com
📥For more in-depth listening, check out his podcast, Rugged with Trey Tucker and his socials
📥 Grab your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here
📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.
More episodes you might like :
Episode 65:Vulnerability, Parenting, and Letting Go of Control—Inside A Guy’s Perspective With Our Friends From Dadville
Episode 66: The Truth About Anxiety & How to Become a Worry Free Parent with Sissy Goff
Episode 41: Boundaries With Fear And Anxiety—How to Calm the Chaos Within and the Joy of Internal Boundaries
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt — mentioned in the context of the impact of social media on kids and rising anxiety.
Boundaries for Your Soul by Alison Cook & Kimberly Miller — you referenced it when talking about IFS and faith integration.
Fathered by God by John Eldredge — Trey mentioned this when discussing father wounds and stages of a man’s life.
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
- Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
- Better sleep starts today! Get a birch mattress and test it out for 100 nights risk-free PLUS a discount for being a listener by visiting birchliving.com/BESTOFYOU.
- If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
- Head to cozyearth.com and use the code BESTOFYOU for 40% off!
Editing by Giulia Hjort
Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik
Music by Andy Luiten
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript
Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. I'm so glad you're here today for a conversation that I think so many of you are gonna find, both refreshing and challenging in the best possible way.
Today I'm joined by fellow therapist and podcast host Trey Tucker, and This episode's a little different than some I've done in the past. It's really just a conversation between two therapists. We take turns diving into some of the hot topics we've both been wrestling with. You'll hear us unpack the rise of therapy, speak on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, how it's helpful in some ways, but also where it's falling short.
We talk about the dangers of over identifying with a diagnosis, The nuance between real boundaries and emotional avoidance and why resilience not fragility is one of the greatest gifts we can offer the next generation.
And what I love about this conversation is Trey, number one is a guy. So he has a different perspective than I [00:01:00] do, but he also works primarily with young adults with Gen Z and young millennials. whereas my focus is primarily on women, and so it was a really fun conversation to just tackle some of these topics from our two different perspectives.
Trey is a licensed professional counselor educator and the host of the Rugged with Trey Tucker Podcast, where he shares mental health insights honesty and depth, especially for men and young adults.
His work blends experience from the education world, private practice and online spaces where he is helping reframe what it means to be emotionally healthy in a culture that often confuses comfort with healing.
this is one of those episodes where I genuinely forgot we were recording because the conversation was just so rich, and it was just so fun to bat some of these ideas back and forth with a fellow therapist.
I hope it speaks to you and encourages you and maybe even challenges you to think a little differently. Please enjoy my conversation with Trey Tucker.
INTERVIEW
Alison Cook: Tell me a little bit about, you're a therapist, you're in [00:02:00] Chattanooga. What does your life look like there? Family background, all the things.
Trey Tucker: Yeah, being a therapist is really fun. I actually came to it late in life. I kind of jumped mid-career. I started out in Educate. Well student. I started out in the corporate world. I was in marketing and then I learned a lot, but also learned it wasn't really fulfilling. So. I knew I wanted to really invest in people's lives on a one-on-one type of basis.
And so I switched over. I just, I started working in education. I was teaching and coaching and the students, I mean, almost from day one, they would just bring me a lot of just tough life struggles, and I was honored by the fact that they were, but. I always felt ill-equipped to really give 'em a, a solid answer.
And so at some point along the way, a few years into that, I just decided, all right, I'm going to get a counseling master's. And as you know, that's no small undertaking. So I was working full-time still, so I was doing the [00:03:00] part-time school thing to get the, the masters done. Now I still do a mixture of work in the education world and also in the private practice world.
And also all these videos and podcasts and things that, that tend to become the beasts that always wants to be fed as you know. So
Alison Cook: Yeah.
Trey Tucker: between that mix, it's, it's a really fun ride. Most mornings I wake up and it doesn't even feel right work that I'm getting ready to go do. It's just like I, I can't believe that I get paid for this.
Alison Cook: That's awesome. And do you. Yeah, so I actually started as teaching too. That's interesting. I went right into, I worked with adjudicated teens and I loved it as a teacher.
Trey Tucker:
Alison Cook: at a, a school for girls who were, there because they'd been essentially put there instead of going to jail.
I loved it. And so again, it was that blend of education, but also just. These tough situations, family stuff. Most of them, all came from terrible families. This was in Wyoming where I grew up. and then that just sparked my interest in [00:04:00] these dynamics. So I went and got my master's degree and then went on to do my PhD, which is in both psychology and religion.
'cause I was always toggling between the two. Right. Like, I think just like you and I'd love to hear more from you on that. you know, there's the spiritual dimension of healing, but then there's the psychological, but then I got into like clinical psychology and it felt very void. Of the spiritual dementia.
So I kind of flipped back to both end. And so I've always kind of tried to keep that. That's kind of the big thing I try to tie together, in what I do.
Trey Tucker: Yeah. do you tend to find yourself coming down one side or the other in terms of which you access more with a client?
Alison Cook: That's a good question. I don't see a lot of clients anymore, but whether with people, with clients in my own work, this is something I'd love to ask you. I can go back and forth. I can see issues with both. So in, in the faith world, I see the issues with. Over spiritualizing stuff, right?
That is trauma or family patterns or brain. but then in the [00:05:00] psychology world, I can get so frustrated with just what feels sort of, empty.
Trey Tucker: Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook: So focused on the individual. So focused on myself. And that was one thing I wanted to ask you. You know, we kind, especially in the social media world of therapy, where everybody's kind of.
speaking the language and sometimes I think, is this really got substance to it?
Trey Tucker: Uh, yeah, I, I'm glad you said that because I'm getting more and more fed up with it at first, especially the first probably couple years like. 2020 and then 21 22. I was thinking, all right, this is awesome. We're normalizing therapy and people are talking about their mental health and, and then the last year or two, frankly, I just noticed people.
Either becoming weak or staying weak and they're using therapy language as a way to stay stuck. the word fragile just keeps coming in on my mind as I see a lot of these videos of like, you know, you need to [00:06:00] cut off your parents 'cause they didn't give you everything you needed as a
child, or your friend wouldn't appreciate the fur measure of who you are. You just need to walk away. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like at what point did we expect. The real to be perfect and our parents to be perfect. And then our response is, well, I'm just gonna cut everybody off. I mean, that's a perfect recipe to stay weak.
So there's my little soapbox, but we can go any direction we want. What do you think though?
Alison Cook: Well, this is what I was kind of hoping for because looking at your account and looking at mine, there's definitely, we, we bring very different sort of energy. Maybe more male, more female energy, and yet. there's similar things that I see. The one that I see is the kind of, I am my diagnosis
Trey Tucker: Uh, yeah.
Alison Cook: as a, as a, well, it's just my anxiety or it's just this, and again, not that there aren't times and places for any of these things, right.
You and I both know this. And also it's almost like they, they become easy shortcuts and to me, I see it as very similar to what. What I [00:07:00] don't like simultaneously in the faith community where, where there could be some of these C cliche, oh, God just took it away. you know, that's sort of a magical fix that maybe happens in some instances, but the reality of
messiness, all this stuff is messy. I talk a lot about boundaries and then. At the one end, you know, it was so important for me to learn boundaries. And then on the same side, I see this, oh, that's just my boundary. And I'm like, I don't think that's a boundary. I think that's you putting up a brick wall and you don't wanna deal with something, you know?
Trey Tucker: Exactly. Hiding behind that brick wall and calling it a boundary,
Alison Cook: Yeah. Yeah.
Trey Tucker: The messiness for sure. I totally resonated with that. We, I've gotten better at showing my mess just in my own life. 'cause for a long time I just worked under the assumption that I need to look like I've got it all together, even though I know I don't have it all together.
And like that wasn't a mental health thing. That was just a kind of my own background thing. But as I became a therapist, I started realizing, wait a minute, I'm a mess. And if I show my clients at least a little bit of my mess, [00:08:00] then they're gonna be more likely to. Reciprocate and open up as well. And then it's, it's had that same effect in friendships and family and whatnot.
But yeah, we, we have to be willing to, to show our messiness and then tolerate it because like you said, if, if everything is just clear cut and black and white, nothing's ever gonna change.
Alison Cook: There's no perfect conversation. you know, so much of life is the rupture and then kind of trying to figure out how to come back to each other. So let's, I wanna get into vulnerability 'cause you talk a lot about that from a male perspective, and I think it's so interesting. Before we get there, let's close the loop on this sort of social media.
So, you create content, you. On there. You have a podcast, are you on TikTok? Or, or
Trey Tucker: I'm, I'm in the wild world of TikTok and Instagram and all that.
Alison Cook: so how do you, let's say, as a parent, and even for our listeners who are parents or for ourselves, who am I a kid that I never go down the, the TikTok Rabbit trail?
'cause I do. how do [00:09:00] you delineate healthy? And unhealthy, and how do you stay grounded in your own real messy life versus the social media version?
Trey Tucker: Yeah, it, it was tough at first because. When I first started making videos, I had no idea what I'm doing or what I was doing. I still don't have a great idea of what I'm doing, but at least I'm a little less of a rookie. And so it, it really became, almost an obsession. Like it took up almost all the real estate in my head of like, any conversation I would have or any article I would read, I would find my brain stuttering to try to filter it towards world.
How can I make the video? Yeah. You know,
Alison Cook: yes.
Trey Tucker: so over the last couple years there, I just realized like, not only was that not helping the content, it was mainly not helping me. I just felt like I was short tempered and tired all the time mentally. So now if I come up with an idea, I'll type it in a note in my phone and then I'll record it a whole lot less [00:10:00] formally than I used to do it.
And I'll care less if it does Well, and and as far as a parent, I mean. I'll tell you a story. You probably have something similar. I was in the grocery store about two months ago and I saw a daughter and her mom, the daughter looked to be around 14, 15 years old, a mom just walking around in front of her daughter on the phone, and I could tell the mom was watching some sort of, whether it's Instagram or TikTok, I don't know, but she was scrolling.
The daughter was not, and the mom continually was like. About to bump into stuff because she kept watching her phone and the the daughter said, ma, get off your phone and walk.
Alison Cook: Wow.
Trey Tucker: So we, as adults, we've gotta model it. We're brewing just as badly as teens are. And then so many parents they hand their kid a phone or some sort of device at such a young age, and that brings in all kinds of other horrific things like pornography.
But yeah, I think soon, very soon we're gonna realize. This stuff is gonna be like cigarettes ended up being in the fifties and sixties.
Alison Cook: [00:11:00] yeah, think there's a reason the Jonathan Hates book, the Anxious Generation has hits such a nerve. I, I dunno what you think about what he's saying or what he's,
Trey Tucker: fully agree?
Alison Cook: Yeah, what, what he's putting out there. But I, I think there's a reason so many of us are recognizing, I, I think to myself, I don't know how old you are.
I grew up before really the internet. I, I got the internet in college, you know, email. and I am so grateful. because I know the way my brain works and, and I think it's different legitimately for different people, I think it would've been excruciatingly hard for me as a young girl comparing myself to others.
I, it's hard enough now, I cannot imagine what it would've been before my brain was formed, and I'm just so grateful.
Trey Tucker: Oh, it'd be, it'd be horrific. I, I tell people, especially the students that I teach, it's like there is an amount of money that I would take to go back into my teenage years, but. It we're talking like hundreds of millions to go back into this culture being a teenager, because whether it's social media or [00:12:00] just other influences.
Yeah. The, the comparison trap is just horrendous and I, I, for a girl especially, I can't even imagine
Alison Cook: Yeah. Yeah. I think about it. I, I live in a small town here most of the year. We live in the town. I grew up in Wyoming. In, there's something about a small town where there's still that sense of there's dignity in just a certain job working at a restaurant, being a postman, you know, I used to work at the local restaurant and there was like dignity in it and there's a place of belonging in an embodied community where it's like, oh, I see you.
I, I know you and, and I do this, and you do this. And together we make this community. Run. And, and there's this sort of togetherness in that, where everybody kinda has a place no matter what you're doing, you know, whether you're the mayor of town or whether you're, you know, I don't know, whatever.
And, I feel like that's what gets lost when you're comparing yourself to the globe.
Trey Tucker: right. Yeah. our brains were never designed to know what was going on in all [00:13:00] over the globe at any given moment. I mean, you're talking about a source of anxiety that that alone causes plenty. I.
Alison Cook: Yes, yes,
Trey Tucker: But the, the smaller town vibe, I'm, I'm jealous of you. 'cause I personally think that's really how we were all wired to live. I don't know if it was John Eldridge or somebody, he really mapped this out in a longer way. But the gist of it is he, he thinks we should all be still living in small villages of about a hundred to 150 people. Where relationships happen, like you're talking about, and everybody has a dignified royal and is seen and valued just because.
Everything is more manageable instead of just overwhelmed all the time.
AD BREAK I
Alison Cook: all right, Trey, switching gears, Are you trained in IFS or familiar with IFS?
Trey Tucker: I love IFSI, knew about it as a therapist, I was already trained in other things like CBT and e, MDR R and all the alphabets. But I always looked at IFS as this weird little thing where you have to like talk to things inside of you. Like, I'm not doing that. But [00:14:00] I got to a point in my own anxiety where I was like.
Ain't nothing else working. And I know a lot of tools that should be working. And so I went to a therapist who was trained in IFS as basically like a last resort, and it has changed my life. So ever since then, I've tried to get more and more training. 'cause I, I want people to experience what I've done through it.
So I'm assuming you're as well.
Alison Cook: I should send you a copy. So I wrote co-wrote Boundaries for Your Soul,
Trey Tucker: Oh, that's flying.
Alison Cook: adaptation of IFS. This's done pretty well among Christian therapists. So yes, I am familiar with it. It's really the heartbeat of everything I do, and it was it, to me, it was that perfect integration of.
Faith. 'cause we, we brought in, in IFS as you know, you know, the self is the center and we, brought in, we call it the spirit led self. The place where you collide with the spirit of God, with God's spirit. Right. That's where, it was just so life changing for me.
'cause I was like, oh, this is where it all comes [00:15:00] together.
Like a part of me, loves being a therapist. A part of me is constantly pushing against therapy. a part of me, loves church and a part of me sometimes is like, Ugh, I don't like what they're saying.
You know, it just kind of made sense of all of
Trey Tucker: Yep.
Alison Cook: Kind of competing kind of aspects to me, and they're all part of me. And so It's just a way to understand more of how we're made in the image of God, which means we're really unique and parts of us get hurt, and that doesn't mean that all of us is hurt.
Trey Tucker: Do you think it's accurate to say that IFS from a spiritual perspective takes us a little bit in a positive way back to a Genesis two, like pre Genesis three, pre fall kind of a look at ourselves,
Alison Cook: I never thought about it that way, but when people talk about, the heavy emphasis on original sin, I do always think to myself, but when God first made us, we were good. And I do think it's who we will become. when we're finally on the other [00:16:00] side, but, and we're not there yet, but there are glimmers of it.
And so, we kind of go through in Boundaries for Your Soul. When we go through that section, we talk about, , you know, in John 14 where Jesus says, I'm leaving you, but I'm leaving you with a comforter, a counselor who will come to be with you, who will come to live in you, which is the spirit. And so that becomes this. There is a place inside. Where suddenly we can connect to
Trey Tucker: Yeah.
Alison Cook: a glimpse of that truest version of ourself. That's the hope, right?
Trey Tucker: Right, right. Okay. That's helpful. I'm gonna use that. I'll give you credit. I promise.
Alison Cook: Well, I, um,
I would love to hear from you as a guy—tell me a little bit more about your journey with anxiety and how that really unlocked things for you.
Because I get questions from listeners often. a lot of my listeners are love, Incorporated parts language, even if they've never done, you know, IFS therapy. But, how [00:17:00] do I help my, especially like my spouse understand this, I have mostly female listeners, or even my sons understand this.
So I'd love to hear your perspective on that.
Trey Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. Anxiety. I'm thankful for it. Both. Its positive traits and not so pleasant traits because I see now that it's actually trying to help me and I'm thankful for the unpleasant parts of it because it gives me more of an empathy for my clients who also have it, and, and it can be so, so uncomfortable.
And when I first started dealing with it, I. I was not a therapist, so I had really no tools. So I basically treated the anxiety as the enemy. Like, this is, this thing's trying to attack me, so I'm gonna hit it back. And, and then I would start to beat myself up for it. Like, why can't I just get rid of this stuff?
And I'd even, we alize it, like you mentioned earlier, like the won't be anxious for nothing. That's what Paul says. So, and that's, that's a whole nother soap box. But, it culminated. Into my first couple years of actually being a therapist, and I [00:18:00] still had it in my head. That anxiety was the enemy.
I don't think I would've said it like that, but that's, that's how I approached it with clients. And I think I gave them some short term relief, but I never was able to really help 'em get to the root issue. And then my own struggles with the anxiety internally kept coming up.
So I'm like, alright. Something's not working. I need, you know, the whole phrase, nothing changes. If nothing changes. I'm not very smart, but I'm at least smart enough to know I need to change an approach if it ain't working. So I thought, alright, I'll give this IFS thing a shot, even though it's the weirdest concept I've ever heard of, but I tell you where it helped me risk that that movie, uh, inside out.
Alison Cook: Yes.
Trey Tucker: And I'm normally not a cartoon watcher, but like when I saw that, I'm like, oh, okay, if you could look at emotions like this, then a couple things could be true. Number one, they're trying to help, they're just kind of misguided sometimes, and number two, they're not me, so I don't have to beat myself up for it.
So it's like I'm not my [00:19:00] anxiety, I'm not my thoughts. It's these other parts in me that think they're helping So in terms of mild own anxiety, yeah, One of my wounds, or like injuries that I talk about is the thought is not good enough and forgotten. Like, those two thoughts from past moments have been kind of the messages that have tried to stick around in me.
And thanks to IFS, those, don't weigh on me nearly as much anymore. But when I start to get anxious or some other, not so healthy emotion, then I start realizing like, okay. something's hitting this, bruise
you know, if somebody hits the bruise that we already have, physically, we're gonna overreact to that 'cause there's already pain. So anyway, long story short, IFS helped me realize, okay, I can actually connect to this little thing in there that's pumping the anxiety and.
it took a long time 'cause there was so much skepticism and so much brain fog. But when I finally did connect with that part, I realized like, dang, this thing is [00:20:00] working overtime and, is very exhausted trying to help me out by scanning for possible things that might cause me more pain like I'd experienced in the past.
And it, it really like broke my heart in a good way for that part. 'cause it, it seemed like a little 5-year-old toddler that. Was really trying to do its best, but just didn't know any better, but it was working its tail off trying to help.
Alison Cook: That's beautiful. You talk a little bit, I know in some of your content about father wounds.
Trey Tucker: mm-hmm.
Alison Cook: Is that come out of your own experience and how do you describe that for others?
Trey Tucker: Yeah, the answer to my own story is yes, and it's in everybody's story because just like we talked about a few minutes ago. Nobody got a perfect parent. Nobody got a perfect dad. Nobody got a perfect mom. And so the wins are gonna happen. Like, sorry, it's just a question of which ones are you gonna get.
And thankfully I had awesome [00:21:00] parents and as awesome as there were, there were still gaps. 'cause my dad's dad left the family when my dad was 10 years old. And so he never really had a model for like. Not just how to be a dad, but just how to grow into a man. And so he picked up a lot of, knowledge and skills along the way from mentors who invested into him.
But inevitably, there were still some parts that were kind of unfinished in him. And Any unfinished parts in us are gonna get passed along to how we treat our kids or the people around us. So, yeah, I, I've got my own father wounds and a book that really opened my eyes to this is called Fathered by God.
it's also by John Eldridge. And I, would encourage women to read it as well, but it's really written for men because it, takes you through the stages of a man's life from brain hood. All the way through the elderly years. And it talks about like, here are the things that really ideally should happen to a boy as he becomes a man in each of these stages.
And most of the things that should happen to us [00:22:00] have to do with our father investing in us in some way. And so he also talks about the inevitable moments where a dad. is, you know, slightly imperfect or as as extreme as left the family altogether. And he shows, okay, here's how you can get what you missed out on from your relationship with God the father.
'cause ultimately, he's the perfect dad and we're his kids. And if we can let him father us, both as sons and as daughters, that's really what's gonna make us whole. So that's the. The gist of my journey, but I notice it in every single, person that I get deep enough with, but especially every client is there's at least a parent wound, partially responsible for whatever they're struggling with in the moment.
Alison Cook: I love how you're talking about it. I can tell just in this conversation, you and I share a sort of, really genuine longing for nuance because
Trey Tucker: Hmm.
Alison Cook: Right. It is true that we all have parent wounds. We just do. there's [00:23:00] no perfect family and that's also not to lay blame.
Trey Tucker: Right.
Alison Cook: I know my kids are gonna come to me, you know?
they do. I think that's part of where the health lies, right? Is, they're like why did you just say that? Or you just broke a B, you know? And I'm like, oh, right. You know, like,
Trey Tucker: Using those words against you, huh?
Alison Cook: just cannot. Be there at every moment and it is, you know, when you were talking about IFS and then you're talking about God, it, to me that was so much the power similarly for me is it took away blame.
I don't have to get this from my parents because I can now. Connect to the part of me that didn't make the basketball when I was in seventh grade and felt so ashamed and felt like I'll never be good enough and I'll never be chosen and I can find that part of me and God. there is a way to that part of me that, that no imperfect human.
could reach and, that's just the reality of this [00:24:00] journey. so I really relate to a lot of what you're saying with all of that.
Trey Tucker: the nuance is key. 'cause like you said, if, if we allow ourselves to stay in blame, what we're really implicitly saying is that we're expecting earth to be heaven. And if earth is perfect in heaven, then we don't really need heaven. So like, I don't know, sorry, earth ain't perfect news flash. So even, even atheists who I think would, would agree with that statement, we got, we got some problems here.
So since it's broken, we can't expect. Perfection from other people.
Alison Cook: And so this gets at resilience, and you
Trey Tucker: Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook: talked earlier about this idea of fragility.
we have to be able to live in a world that will hurt us. How do you, and what's on your heart and what do you want people to know, whether it's your clients, whether it's listeners and all the work that you do about that?
Trey Tucker: Yeah. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. 'cause sometimes, I think I come across maybe too strong on it, but I keep reminding [00:25:00] people, you can handle this. And even if you can't fully handle this right now, you can build your strength to the point that you can eventually handle it. I come from a sports world and a weightlifting kind of world.
So for example, if, if I'm trying to. Back squat, 400 pounds, that's too much for me. Like I will collapse under that weight. But if I start with 200 pounds and slowly increase my ability to handle the weight little by little, then eventually I'll be able to handle 400 pounds. So I, I can do it.
It's not something that I can just, I need to walk away from forever. And I think handling challenges in life is the same way. It's like, yeah, it might be too heavy for you right now, but yeah. Just keep coming at it. 'cause you got the ability, you just gotta pull that ability out little by little.
But what's your vernacular for that?
Alison Cook: I love how you're saying it, and I, I hope you keep saying it, I heard a story and I can't remember where I heard it but it was a woman talking [00:26:00] about how her daughter was struggling and they were trying to get her into therapy. And I hear this all the time. I've gotta get my kid into therapy, and I, I have thoughts about that, that I'll, I'll set aside for now about kids in therapy, but.
And someone said to her, I wonder if she needs to get into a sport.
Trey Tucker: Mm. Yes.
Alison Cook: I don't think this is, I think sometimes the kid does need therapy, and that's not exactly what you're saying, but there are lots of ways we build those muscles to piggyback on your metaphor.
And one of them is for someone to get in there and, and help us see the parts of ourselves that, that have been broken and that are fragile and that need care and another way. Is to kind of build those muscles through life as a contact sport
Trey Tucker: Absolutely.
Alison Cook: the hard thing and to your point, not in a, don't throw yourself into something you cannot handle,
Trey Tucker: Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook: but to.
Walk into something that's gonna challenge you a little bit, that's gonna test you a little bit, that is [00:27:00] gonna be scary a little bit to see, oh my gosh, I can do it. And I do think that's that balance that we need in this, especially from our end, where there is a almost too quick, I gotta get my kid into therapy.
Trey Tucker: Yes.
Alison Cook: I, I, find myself sometimes like, again, I wanna be really clear for the listener. I think sometimes it a really great therapist can be helpful for your kid. And also, oh man, I don't know. There is another side to that. So I appreciate your speaking into that.
AD BREAK II
Trey Tucker: well I'm glad you said it about, therapy being helpful but not necessarily the right time or thing for a particular circumstance. 'cause you tell me what you think about this, but especially in a teenager if a parent talks to me about the option of therapy, one of my first.
The question slash suggestions is, alright. First, do they have any sort of community involvement, whether it's a sport or instrument where they're part of a band or something bigger than themselves that they're a part of and have to be relational and [00:28:00] work. Like you're saying, we're through difficulty building a skill, and number two, do they have anything where they're having to serve?
This doesn't necessarily have to be community service officially, but something like that, because I'm sure you've seen, how much research there is about that service is really one of the things that grows us the quickest at any age, but especially for a teen before they just dive into therapy. I wanna know those two things.
Alison Cook: Yeah, that's a really good, those are really helpful. I think for me, I'm looking at the parent and I'm thinking to myself, can the parent be a resource to kind of anchor the child as the child is, stepping into some of these
I wanna work with the parent to help equip the parent to help the child navigate what's hard. At the same time, I understand there are situations where the parent can't. And that's where then I see the therapist coming in, whether it's one parent, where that [00:29:00] therapist can come in as sort of the co-parent. or where the parents are just not able to do it and for whatever reason the therapist is kind of helping the kid navigate.
And so that's kind of how I've looked at it, is I don't think it should be a substitute. A therapist can be really helpful, but they're still not pulling the kid out of the hard things, they're empowering and equipping the, child, to navigate the hard thing. So I, I never wanna do it apart from parents. I always wanna do it kind of understanding the whole system there.
Trey Tucker: Yeah, I love that. What do we do in those situations when the parent almost can't help themselves but pull their kid out of a struggle?
Alison Cook: and to me, that then becomes a conversation with the parent you know, some education around, what they need most is to [00:30:00] know that you can be with them and you are not gonna buckle or fold during their hard time.
Trey Tucker: Yeah. Yeah.
Alison Cook: 'cause so often it's the parent's anxiety, you know, I can't handle it, that my kid isn't X, y, and Z.
And it's, well, then the kid's anxiety's really spiking 'cause they already feel it and then they feel yours.
Trey Tucker: Yeah. Responsible for Kim people.
Alison Cook: yeah. So try to help the parent be like, I get that this is hard. I hate it with you. when do I need to intervene? You know, if you're being bullied mercilessly at school, when do I need to advocate for you?
You know? When do I need to be that safe place when you come home and be like, you did it. You made it through another tough day, and I will be here every single day because I'm okay. You know? I think so often that's, the work for the parent, and You know, for me that's always been a tricky one.
I'm always wanting help the parent. 'cause I, I do gets back to what we were talking about. I do think it's such an important role. It's not everything, we're not [00:31:00] gonna be perfect, but the more we can grow, boy, that's what our kids need the most, is that we're gonna be okay. You know? And that 'cause that's what God, God doesn't always save us.
Out of everything. Right? But God is always right there going, I'm here. I'm not leaving. I see how brave you're being. I know it's hard, you know, you can come back to me. I'll heal your wound. I'll give you a big hug, and then we're gonna send you back out tomorrow. You know? I mean, there's a little bit of that back and forth that we have to learn as parents.
Trey Tucker: yeah, yeah, man. You're good at this. I, it's almost like you need to write a book or something, and I'm glad you're, working with parents so intently on that, because one of the things I've noticed when a parent pulls their kid out of a struggle, the message that gets sent to the kid is, you can't handle this.
Alison Cook: I know.
Trey Tucker: the parent would never say that verbally. But that's, that's the implied thing, is like, you can't handle it. Only I can. So sorry. You don't have what it takes and you're gonna [00:32:00] have to keep relying on me forever.
Alison Cook: So how do you, I know you do a lot of work with young adults. . .
Trey Tucker: Mm-hmm. I do, yeah. Most, of the people in their twenties and early thirties, and that's, it's such a, such a tough age range. I,I personally think that for a man, especially that age 22, 23 is at least one of the. Toughest times in his life, if not the toughest, because especially if he's gone to college, everything has changed his, his city has changed.
He's no longer a student. So part of his identity has changed, his friend group changed. His routine is changing. He's having to adjust to really the first real job and all the different pressures and expectations that come with that. So it is just a. Torrential downpour of new stuff to have to either move on from or adjust to.
And so often they come to me just struggling to, pivot and figuring out, uh, who am I now? And like, what do I do next? So it, that's my favorite age to work [00:33:00] with.
Alison Cook: and what are some of the things you're seeing? So you're kind of with Gen Z, some young millennials. What are, what are some of your, the things you're seeing that give you concern and also the things that give you hope?
Trey Tucker: Yeah, the, we'll start with concerns and get those outta the way. 'cause I think the concerns are pretty much universal, to the age, but maybe a little more emphasized in the twenties, is that they were the first generation to. spend a pretty decent amount of time of their youth having phones, if not in their hands, but in front of them.
And so a lot of my concern is not everybody here, but a lot of people at that age have a, I hate to say it, but a lack of ability to just talk face to face and. Connect and stick through maybe some of the awkward, silent moments of a conversation without immediately reaching for the phone to bail 'em out of the awkwardness.
general social skills is one of 'em. there is a. More of a self-focus, I think partly because of some of the therapy language that you were talking about earlier, like it's all about [00:34:00] self-love and your truth and all that. Like think that rubs off even in people that don't realize it.
But I also notice on the positive end, they can see through BS really quickly, I think, quicker than people in their thirties, forties, and up. And because of that, they see the cultural lie that is this whole hustle culture, and you gotta be rich by 25.
Like they'll fall for it for a little bit, but somewhere in those early twenties they realize like this. This is empty, this doesn't actually do what it's claiming to do. So they want a purpose and they, realize that there's a calling on their life and they're, really passionate about trying to discover that.
So those things gimme a lot of hope. But do you work with a change at all, or is it more in the thirties and up?
Alison Cook: Not as much, which is why I'm curious. you know, my own kids are in their twenties, so I get a little window through them, but also I get it through just my own forays and the reality television or, you know, whatever you're kind of seeing out there. and I just, I, I don't like,
[00:35:00] stereotypes and also I, I know from my own IFS work and my own work, boy was I not quite ready and still forming. And we know this from brain research between like 20 and 26.
Trey Tucker: Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook: I mean, how much I still needed guidance and you're making major decisions.
Trey Tucker: Yeah. Maybe the biggest decisions in.
Alison Cook: I mean, and you're just expected to kind of hit 18 and go to college and be ready for all of this. And so the fact that you're stepping into that gap is just beautiful. To me, that's like a perfect time to, to go see a, a therapist or to kind of make sure you have that connection to someone a little bit older and wiser.
It's, it's so smart.
Trey Tucker: definitely. What do you notice with the folks you work with the most?
Alison Cook: I think some of what we're saying with the moms, it's the getting on top of our own. Stuff, our own [00:36:00] anxiety that, so we're differentiated from the stuff our kids are going through because so often, especially my generation, we're kind of now doing the inner work and going, oh, the anxiety I feel.
Is separate and different from the anxiety they feel. And so I've gotta do that work inside of me so that I can be this calm presence that's not reactive or not over parenting. Right. because we got a little bit more of the.
The CNA not heard childhood. Right. The, the less emotionally attuned, and there's pros and cons to that, right. You know, I grew up, again, we can celebrate the old days, you know, we're out in the streets until dark and nobody's checking on us, And there is a beauty in that.
And also there isn't as much, wasn't as much of that emotional attunement through the hard times. Right. So then we come in as parents and we're attuning to everything.
Trey Tucker: Right.
Alison Cook: Right. It's just so [00:37:00] fascinating, right. The cycles
and like it's actually what our kids need is for us to just be like, you're fine.
You know, like, you're gonna be okay, you know, uh, to some degree or another, you know, not to overstate it, but, so that's a little bit more of the always trying to help discern, you know, when it, when do I need to step in and when. these are just some growing pains and I'm here and I see it.
And also, you know, so it's, it's more that kind of thing. So, you know, I tell you what, just this conversation makes me realize how much we really all need to stay in conversation with each other. We need
Trey Tucker: Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's the biggest battle against the screens, is the screens are keeping us isolated and we were built for connection.
Alison Cook: Yeah. just this conversation with you has really, enriched, um, makes me feel like I see things more clearly and all that will trick out into the work that I'm doing. So I'm, I'm really grateful.
Trey Tucker: Me too. Same here with you. I'm glad we're gonna fight the wrong side each other. 'cause you, you're bringing perspectives and ways of saying [00:38:00] things that I hadn't thought of. So let, let's keep this going.
Alison Cook: I hope my listeners will come find you and maybe you could tell us where, folks, you know, can find you and they can listen to both of us and get different perspectives, but also a lot of like-mindedness.
Trey Tucker: Yeah, totally like-minded. I think we're saying the same thing, but just with different vernacular, so I want,my folks to connect with you as well. So on my side of the things at Rugged Counseling is the handle on pretty much everything, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. All the things.
I've got, a podcast as well. I'm a rookie at it. I know you're, much more skilled at it than I am, and so I'm, I'm trying to get to, to your level at it, so it's out there too if people wanna see that. what's the podcast called?
Trey Tucker: it's called Rugged with Trades Hacker. I just, I'm a simple dude, so I just try to keep it all simple in names too,
Alison Cook: I think it's great. And this has just been a. [00:39:00] delight. I'm just so grateful we got to connect in this way.
Trey Tucker: Me too. This has been awesome. How about my week right here. Thank you so much for your time.
Alison Cook: Thank you, Trey.
What does it take to make the church a safer place for women’s voices?
This week Dr Alison is joined by husband-and-wife therapists Dr. Christy Bauman and Dr. Andrew Bauman, who are doing groundbreaking work at the intersection of women’s stories, embodiment, and spiritual safety. Together, they offer both prophetic challenge and practical hope for how we can build healthier faith communities.
In the first half of the episode, Christy takes us into the sacred rites of passage women experience, highlighting women’s voices in the Bible. In the second half, Andrew shares from his extensive research, offering a vision for safe churches where power is shared, voices are honored, and healing is possible.
Together, Christy and Andrew model what’s possible when men and women work side by side for change.
You’ll learn:
- The six symbolic rites of passage women experience over a lifetime—and why reclaiming them matters
- How Christy helps women see their bodies as sacred places of dignity and spiritual depth
- The results of their research with 2,800+ women who work in church settings
- A vision for churches where power is shared and women’s voices are truly honored
A note of care: This episode includes sensitive topics such as pornography, domestic violence, and harm related to women’s bodies. Please listen gently and step away if you need to.
📕 Learn more from Christy and Andrew:
Christy Bauman’s Book: Her Rites: Women’s Rites of Passage, A Sacred Journey for Mind, Body, and Soul
Andrew Bauman’s Book: Safe Church: How to Guard Against Sexism and Abuse in the Church
📥Free Resources from Christy:
- Body Map PDF
- Theology of the Womb Video Course (use code: TOTWcomp)
Learn more about their work at the Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health & Trauma
📥 Grab your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here.
📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.
Here are related episodes you might like:
Episode 48: Loving Your Body as a Spiritual Practice, Why the Flesh Isn't the Body, and 3 Heresies We Kind of Believe
Episode 11: How to Start Loving Your Body with Christy Meeks
Episode 126: Restoring Wonder & Play in Intimacy - Navigating Sexual Brokenness, Safety, and Vulnerability with Therapist Sam Jolman
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
Thanks to our Sponsors!
- Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
- Better sleep starts today! Get a birch mattress and test it out for 100 nights risk-free PLUS a discount for being a listener by visiting birchliving.com/BESTOFYOU.
- If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.
- For 20% off your order, head to Reliefband.com and use code BESTOFYOU.
Editing by Giulia Hjort
Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik
Music by Andy Luiten
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.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. Today's episode is one I've been looking forward to sharing for a while now. It's two back-to-back conversations with a husband and wife team whose work is challenging, harmful norms and helping men and women move toward deeper emotional, spiritual, and relational health.
Today's episode is a little different than what you've heard on the podcast before. In the first conversation I talked with Dr. Christy Bauman. Christy takes us into the lived realities of women's bodies, from menstruation to menopause, infertility to aging, and she reclaims these life cycles as sacred rites of passage.
She helps us see the wisdom and spiritual depth embedded in each season, and she offers practical ways to reconnect with our bodies as places of dignity agency and God given worth. And then in the second conversation, Christy's husband, Dr. Andrew Bauman, also a therapist, shares from his own journey as a former pastor and now therapist, including his early struggles with pornography, his research with nearly 3000 women about their experiences in the church and his call for leaders to confront harmful messages about women, spiritual abuse and misuse of power.
He offers a vision for safe churches, rooted in the example of Jesus, where power is shared, voices are honored and healing is possible for everyone. I wanted to air these two conversations together because they offer such distinct, yet beautifully complimentary perspectives on the same urgent issue, how to make the church a safer place for women's voices in particular.
Side by side, their insights reveal not only the problem of how women's voices have been silenced, but also the power of what happens when men and women work together to create meaningful change. And when I had each of these conversations with Christy and Andrew, it just struck me how beautiful it is that they're doing this work together as a married couple, as a team, and in a culture where it's so easy for one gender to villainize the other, right?
It's so easy for men to villainize women or for women to villainize men. I just found their partnership in tackling this important issue as such a refreshing reminder of what's possible when we learn to listen and honor and work together for the good of all. Before we begin, a quick note in these conversations, we do discuss sensitive topics including pornography, domestic violence, and experiences of harm related to women's bodies.Please take care while listening and step away if you need to.
Together, Dr. Christy and Dr. Andrew Bauman co-direct the Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health and Trauma, where they lead intensives, workshops and retreats for individuals, couples, and groups. Christie is the author of Her Rites: Women's Rites, a Passage, A Sacred Journey From Mind, body, and Soul.
And as you'll hear in today's episode, she's offering my listeners some free guides based on her work that we'll link to in the show notes. Andrew Bauman is the author of Safe Church, how to Guard Against Sexism and Abuse in the Church. It's based on his extensive research featuring the voices of nearly 3000 women about their everyday experiences in faith communities.
Please enjoy my conversations with Chrisy and Andrew Bauman.
Alison Cook: Christie, I would love to just learn more about the why behind your life's work. You've spent so much time not only working one-on-one. As a clinician, but just really digging into some key ideas, especially as it relates to the body and women's bodies in particular. What originally motivated you and what still drives you to keep doing this work?
Christy Bauman: I do love that question because it is what I wake up with every day, which is a female body, and so much of what I do in my career has been based on the story that God gave me, and mostly the body to be formed in the Imago day, but to be female is quite an interesting journey. Well, it has been for me because I grew up in southern rural Louisiana, and the idea that.
You were a female who wanted to love God and serve God, and I felt called to preach the gospel, like there was something in me that was such a storyteller and this story of Jesus. I was so ready to tell the story. And one of my favorite moments was when I learned that the first person Jesus revealed himself to was the woman at the well.
And that she ran from him saying, I'm going to tell your story to everyone. And he said, I was really hoping you would do that. And so I wasn't really under the impression that I could be a disciple. The 12 disciples as I grew up, they were all men. And every part of the story, every pastor I knew was male.
And while I wasn't necessarily sad about that, I didn't know where I belonged in this female body. And it put me on a long journey of, Lord, is there something you want me to be particular about in how I use the feminine that is within me to bring your story to the world? And so. You know, a lot of that before I was in grad school was just looking at theology around women's stories in the Bible.
And so even Eve, she's not made from dust like Adam, she's made from bone. And so we are struck just from the very beginning that there's a difference in the makeup of her body. And as we look at the stories of the women in the Bible, we see that they were about the business of the body. Whether that was about birthing or burying, there is something in the continuation that they understood the body.
So then as I went to grad school and started to understand psychology and women's wellbeing and women's psychological wellbeing and spiritual wellbeing, I started to realize that we can't leave the body out for the female.
Alison Cook: It's so interesting to listen to you because even in science, our daughter is starting out on a journey into medical school, right?
And there's such an absence of research, specifically we're seeing in this, in menopause research about women's bodies. Because so much of the scientific research in the medical community has been done by men and on men's bodies as if they're the same. And I remember hearing a woman, she's at Stanford, and I cannot remember for the life of me right now, what her title is, but she's talking about fitness and wellness.
And her quote is, women are not small men, they're different. And so the things that apply to men, especially even if you think about the wellness space, which is so different from what you and I are talking about today. Similarly, if we apply what works for men's bodies, for females, it's different. And so I'm intrigued by what you're saying 'cause there's sort of almost this absence of information and knowledge and deep and meaningful understanding, and I really appreciate that you're speaking directly into that space in this realm of both psychology and theology.
Christy Bauman: It was so helpful to go down that avenue and really to start to look at the mind and the bodies and the hormones of women and the life cycle of women to understand that we are different and that we need to know the difference.
It's helpful to us, like it's actually a gift that we are different.
Alison Cook: So let's talk about it a little bit. There's two aspects of your work I think is really interesting and I'd love for you to kind of dig in for us. One is this idea of the six symbolic rites of passage that women experience over a lifetime and how those kind of help us understand embodied healing.
I think that's really interesting, but then also just on a broader scale, you talk about life cycles in general and how we all go through cycles of life and how that's kind of something none of us is very good at. There is a winter in all of our lives, but how that particularly maps onto these six rites of passage for women. Could you talk a little bit about what those are and how they help us understand not only our bodies, but our emotions and our spiritual lives?
Christy Bauman: Yes, and it's so much to talk about. It is always hard for me to condense it. We as women have very little time and we don't slow down and spend as much time on our bodies, but I do think we serve a God who created us, demanding us to slow down for our own wellbeing and our own health.
And I think as we look at the changing leaves or look at the amount of time the sun is out or the darkness is out, it's God's invitation to us to slow down into the season that we're in. And that constitutes with the age of our children or the age of our marriage. And when we actually get into those particularities.
There's nowhere better to be than right where you are. And the healthiest Jew is actually very clear, like God was kind in making not just a liturgical calendar, but a calendar for us in the world based on our age and our story and our life circumstance, and the seasons of the place we live and the seasons that our own family or whatever we're creating in our story is at.
And so I always begin with story work. You can't do body work before you've done story work. We can see that in the Bible. It's always a story told. And then when we close the Bible and we close that story, we apply it to our bodies and where we are in our current life. And so the rites of passage that I wrote is psychologically a really old model.
It's an old model of understanding that we have a first breath and we have a last breath. Each one of us and only you and I will have our first breath and our last breath. No one else is going to share that with us. And those are the bookends of the rites of passage. So we start with birthright. Then we end with Legacy.
The next one after birthright is we are initiated. So usually for the female, it's when she bleeds for the first time. It's when she is kissed for the first time. It's those coming of age moments where she knows something that she didn't know prior. She was naive too, and then she tasted of something and she had knowledge in a way that initiated her into knowing.
So there's a sense of where our body from First Breath is. Then adolescing, it's growing up.
Alison Cook: I wanna pause and double click on this for one second. Christie, I hear so many stories from women in particular. It's so interesting that you're talking about this as a rite of passage. I have such a complicated relationship with that in my own life.
There's so much shame around it, and I hear so many women talk about that being a time when maybe parents disappeared. Dads didn't know what to do, backed off psychologically. We do see that often when parents don't know how to be present to that particular rite of passage for a young girl. And I know the same could be told about boys.
We're just talking about women here because I know like Sam Jman has done some great work with boys and how important that is. But I hear that story, you know, it's like my dad just didn't know what to do with me, so he was just gone. And that was heartbreaking to me. So I just kind of wanna pause there. It's not just biological. It's such a psychologically and spiritually crucial moment for young girls.
Christy Bauman: Well, and the process of letting go and leaving, it's very vulnerable. And so when we're birthed and we take our first breath, and that's the first time we're outside of our mother's body and her care and her protection.
And so initiation is when our little bodies start to try something on. And it's often where harm and neglect happens, and sometimes abuse, right? Because it's such a vulnerable precipice of time and we don't have the knowledge yet in our own bodies. And if we have a parent who doesn't know how to come alongside or is distracted, so a lot in initiation, I will ask a question.
Is the first time you bled who was around to help you understand that? Where was your mother? Or what did it look like around that story of your bleeding? Because bleeding is such a vulnerable thing and. Here, women are being invited to understand, okay, now I have a body that bleeds and I have to tend to this body.
How do I do that? And there's so much shame and embarrassment around it, and there's so much a sense of covering it up. Just flush it down the toilet, just cover it and go and do what you need to get yourself clean. We've missed so much biblically and psychologically with helping girls who are becoming women understand that this is actually the work for them, for the rest of their life, that this is actually going to lead them into creation.
So you are so right that these stories are usually where evil marks us, because we are so vulnerable, they're vulnerable junctures
Alison Cook: That's so well stated. So what comes next?
Christy Bauman: Then the right of exile, which means that you get left alone. So every woman has known, once she realizes that her body is hers sharing it becomes complex.
And so whether that's with friendship, whether that's in relationship with someone, whether that's with how she's starting to leave her parents and their safety, or that they've already left her, whatever the story looks like. The right of exile is a rite of passage where we've all known what it means to be put in the desert rejection or being left alone where it's us and God in a desert, and we are waiting on his voice to come to us.
And do all women go through that as a sort of rite of passage? Well, historically, yes. There was always a season in which you were sent to the desert. You know, Jesus' story of being in the wilderness and the fasting and where he's tempted. It's the same for the female. She is in the desert and she is trying to figure out what to do with knowing God's voice and her own voice.
She will hear the voice of her mother, whether that's good or bad. She will hear the voice of those jealous of her or who have envied her. She'll hear the voice of being abandoned, or you are by yourself and you find yourself. And then we know when that is done that we are then invited to the rite of creativity or creation.
But it's part of that process that every woman will know that she starts out with her first breath, and that's when she is given a birthright. And then initiation is the first time she bleed. And then exile, is that part of her where she's finding herself.
And then the rite of creation is, what does it mean to break open your body to birth something? I am impregnated with an idea. I birth my podcast. I birth a book that I've written. I birth a physical child that I want to have some dream that she has because we are co-creators. God was really different with women than he was with men when he made us physical co-creators. And we bear life in our womb and we bear the ability to create.
And so that breaking of our body open is the rite of creation. It's understanding how do we break our body open. To create life unto something and knowing that if we follow the women in the Bible, women who are at tombs, so it's like Risa and Abigail who were wives of Saul and they had their sons crucified against their will, and they had to care for their children's bodies after they were crucified.
And so their story in the Bible is a huge one where women are asked to do something when death comes upon the scene. And then you have Mary and Martha, who is that Lazarus tomb, and they have to know what to do with the tomb, how to prepare the body. Then you have that same Mary, Mary, the mother of Jesus and slo.
There are five women at the tomb and they are washing Jesus' body, wrapping it, anointing it with oil, getting it ready. For what we now know was resurrection. The work of the female that she learns in the rite of creation is there's a sense of breaking and bleeding open, much like the crucifixion, so that it's unto creating life.
And so I'm taking these narratives and I'm trying to look at them from the female body's perspective because it's just not common for us to do that.
Alison Cook: It's in the shadows. We don't highlight it. We're looking at it through the lens of men as opposed to kind of highlighting it, putting a spotlight on these different rituals are distinctly feminine and it's really honoring, and I feel in my body listening, I'm like, gosh, it's so interesting to hear about these rituals from a female perspective where it's sort of honoring and I mean, there's pain in it and it's raw, and we kind of have a sense of that, of the male journey even in our movies, right?
You know, there's the warrior and there's some violence to it, and there's this, and there's that. You know, we as women, I think, kind of almost know how to celebrate that on behalf of men. You know, there's some of it that's hard and painful and it's very bodily, and also it is part of our narrative collectively, biblically, psychologically.
And the thing that comes to mind theologically, I think about the Pascal mystery for my listeners. If you go to a liturgical church, you every Sunday say, you know, the mystery of faith is this Christ has died. Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Right? There's that cyclical nature of death, resurrection coming again, that we participate in the lifecycle of.
Christy Bauman: So that's why we start birthright is that females are not highlighted in the Bible as having a birthright. It's the first born son. So if you are a second or further born son, or you are a female, there's not really an understanding of birthright. And so what you just named is we as believers when we commit to this work, we say we join.
This cycle, and I'm just going in and pulling out the particularities of what that looked like for females. Because in the Bible, females were about the work of the red tent, so the bleeding, the birthing, and mid wifeing of children and the next generation, and then being at the tombs, being at the bodies when they're sick.
And when they're dying, they even buried the bodies with the faith that they were going to be resurrected. Now, did they think that was on earth? No. I think those first believers knew Jesus, whatever you're doing, we believe that there's a bigger story. You've told us there's something on the other side of this, so we are going to do your work.
And the work for the female is I'm going to bleed. I am going to birth or help birth, and then I'm going to help birth death, help you die and tend to the body along the way.
Alison Cook: Christie, how does this map on for you personally, because I know that what you're, you're not saying this is women's work. I know you're not saying that. Right. There's something deeper, there's some claiming of our story as women that is honored—and—I could imagine there are also ways in which that narrative of your job is just to have kids and tend to, people can get weaponized.
Christy Bauman: Oh, a hundred percent. For women who write in and say to me, I can have children, what does that mean? I've had a hysterectomy at 25. What does that mean? Right. And so why I am trying to take that psychological sort of rite of passage is it's not actually about physically having a child and birthing a child, but for the most part, all of us women bleed and we will all stop bleeding.
And all of us as women take our first breath and take a last breath. And so I'm just asking us to step back and look at the cycle that's happening for us, and also the idea that we are in our bodies in a different way than men are. And so that is actually to our benefit. Even if it's hard for us, if we don't shy away from it, it can be our superpower.
Alison Cook: I've thought about this 'cause I'm menopausal, and first of all it's very new. I think generationally that we're actually talking about this as women publicly, which I cannot imagine what it must have been like when we weren't so true. And I have thought about it a little bit of like what is the meaning of this for women?
Because it does feel like a closing down and I didn't have biological children. So for me there's that layer. But I just wanna reiterate, you're onto something here by. Helping us understand the reality of, and also the deeper meaning of what does it mean for us as a woman?
Christy Bauman: Your segue actually is perfect.
Your question of what do I do with perimenopause? Why are we talking about it now? What does it mean? It almost sounds like a fertility death. It almost sounds like we are falling asleep. And what does that mean? And that is in the heartache of ageism, right? It's something like, just stop whatever's coming for us.
Slow it down. Let me be in my rite of initiation again, and my rite of creation. But truthfully, these rites of passage, they happen again and again, but we are collecting them. So right after we're creating. We go into intuition and that's perimenopause. The rite of intuition is when we know what we know, and so where maybe a 20-year-old or 30-year-old in our society is put as the look, we need to have power or be visible in our culture.
The lie of it is that the 40, 50, 60-year-old, she knows something that little girls don't know, that even young women and young mothers don't know. She knows something of survival and of wisdom, and that's why we call her the sage femme, the wise woman. This is what right we're in, and you can't take what she knows away from her.
I can remember waking up at 40, waking up at 45, and feeling different in my actual waking hours, like I didn't care as much as I did when I was 20 or 30, and I wasn't as scared. As I was when I was in my twenties or my thirties, there is something of growing into this body of mine that I started to shed some of those more immature, younger places.
That's something that I don't think we have a culture or society that honors that, and so perimenopause is this beautiful invitation for wise women to have a platform and to speak the wisdom that man, those 20 and 30 year olds. Need us desperately to say, Hey, you are not going to grow old and wrinkled and you have to be afraid of sagging breasts and a terrible sex life.
Like we need to tell them a deeper truth. But there is so much almost again, hiding around it, even though you would say we're at a day and age where women are starting to talk about it. Finally, those women are realizing, I'm not all washed up just because my hormones are changing and my body's changing.
Alison Cook: Yeah, I love that. The wisdom era, and again, the more we talk about that in name, that the more we're bringing it. What comes after that?
Christy Bauman: So next is the right of legacy. And so it's what story are you leaving? So the wise woman is also the initiator. So she gets to be the one who goes back to those going through the right of initiation and she gets to be the protector.
Think of the wise sage who is there while the younger girls are vulnerable. But when those wise women are actually just trying to keep their bodies and trying to hold onto their youth, they're no longer available to protect and lead the younger generation. And so when they aren't stepping into their wisdom or asking their mothers or their fathers to step in and be protectors of those in initiation, then we've realized that.
We've told those women and men, they're not needed. They're perimenopause, they're dying off. And actually we so desperately need them because again, if you pull out into that macro system, we need to keep this going. Like there's something of the maturation that is inviting us into new life. That is what God's all about is this cycle of the new life.
Alison Cook: I find that so powerful. And there's a couple things you're saying I think that are so important to hear, and it gets back to what you're saying about vulnerability. So whether it's perimenopause, whether it's moving into that kind of intuition era, whether it's the legacy, it's vulnerable, there's a death, and you talk about in your work how we have to be willing to talk about that and face those small deaths and there's a vulnerability to the culture, to pain, to abuse, you know, all the things.
But if we are able to move through, we actually move into even more of our God-given birthright, more of our God-given agency, what we have to offer, what we have to bring.
Christy Bauman: Yes, we're right there at legacy. What are you leaving that is gonna come after you, long after you're gone? And the work of the rite of intuition is you are doing things that will outlive you and you're wise enough to know that. And so you are going to invest in the things that leave the world after you and the generations after you impacted because of how you're living.
And that wisdom then, is our legacy when they say, do you remember Allison Cook? Do you remember her words? Do you remember that one podcast when she spoke about this? It has stayed with me. It stayed with me in my kitchen when I'm cooking dinner. It stayed with me. When I'm walking in the forest on a hike, as I've aged, there's something of legacy that again, is about resurrection.
It keeps living on past us. That's a beautiful and hard part of the journey.
Alison Cook: Yeah, it is. I love that language of rite of passage. There's beauty in that, but there's hard in that. You're going through a birthing, to your point, which also involves letting go of something.
Ad Break 1
We talked to your husband, Andrew. I know you guys do some work together in trying to create space for women's stories, space for couples, but in particular space for women's stories. I know you've surveyed. Thousands of women. And you did this together, is that right? Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about your work together and some of your most powerful takeaways as it relates to how you guys are really leaning into this work of coming alongside women and also couples in your work?
Christy Bauman: Yeah. Andrew and I were both, did our masters at a seminary in psychology, two different seminaries. But what we both realized was that women's voices were not being invited to the table. And Andrew was seeing in his own work and in his own story, how he was, in a sense groomed to treat women a certain way and to objectify them and therefore not see them as an equal or hear their story.
And then I was coming from this place of wanting to bring my voice into the work and realizing that there was a lot of loopholes that I had to get through in the Traditionary seminary world. And again, why choosing psychology and science was a little bit safer for me because I was a female who was bringing stats and information that could actually be heard and listened to.
And so I think in us getting married, there was that work where he saw. The need and the importance for a good team to work together. We need the feminine and the masculine to come together to share God's story in completion and in wholeness. And so the advocacy was, well, if we look at the Western Church, the female voice has been marred and has been silenced.
And so the Enneagram eight that he is, he went on rampant to help women bring their voices back and make safe places. And he believes that the church can be a safe place for women. Again, that's his hope. And he comes back to that scripture of, you know, has been laid down your life for your wife and give yourself up for her as Christ did for the church.
And his belief is that he wants to lead a revolution of safe churches, for women's voices to be brought and that cohesion that's needed to get this work done. And. I, like I mentioned earlier, came into the world, female. And so, you know, my love for God was, Lord, teach me the way you want me to go. And so the research was, well, every woman for 16 years that walked into my counseling office was sharing a story of where she had been targeted or harmed.
There are not stories of women who, it was easy for them to be in a place of power. It does not come easy. And usually their bodies are the ones that are targeted or objectified or marked along the way. When they try to bring their voice, their entire body is usually targeted. And so I started to just take in that information.
How do I help women live longer, speak from their true voice? And my husband was, how do we make a safe place for women to do that in the Christian realm?
Alison Cook: It's really amazing. It's why I wanted to talk to both of you, because I just think there's something really powerful that you're doing it together, this work, and you bring very different voices culturally.
One thing that can happen is there can be a lot of scapegoating and blaming. I mean, I think that's definitely happened to women for sure. And also it can also happen toward men. I'm always just someone of nuance. It's like, wow, what could it look like if we're trying to kind of right some of the wrongs, bring in more of the female voice, but also do it in a partnership.
You're embodying something really beautiful to me.
Christy Bauman: Yeah. I mean, it feels like a great, like, blessing of you saying that over us, I really appreciate it because I know it hasn't been easy, and I also am just aware of, again, in this individualistic culture, we are taught in a sense to protect ourselves. Or if it's for women, it's for women. If it's for men, it's for men.
Alison Cook: and there's a bad guy and a good guy, and the guys are the bad guys, or the women are the problem.
Christy Bauman: And so in that, it's really important for us to come back to if we are made in the imago day, if both male and female are made in the image of God and the masculine and the feminine reside in all of us. All of us bear a little bit of masculine energy and feminine energy, and one is more dominant than the other, but in that it's to know God, it's to know God, and to really see God's face to me is to study that.
And so I do think it isn't that common, and I hope it becomes more common, and I think it is the way of the future for us to be successful in actually moving forward in wellbeing and health, spiritual health in psychological health. I think in physiological health. I think when we start to understand, like you said at the beginning, your daughter's journey in medical school, we know research, particularly in rural doctor's office for women, is 10 to 15 years behind if that's with our medical system.
Can you fathom, like you said, the psychological or spiritual research that we're missing out on. So, man, let's catch up with our female understanding so that then when we put the masculine and the feminine together, both healthy, it will be a revolution we can move forward. And that I think is what Christ was saying about the church, right?
Is that we've got to move into that. But it's been doing a lot of research and asking a lot of women. What has worked, what has not? Where have you been targeted? What parts of your body have been marked or not? And so I think for your listeners, while I do have my book, her Rites, and it goes through each rite of passage, while that can be an incredible resource for women, I would say it's a year of therapy in one book.
And that was my intent when I did it. But what I really would love is that we're gonna put a body map exercise, A PDF. And I think if women could just print out this body map and do this exercise, you can do it one time. You can do it as many times as you want, and you are just trying to map out your scars.
The invisible and the visible, what you've created and what you haven't, how you've been marked, what it's cost you to be birthed and to create in this world. What exile has looked like for you, where you think your legacy is going to come from? Usually the part of the body that we hide the most, it's the one that has the most to say.
And so I would just tell women like, this could be a great practice to do a body map.I've used thousands of these ways of mapping each individual's story on their bodies. We also wanna give the video course for my previous book, theology of the Womb and More Scripture based and historical understanding of what does it mean to bleed, what does it mean to birth, what does it mean to bury?
I have a video course that we wanna gift for free to your listeners if they wanna do that. It's a lot easier if you don't have time to sit and read.
Alison Cook: Amazing, so generous with your time and your talents and the wisdom that God has given you. We're so grateful. Thank you for being here with us today.
Wasn't that such a powerful conversation with Kristi? I love how she brings forth women's voices in the Bible alongside our own lived experiences in our bodies, these incredibly formative milestones, these rites of passage where we can feel so vulnerable and where so many of us have experienced harm, where we can feel so vulnerable.
Yet when we learn to reclaim them, they become tremendous opportunities to grow and to more of our God-given selves, and especially as women reflect the face of God into this world. Now we're gonna shift into my conversation with Andrew Bauman. While Christie speaks more from her personal experience as a woman, Andrew's gonna give us more of a guy's perspective looking at church culture and what it takes to truly create safe churches.
I think you'll notice how their work overlaps in such a beautiful way and how it takes all of us men and women to bring real change. Let's dive into my conversation with Andrew Bauman.
Alison Cook: Andrew, I'm thrilled to have this conversation with you today.
Andrew Bauman: Yes, I am as well. Thank you for having me.
Alison Cook: before we dive in, I wanna find out from you, you've been a pastor, you're now a therapist. We'll get into that, but more to the point, I wanna know what circumstances in your own life, in your own work led you to write a book about guarding against sexism and abuse in the church as a guy.
Andrew Bauman: Totally. There's a few different entry points. So number one, I was a pastor. I also had a hidden addiction to pornography for about 13 years. I was realizing that a degrading view of women and an oppressive theology was kind of mixing with my mindset. And so that was one entry point. I've been sober for about 15 years now of pornography and just realizing, wow, this is actually fairly normal, what I went through as a pastor, but also kind of mixing a degrading view of women and a sexist theology.
There's some tie there. So that was one entry point. The other entry point is my own origin story. So my father was also a pastor, but a prominent evangelical leader in the eighties. He was a vice president of a evangelical Christian college, and he also had a hidden sexual life, cheated on my mom for 20 something years, and that kind of blew up when I was seven years old.
So my mom went numb to survive her own trauma, and then I found myself, you know, going to church. Five times a week and you know, kind of an orphan. And the church took me in, the church began to mother me, father me. And so those were a few entry points of kind of the why so much. You know, I dedicated this book to my mom and just kind of watching her struggle, longing to be a good Christian wife, whatever that meant.
And yet my father's inability to love her well or become a healthy man himself. And then in 2018, I read a study called The Elephant in the Valley, which was a study on sexism in Silicon Valley. And then I was like, huh. I wonder about another male dominated space that I know very well. Like I wonder what those statistics are.
I wonder what that is. So that kind of set me in 2018 on the journey to begin to discover, okay, what are women saying about their own experiences of sexism and abuse in the church?
Alison Cook: Tell me a little bit about the move from being a pastor to being a therapist.
Andrew Bauman: Yeah, it didn't last very long, you know, it was a year and a half or so just realizing I couldn't be as honest as I wanted to be.
You know, I enjoyed the teaching, but I realized I had this big story of trauma, my own sexual abuse, my own stories of addiction, and I just felt like I wasn't being real. I wasn't being as authentic as I wanted to be. So I, you know, began to read some of Dan Allen's books 25 years ago or something, and kind of realized, okay, I kind of want to go in this direction and want to be more authentic with my life. Life and actually help people in a deeper way.
Alison Cook: Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here. You've spent the last three years conducting research and really listening to the stories of women. You've surveyed over 3000 women, is that right? In church settings?
Andrew Bauman: Yeah. Yeah. Over 2,800 women. Yeah.
Alison Cook: And gimme some highlights of what those stories revealed about women's experiences.
Andrew Bauman: Yeah, so these are women that worked in the church. So 16% of them worked 25 years or longer in the church. Another 25% worked 16 years or longer in the church. So these are women in the front lines of ministry and a few of the significant discoveries were 82% said they believe sexism plays a role in their church.
What is sexism? You know, think of prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, just because of someone's sex. There's different types of sexism. We won't go into that, but 82%. I was blown away. Maybe as women or women listeners, maybe you won't be surprised, but me as a male are like, that's a lot.
A few of the other significant results, 62% of women said they wouldn't be surprised if they heard a sexist joke in church, right? So women in the kitchen, women drivers like this is stuff I grew up with hearing and became normalized. And then in 2008, Dr. Thomas Ford did some research called More Than Just a Joke.
And what he realized, what he came up with is he said, sexist humor acts as a releaser of preexisting prejudice and antagonistic attitudes that one already has about women. So it's a releaser, it's a release valve. So what that is saying is that these pastors are already have a low view of women and already have a sexist view of women.
And in a sense, these sexist jokes that are so common that these women shared with me are normative and it's incredibly sad.
Alison Cook: I almost wanna back into this question because we know this isn't how God sees women. We know this isn't how Jesus. Sees women, right? So how does a church become a place where this is okay?
Andrew Bauman: Yeah. I mean there's so many different, there's so many different avenues. You know, I tend to think, you know, 'cause I work with a lot of men and unwanted sexual behavior, some of barn's, research of 50% of pastors have some type of relationship with pornography. You know, I see that as one entry point. I also see incredibly simple interpretations of scripture that have been used and weaponized and interpreted in a certain way that is so heavily impacted by patriarchal societies of the Bible.
You know, early Roman Greek culture. And then the sexist interpretations have then eased their way into the norm and they think that's what God wants. And so a few of these scripture verses, which we, you know, we can dive into if we want, but they've become, oh, this is how God sees women. This is how God wants the church to run.
And really it's based on misogyny. It's based on actually a deep hatred of women and not on what God actually wants.
Alison Cook: So I hear what you're saying. There's a lot of different ways that it kind of sneaks in. I don't even know if it sneaks in the back door, comes in the front door and gets embedded in a theology that whether well intended or harmfully intended almost reinforces this low view of women. And then women to some degree might internalize some of this and it creates this sort of entangled. Mess.
I wanna understand the relationship between what you're describing and spiritual abuse, abusive cultures.
Andrew Bauman: You know, spiritual abuse is one of the most vile of all abuses, right? You have emotional abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, physical abuse, all these abuses.
But you know, simply thinking of abuse as power over rather than power shared. And when you throw in spirituality, when I as your spiritual leader represent God, like that's the ultimate Trump card in a sense. I can do whatever I want to retain power and control over others if I have God on my side. So it's incredibly dark because who can argue with God, right?
And so when God is used in that manipulative way, the harm is deep. And so many women who are just like, I don't go to church anymore. I've lost my faith. But many of 'em said, no, actually I love Jesus more than ever. I just, I can't be a part of a church. I can't be a part of the system. Right? And it reminds me of the legendary Diane Langberger, her quote in her book, redeeming Power, she says.
People are image bearers of God, not systems. We're called to speak truth to power, but many times we feel like we can't actually speak the truth to the system. And yet the system itself isn't the image bearer of God, it's actually the ones who are a part of the system.
Alison Cook: How do men in particular, disentangle from bad theology, disentangle from this idea of power over versus shared power? I had a conversation with Sheila Ray Gregoire, and we talked about how harmful messages definitely harm women and also harm men because this isn't what God means by spiritual leadership, whatever that means.
Andrew Bauman: Right, exactly.
Alison Cook: How do men begin to do this work of disentangling from these harmful toxins? I know, you know, don't tell sexist jokes, but it's deeper than that. It is. It's much deeper than that.
Andrew Bauman: I mean, one, we've gotta first see that there is a problem, right? Because of our privilege, because that we don't, well, I don't experience it.
I didn't hear that joke. It doesn't impact me. We have to realize this is an issue. We are the ones perpetrating it. I say it time and time again, you know, domestic violence, sexual abuse, like who are the main perpetrators of these things? It's mostly men. Yes, women abuse, of course, but yet the statistics say mostly men are perpetrating domestic violence.
So we've gotta realize we've got a violence problem. We've gotta begin to do the hard work. And especially for, you know, church leaders. You can't lead others where you haven't gone yourself. So if you haven't done work on your own sexuality, if you haven't begun the hard therapeutic work of self-discovery, you've got to, you've gotta look at your own life.
What was femininity to you growing up? What was masculinity? What was your socialization of being a man growing up? Like you've gotta do that hard work and unlearn so you can relearn. Actually, I think what's much more God pleasing and much more mutuality. And I'm reminded of the verse, Galatians 3 28, right?
There's no Jew or Greek, no slavery free, no male or female, but we are one in Christ. There's no hierarchy in Christ. And yet, if you grew up in a much more traditional home and you saw, okay, a woman played this role. Man played this role. Not necessarily wrong if that's what they mutually agreed to, but so many times, and I hear time and time again with the men that I work with is, no, this is God's role.
This is what she has to do to fulfill her call. And what we've really confused, kind of patriarchal norms and sexist attitudes, as you know, theological in God, honoring.
Alison Cook: and to come again to this idea of how Jesus saw women, right? This is the actual model of what a guy needs to try to get to the root of, not only for her health, and this is what always feels so important to me to say. But also for his health.
Andrew Bauman: Yes. That was a huge thing of realizing, interviewing all these women and then realizing, wow, how we have treated women. And then when I begin to look at Jesus' life, the disconnect is just wild because here he is, you know, just breaking down these huge barriers for women, right?
When Jesus starts his ministry, what Jesus is born into is this wildly oppressive Roman rule. And then Jesus comes in, you know the story, one of my favorites is the woman at the well, right? In John four. And the Samaritan woman is not only oppressed by her own people, she's an outcast among outcasts. And then Jesus goes up and he offers a drink to share spit with an unclean woman.
I mean, it's so scandalous, right? It's so wild. And then he tells her he's launches his ministry. Go tell the world. Go tell the world who I am, and it's like, oh wow. Right. The story of the alabaster jar, you know, in Luke 7 36, the Canaanite woman in Matthew 1521 and the other amazing one of Mary Magdalene in John 20.
The most important of the gospel, the resurrection. He says, I'm gonna entrust this to a woman to go preach and tell the world that I have risen. And yet growing up, that was the most absurd thing to hear a woman preach. Like, I remember I'm about to go to grad school and looking for a job in Seattle. And I was like, oh, I could do this youth pastor.
'cause I was a youth pastor at the time and a college pastor. I was like, I could do this youth pastor stuff in my sleep and you know, make money on the side and, you know, it'd be easy. And so I applied, I was in a national search and I was down to the final, like two people. So I had an interview with, you know, the deacon board.
I'm making 'em laugh and I've got the job in the back and they finally ask at the end of the interview, do you know that we have a woman pastor? And I like almost fell outta my seat. I didn't even know that existed. It was like, what in the world? And I tried to make some joke and act like I was cool with it, but I was like, well, I know what the Bible says.
And then I removed myself the next day from the thing. But like that's how deep I was thinking that no, I wanted to honor God. Yet the stories Jesus did was the exact opposite, but I had taken those few scripture verses and made them in a sense, the gospel.
Alison Cook: Yeah. Sometimes I do think about if Jesus were to walk the earth again today, you know, just to imagine, you know, him coming into our current context, you know, who are those people he would be sharing spit with? It's mind blowing how we repeat patterns.
Andrew, what are practical steps, like how do we actually change cultures? Because there's a lot of different things you've just talked about. There's theologies and some people aren't gonna change their theologies, and that doesn't necessarily mean they have to be abusive and toxic.
You've talked about guys changing their internalized messages about women, but I guess when we kind of circle back to the church, which is the topic of your book, we're not gonna be perfect, but what are some practical steps a church can take to become safer?
Andrew Bauman: I think the most simple one is like number one. Can we just start this conversation? When's the last time you heard a sermon on sexual abuse? One out of three women are impacted by sexual abuse. When's the last sermon you heard on domestic violence? That's one out of four. And so let's just start the conversation, and if your church isn't starting it, well, what'd it take for you to start it?
Hey, can I do a book club on this book? Because the more we normalize it, the less it'll be secret, the less it'll be in the dark. We have to begin to talk about these things. Number two, I'm thinking, how do we begin to change the church? We have to use trusted, researched resources. That's something that Sheila talks about all the time, right?
It's like there's so much bad stuff out there that's not well researched. It's just I think somebody's pathologized, unaddressed trauma coming out as a normal theology or something rather than actually from a healed place. And then they. Represent God. Another thing I like to tell people is we can't do this alone, right?
We gotta find our tribe. And so a lot of times people are isolated. Well, there's no churches in my area, there's nobody's talking about this. It's like, I get it. And online communities can be incredibly helpful. And then finally, what I tell women a lot, if they don't hold positions of power, what can I do?
And a big thing that I often say is begin to trust your gut. I think a woman's intuition has been so attacked. Her body has been deemed dangerous. And you know, whether it's purity culture, or whether it's just from male projection teaching about modesty or whatever, making it a woman's fault. A woman actually needs to double down on her intuition on trusting her own body.
I believe God lives in our bodies, and so we must trust the voice of our body. And I think when we can begin to trust our gut, then we can begin to speak from that centered place. Rather than that insecure place or that traumatized place that we can actually begin to trust our own goodness.
Alison Cook: One of the things I say to women, and a lot of it's outta my own experience of kind of having a knowing of, okay, I am not gonna be fully respected here.
And also being an empathetic person, especially where again, there's that spectrum of toxicity, there's bad theology, and otherwise decent humans, there's really toxic pathology. And so for me, what I'll sometimes say to women is that trusting of the body doesn't mean you have to go burn the house down.
Sometimes it does. Sometimes you do. Sometimes it means I need to find myself in another location to get somewhere where I do feel valued. I do feel honored. I do feel respected. That's what's most important, just taking that simple step of surrounding yourself with people where you do feel valued, it's just such a basic step, but so important.
Andrew Bauman: Totally. And so many women in the church don't feel like they're valued or their gifts aren't being fully utilized.
Alison Cook: Andrew, what gives you hope for the future of the church regarding men and women coming together in a beautiful, wholehearted way that is reflective of original design, of original goodness of men and women? What gives you hope about that?
Andrew Bauman: One, all of the new voices and the voices that are coming out and speaking up against this stuff and the new resources that are coming out that are speaking up, but then also even more poignantly the work that I do on the ground, right? So every month, you know, we have our four day men's workshops folks, men coming in from all over the world and like dealing with their darkness, wrestling with their glory.
Like they're doing the work to heal their unprocessed trauma so they, they can stop oozing on the people they say they love. And that gives me a lot of hope. The most profound workshop that we do under the co-ed workshops. What happens if we actually get together and face each other and deal with our gendered wounds and heal and not be scared of that, but actually begin to engage what we will most fear.
That gives me hope. Those groups that we do are just so powerful.
Alison Cook: Why is this where the church, the place where we can't, as men and women, brothers and sisters come together and honor and love each other and respect each other and not shame each other and also call each other, and I can think of a number of different angles on that, but I'm curious to hear your response to that as someone who's been in church ministry.
Andrew Bauman: Yeah, I mean, I truly believe we can't be spiritually healthy unless we're emotionally healthy. And I feel like we've neglected the inner world, so many leaders, we have become charismatic, you know, so we can get more people and you know, kind of the CEO model, but we have it focused on the inner world, and so that oozes over unprocessed trauma is always reenacted in our present day life.
Always. And so I think that's what we're seeing is this unprocessed trauma coming out and oozing out in the way people lead.
Alison Cook: Yeah, I like that because it gives us a place to start. We're not gonna fix 2000 years, but we can start with our own unprocessed trauma.
Andrew Bauman: Yes, exactly.
Alison Cook: At the very least, the church can become a place that doesn't skim across the surface of that, but actually moves us into deeper health internally, which is inevitably gonna lead us back to each other.
Andrew Bauman: Exactly. So when we look at like scripture, you know, if we're all dealing with all these unprocessed wounds and oh, I feel insecure inside, I need then to try to feel big. I'm gonna go to power and control. So of course spiritual abuse becomes a thing, right? Or when I think of how scripture was used in, what was it?
1807, the slave Bible was created and you know, based on slaves obey your earthly masters was the verse, right? So they basically developed an entire Bible to help oppress entire people group. And they took out the story of Exodus from that Bible because they did not want to empower an oppressed people.
And so this is where scripture can be weaponized.
Alison Cook: Yeah, it goes right back to your point, Jesus words, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouse speaks. That same integrity has always been the most important thing no matter what era. Of atrocities you are living in. If that inner integrity is not there, you will use all that trauma, all that pain, all that sin, Whatever word you wanna use will come out against other people. And at the same time, in those same context, whether it's 1807 or whether it's now integrity in the body, to your point about it being in the body says this isn't right. I don't care what scriptures you're using to justify it. This isn't right.
This isn't good, this isn't true. This isn't honorable. This isn't leading me more to love of God, love of self and love of neighbor.
Andrew Bauman: Exactly.
Alison Cook: Andrew, tell my listeners about this book you've written. You're doing a lot of work in this space, so tell us specifically about the book and about the other places where people could find your work.
Andrew Bauman: So Safe Church is the book of over 2,800 women in the research of, you know, how to fight against sexism and abuse. You can also find it on the website, safe Church us. Definitely check it out. Share it with your friends. I think it's super important. I mean, obviously I'm a little biased since it took me five years to write it, but this conversation is vital.
Our churches need to be safe for everyone, right? And we need to look at these blind spots. Speaking up against the church doesn't mean that you're bad. It actually means I care about it, right? It actually means that I love the church and I want it to be a safer, more equitable place of liberation rather than trauma.
And then my wife and I, we run the Christian Counseling Center. For sexual health and trauma, and you can find@christiancc.org. And we run workshops and retreats and all sorts of offerings as well. And then my wife's new book with Penguin Random House is called her rights, R-I-T-E-S. But Women's Rites of Passage, a Sacred Journey for Mind, body, and Soul. Her rights, so you can check that out as well.
Alison Cook: I just wanna say, you know, we've all benefited so much from Diane Berg's work over the years and she writes about this and there's some other voices, but it is just the fact that as a man you are doing this work to speak to it. 'cause it isn't just women. You have to do this work and I really appreciate your putting yourself out there in that way. I'm sure it's not always easy and I think it's really important toward the end of healing, we've gotta heal together. To your point, the answer is not to just silo off from each other. So I really appreciate you're doing that work.
Andrew Bauman: Thank you very much, and thank you so much for having me on. It was great to finally meet you.
Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon music, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and click the plus or follow button that will ensure you don't miss an episode, and it helps get the word out to others while you're there.
I'd love it if you leave your five star review. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God. You heal others and you stay true to your God given self.
Stay connected all week long
The Best of You Every Day offers short, daily reflections on Scripture through the lens of emotional health—helping you stay steady, connected, and rooted in love.
