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Have you ever found yourself afraid to feel joy - worried that if you celebrate, the other shoe will inevitably drop?

So many of us quietly hold joy at arm’s length. We tell ourselves it’s safer not to get our hopes up than to risk being let down again. What if joy isn’t a fleeting feeling for the lucky few, but a courageous practice we can all learn?

Dr Alison sits down with therapist and author Nicole Zasowski to talk about her journey of choosing joy in the face of loss. Nicole shares how she discovered that joy can be the most vulnerable emotion of all - and why learning to celebrate is one of the most important practices we can cultivate in our lives.

Together, you’ll learn:

• The surprising reason joy can feel harder than grief or disappointment
• The difference between toxic positivity and true, grounded joy
• Why pessimism and cynicism are really forms of control
• Practical ways to retrain your mind to savor what’s good—even in difficult seasons
• What Scripture and neuroscience teach us about joy

📕 Learn more from Nicole: Check out her book ⁠What If It’s Wonderful?⁠ And her ⁠Daring Joy⁠ Bible study workbook for practical steps to cultivate joy.

📥 Download Alison’s ⁠free printable⁠ with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.

Looking for more? Here are a few favorites:

⁠Episode 168:⁠ How do I trust God after loss?

⁠Episode 74:⁠ How to Find Hope in Hard Times

📖 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.

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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.

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Transcript:

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‍Alison Cook: 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 incredible conversation. Today's episode is for you. If you've ever found yourself holding joy at arm's length, maybe you're fearful of trusting that the good in front of you is real, that it's safe to exhale, or that it might actually. Last, maybe you've been through loss, disappointment, or long seasons of waiting and even when something good finally happens, instead of celebrating, you catch yourself bracing for what might go wrong, or maybe you've quietly stopped hoping altogether, Telling yourself it's easier not to expect anything good at all to happen than to risk being let down one more time.

Our guest today knows this feeling well, Nicole Sakowski is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She's a speaker and she's the author of a fantastic book. It's called What If It's Wonderful? Release Your Fears, choose Joy and Find the Courage to Celebrate. 

And she's just released a brand new Bible study. It's called Daring Joy. What six women in the Bible teach us about the power of celebration when it feels risky, complicated, and even impossible. What I love about Nicole's work is that she invites us to see joy, not as a fleeting feeling, but as a courageous counter-cultural practice. one that we can and really must learn how to cultivate no matter our circumstances.

 Nicole's own journey to joy Began and as season marked by change loss and a performance-based identity, she shares candidly about walking through infertility and multiple miscarriages, and the surprising realization that Joy was the most vulnerable emotion she could feel.

Because when you hold something dear, there's always the risk. Of losing it. Instead of avoiding that vulnerability, Nicole began to explore what it looks like to practice joy as a rhythm of life rather than a reaction to circumstances. In today's conversation, we'll talk about the difference between true joy and what you might think of as bright siding or a toxic positivity.

Why joy can sometimes feel harder to embrace than grief or loss, and really practical ways to retrain your mind to notice, savor, and celebrate the good in your everyday life. I loved this conversation because Nicole brings both the depth of her clinical training and the vulnerability of someone who's wrestled through these questions herself.

She gives us permission to honor what's hard and to welcome what's good. Every single day reminding us the joy is not for the lucky few, but it's for all of us in every season. So whether you're in a season of sweetness or a season of sorrow, or like most of us, somewhere in the both, and this conversation will give you practical, spiritually rooted and deeply compassionate tools to start daring Joy today. Please enjoy my conversation with Nicole Zaki.

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INTERVIEW

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Alison Cook: What I love is that your work helps us reimagine joy. Not really as a feeling, A feeling that we have to conjure up, but more as a practice. I am curious how did the younger version of you relate to joy and, and what are the roots of why this became such an important topic for you personally to address?

Nicole Zasowski: I think two seasons. Stand out to me. Uh, one being most of my childhood and and into my early twenties, I had a very performance-based identity. I only felt as good as my last performance. And so therefore I had a very performance-based joy where I only gave myself permission to celebrate on the far side of a dream realized or a goal achieved.

And I think that's how a lot of us view joy in celebration is. We give ourselves permission to practice joy or to celebrate, on the other side of some sort of change. We view it as a reaction versus a rhythm. And that was very much me. for the majority of my life. Um, only gave myself permission to celebrate, you know, even the way God made me or, a gift that I had.

on the far side of. Of some sort of gold star, and. Sadly, that mostly worked for me for most of my life. I would please perfect perform the three Ps, and I mostly was able to find myself in a position where for maybe a brief second,

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: I felt that I had permission to celebrate. And of course we know that's a mirage.

As soon as you get there, the finish line has moved. Somewhere else, you know, down the line. And so you're perpetually chasing When will I be good enough? Or you're always afraid of falling off that pedestal, even if you do have that moment of, okay, I, I, I did it. and then was a good thing, but a hard thing.

At the same time, I confronted a season. That could largely be characterized by change in loss. it included a, a sudden move across the country, that was good for me, but very much unwanted. I had to leave all those comforts that I had built my identity on, and so without, couldn't take 'em with me.

Nobody knew who I was, where we were going. Nobody really was impressed by my accomplishments. And this was devastating to a girl who had a performance based identity. But as, as you know, that's a gift because when you're left empty handed, you're able to hold something that's more. Sure.

Alison Cook: Hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: after we got here, my husband and I walked through.

A long season of infertility that included five miscarriages in about as many years, which was really painful for so many reasons. But one of the first times I was like, I can't outwork this. I can't be good enough. I can't, um, outwork the pain to make it different. And, that was heartbreaking on its own level, but also, again, there was an invitation in that to put my identity in who I was as a child of God, as Nicole versus what Nicole can do.

Um, and when I did start to encounter some breakthrough and good news in our story, I realized I was hesitant to embrace it

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: and. This was so interesting to me because here is the thing I've longed for, the thing I've prayed for, and I am holding it in arm's length. I'm not celebrating it, and I was so grieved when I realized that, yeah, I've experienced a lot of tangible loss in my story, but a lot of the loss I've experienced has been my refusal to embrace the very good things that God had

Alison Cook: Hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: And so that was the part two to your question of, you know, the season that sort of shaped my relationship with joy is I, I was holding it at arm's length and I learned that joy is actually the most vulnerable feeling we feel because when you hold something, it's automatically accompanied by the possibility of loss.

And if you've been through. Trauma or pain of any kind, you know, it can feel safer not to hold that joy at all than to hold something that might break. And again, I was so grieved by that, what I was missing out on, I thought, I don't wanna miss out on my beautiful God-given life 'cause I'm so busy preparing for the worst.

And so. I did a deep dive into the neuroscience research. I did a deep dive into scripture to understand how can joy be a practice? My feelings are not there,

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: how can I engage with this? What am I empowered to do to engage with this so that I can have a healthier relationship with joy? And then out of that came my book.

What If It's Wonderful and my Bible study daring Joy.

Alison Cook: So, okay. Gosh, there's so much in there I wanna unpack. So you had this self-awareness at a particular moment to recognize, okay, here's a moment where I should be feeling joy.

And I am not.

Nicole Zasowski: right.

Alison Cook: What was it that you were experiencing?

Nicole Zasowski: I think mostly fear, yes. Here's the thing I've prayed for, but it doesn't feel like a good idea to celebrate it. so I'm going to protect myself with pessimism and cynicism, which are just fancy forms of control, right? I'm trying to become invulnerable to that hope to possibility, and so that's what I was employing.

Alison Cook: It's so interesting to me from a parts framework through the lens of parts, that it makes sense that a fearful part of you that had been very hurt.

Nicole Zasowski: Yep.

Alison Cook: Was there was very present in your sort of inner family and that to protect that part of you, an inner cynic or inner guarded part of you surfaced and again that you could become aware of that, you know, I just get this sense listening to you that you're sort of became aware of that dissonance.

 here I am. Not experiencing the relief or the joy or whatever. You know, joy is such a interesting emotion. What all goes into joy? and that you were honest enough to say, I see this.

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: I can't conjure up that feeling. I can't make myself have it. So I have to go on a path of how do I. Learn. How do I teach myself how to celebrate, how to experience joy? Am I, am I hearing you right? I mean, you definitely, you're in the right profession as a therapist, right? Where you're aware. But I love that. That's what's so beautiful. That's what you offer us, is you were so aware of the dissonance, but even in that awareness, you didn't immediately have the, oh, there, now I can It.

It's like, no, I have to go on a journey.

Nicole Zasowski: Yes, yes. And I've learned both as a person and a therapist, I think with a lot of the virtues we wanna incorporate in our life, whether it's. Joy or courage or that we have to often act on what we know to be true or practice that virtue before the feelings follow and in the. Brain research I've done and in my work with clients and in my own personal work, that's certainly been true for me that I'm gonna have to, to practice this before

Alison Cook: Hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: I necessarily feel it.

And it might be quite a while of practicing it, before those feelings follow. So that's absolutely the journey I, I took.

Alison Cook: Okay. I wanna get to the practice 'cause I think that it, I think it's so interesting and counterintuitive and in many ways counter-cultural to think about practicing joy. I think it's [00:09:00] so important and, just so grateful that you're talking about it before we get there. When you set out on this path, this recognition of, I don't feel. The way that I feel like I should feel about this. did you talk about that with people and when you reached out for insight or wisdom, or even through your research

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: did you find helpful and also what, what did you kind of bump up against that wasn't helpful out there on this quest?

Nicole Zasowski: I think one of the most unhelpful messages we can hear. Related to this quest, but also with. Joy is and, and it's a similar but distinctly different message than the one that I would hope to share with people and that I would hope readers would get from my work. Is this sort of, um. Just put a silver lining on the cloud [00:10:00] or, fake it till you make it.

Alison Cook: I've, yep.

Nicole Zasowski: you know, God doesn't ask us to call a painful thing. Good. Um, good things grow from painful things? Of course. Um, but he doesn't ask us to call that. hardship or that hurt or that loss itself a good thing. And I think if we're not careful, we can easily kind of that toxic positivity, kind of easily tie a bow on something where there's no bow to be tied or look for a way to draw a silver lining on that cloud.

And that's not what this is.

 I think one of the hardest but most helpful messages. was understanding that joy is a practice, that it is a spiritual discipline.

at first I was annoyed when I started to see that message in scripture and the neuroscience research because I thought, gosh, there's so many things in our personal growth in our faith walk that require.

Discipline and I thought, gosh, can't joy just come easily? Can't that be the one thing that just flows naturally out of us? And then I realized. How empowering that is, because if joy were simply a feeling that came from good circumstances or came from the winds in our life, then it would be an experience for the lucky few who happen

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: good experiences sometimes or good circumstances.

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: And to know that this is something that is actually available to us, to all of us in all seasons was not only empowering, like, oh, I can actually take a step toward this and, and do something. But also really comforting that this is, and I could cry talking about this. 'cause for a long time I felt like.

I was somebody with my nose pressed against the glass looking in on something I couldn't have. And I think a lot of us, when we think about joy and think about how, can feel that when or if this relationship gets solved or if I experience. A health breakthrough or whatever that is.

We all have that thing, right? then I can experience joy. I think it, a lot of us feel disqualified from it. And so my hope is that my work could be an encouragement that this is something that, yes, it might look different in different seasons, the feelings will go up and down, but this is something you're absolutely empowered to practice regardless of what your life might look like right now.

Alison Cook: Yeah. I love that. I, I love that your work. Comes directly out of your own

life experience. you said something that I think is really, profound in many ways joy can feel more vulnerable

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: than grief.

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: Why is that 

Nicole Zasowski: Yeah, I, I was, um, I was really surprised when I thought about it that way and Brene Brown talks about the idea of foreboding joy. Um. That joy is often accompanied by this sense of, but what if it all goes away? and I think a couple things. The act of holding something right, when we embrace something, when we celebrate something that's vulnerable because we're holding something that can be taken

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: particularly if our joy is.

In something that comes and goes, and we can talk about that in a bit. But, that can be a vulnerable experience to actually take a chance to celebrate something. You hear a lot about people saying, well. Waiting for the other shoe to drop or, you know, we operate with these really funny, ideas about how life works.

 I think probably to try and get a sense of control on something that is uncertain, but just the idea. I've heard people say, yeah, things have. Really great for a long time. I'm, I'm really enjoying my life and I'm in a sweet season of peace and connection with other people, you know, so I'm probably due, you know, we, we have this idea that we can only embrace that for so long.

And just a side note on that, the research is really clear that while we might wanna protect ourselves with pessimism and cynicism. Even if, and this is a big if 'cause usually it doesn't happen, but even if that outcome that we fear should come to pass or the other shoe does drop,

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: having prepared for that mentally and emotionally doesn't take any of the sting out of that outcome should that happen.

So all we're doing is robbing ourselves of that delight and connection in the meantime.

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AD BREAK I

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Alison Cook: That's so good as you're saying that it reminds me of. The importance and the, and the sounds cliche, which is so hard about this conversation, right? It's so nuanced. of living in the moment

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: thinking about the manna in the wilderness.

Like, what is mine today? Is mine today.

Nicole Zasowski: today.

Alison Cook: And the joy that I have today is the joy that I have today. I'm not worrying about tomorrow. So there's a lot about it in the Bible. We see it in psychology being in the present moment. What's happening right now. We don't do ourselves any favors, with the sort of doom stressing, the doom worrying.

And I love that you underscored that. But again, that is a practice. and I hear you saying that a part of you. had to retrain,

Nicole Zasowski: Yeah.

Alison Cook: reorient to a different practice, which required you to be vulnerable to a new emotion.

Nicole Zasowski: mm.

Alison Cook: I guess how you say it is, we don't drift toward. Joy. And so in your own experience, you had to begin hunting for it, looking for it. So talk to us a little bit about, as you're realizing, oh, I need to incorporate this practice into my life, what were some of the first steps you started taking and how did that go and how did that feel for you initially?

Nicole Zasowski: Clunky. I think when you're learning anything for the first time in your carving those new neuro pathways in your brain, it's like blazing a trail in the forest versus taking the well beaten path. the brain prefers what it knows, not necessarily what is good or true. and I say that not

For someone to feel overwhelmed by change, but to validate that change is hard, carving those neural pathways is uncomfortable for your brain, even if it's good and ultimately healthier thing. So it definitely felt clunky, but rewarding nonetheless. I think when I started to understand what some of those practices were.

 and we can talk about what those were, um, and, and how to practice them at home if you're listening. but yeah, it felt clunky. It, it felt, unfamiliar and, and while I was helping that truth become more familiar to my brain.

Alison Cook: Yeah. 

Nicole Zasowski: but again, hopeful and I, I really believed. in what I was being led to do.

Alison Cook: and also as both yourself and as a therapist, it would strike me that you have to have some buy-in to recognize this is a path I need. To work on. Right. And I think that could be confusing.

And even as a clinician, right, we have some people who come to see us that are so good at bright siding things,

Nicole Zasowski: Yeah,

Alison Cook: which isn't what you're talking about. That's not joy. That there is actually a need to help them really walk through and feel what's hard. Almost a practice of grieving in a way.

And there's something about, you knew, I get this sense. You were really aware. I see something happening here that I need to shift inside of me to be able to balance out. Yes. there's a part of me, you know, if I think about that part's language that is maybe, always to some degree going to be a little bit. Uncertain.

Nicole Zasowski: Yep.

Alison Cook: Um, maybe a little bit like I'm not that one that just dives right into the excitement and the exuberance of emotion, right? and also I need to cultivate this other part of me that can feel and lean into the joy and lean into the, this is good, and I'm gonna let myself right.

So that, that takes a lot of. Self-awareness and self knowledge, and I'm thinking ofof the listener. How might they know that there's an invitation also to Joy and that that also might be a practice not to deny what's been hard not to bypass. What's been hard, and I think, again, I'm being long-winded here, but I think especially in faith contexts

Nicole Zasowski: Yeah,

Alison Cook: where joy can become a way to spiritually bypass, I should feel this way.

I shouldn't feel sad, I shouldn't feel angry. I shouldn't feel, ungrateful for a lot of folks. I could imagine there's a sort of. well, which one is it? and I, I'm trying to figure out how to learn to feel angry. I'm trying to figure out how to learn to feel sad, again, I'm, sort of saying a lot of things and not really getting to a question, but I, I hear very clearly in what you're saying, Nicole, that we wanna make sure there is also a seat for joy at the table.

Joy also needs to be there.

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: And so I guess. how do we know when there's that invitation? How do we know? Maybe there's an out of balance, and maybe the best metaphor I can think of is it's almost the opposite of what happened in the first Inside Out movie.

Nicole Zasowski: Sure.

Alison Cook: Right? And the first Inside Out movie, joy was the only character she was dominating.

But for you. And I think for a lot of people, Joy's, the one that's marginalized, Joy's the one that's being held back.

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: So both, as a clinician and in your own personal life, how do we know when that invitation might be there?

Nicole Zasowski: That's such a good question. I think, you know, similar, ideas, different language. I, I work with a model called Restoration Therapy

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: The first thing we do and, and something that I'm very aware of as somebody who practices it in my own life, is to understand what that message of pain is.

So what are the feelings you tend to feel when you're in a painful situation? And these are. Shaped by our stories. So you and I could go through the exact same thing tomorrow and I might feel inadequate or worthless and, and you might feel alone or unsafe, just as an example.

Alison Cook: Interesting.

Nicole Zasowski: But understanding what those messages are, I'm very clear on what my three to four feelings I tend to feel 90% of the time I'm in a painful situation.

 and so understanding like for me, what those wounds are, I've already shared, you know, a part of my story would be definitely not good enough. That's a big one for me. shaped by my. Miscarriage and infertility season, might also be vulnerable. And so then it's identifying what are the ways I tend to protect myself and react to that pain that are totally understandable and probably served me at one point in my life as a child, uh, are no longer serving me now, are no longer

Alison Cook: Mm

Nicole Zasowski: At least to let run amuck.

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: So, and the four broad categories of those behaviors are shaming yourself, blaming other people, controlling and escaping. So. And this is what you were talking about earlier, is sometimes we've gotta know what names to give our pain. We've gotta name the cost.

We've gotta grieve what that feeling is, identify what we might be tempted to do. I am a world class controller. and that can look a lot of different ways, not necessarily micromanaging someone else, but for me, as I've already shared. Becoming invulnerable to that pain. So by, okay, if I just expect the worst, then I won't have to feel, as devastated, or I won't feel the gravity of that vulnerability if, if it doesn't turn out how I'm hoping and praying it will.

And so really being able to name that is where you can see some invitation of. What does it look like? And again, that's, that's a well carved neural pathway in my brain.

 but what is the truth that? I want to claim, and I use that word claim because again, this doesn't mean the feeling isn't real and that I don't have good reasons for feeling that way.

But as an empowered adult, that's the feeling that's being thrown down. What am I gonna choose to pick up and continue to tell myself,

Alison Cook: Right.

Nicole Zasowski: what am I gonna choose to speak to that very real feeling?

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: And how can I practice acting on what I know to be true instead of reacting to how I feel, which for me is engaging in a lot of these joy practices.

Alison Cook: Interesting.

Nicole Zasowski: that's counter to how I tend to react and protect myself.

Alison Cook: Yeah, it makes sense what you're saying because it's not so much so, so I think for me not in my, how I am with other people, not with how I am as a clinician, but with myself, when I feel one of those vulnerable, painful emotions, I tend to bright side, I tend to minimize, I tend to, it'll be fine.

It, that's not joy.

Nicole Zasowski: No,

Alison Cook: But it can appear that way. It can appear like a positive, optimistic. Person and this conversation is so interesting to me because I, I had this conversation with my co-author, Kimberly Miller, when we were writing Boundaries for Your Soul.

 at the time I was practicing letting myself feel sadness and so I would listen to sad music,

Nicole Zasowski: Uhhuh, uh.

Alison Cook: I would listen to that Coldplay song Fix You.

Nicole Zasowski: Yes, good choice,

Alison Cook: And both Kim and then my husband too, like, they're like, why are you listening to that? Like, they didn't need the help.

Nicole Zasowski: right.

Alison Cook: they didn't need the help to feel that and. I'm being a little convoluted here, but, but I think you're saying something interesting. the impetus is still whether you're going to pessimism or whether you're kind of going to a, like I have a bright sighting part of myself. Either way, we're not dealing with the actual vulnerable. Feeling, which is [00:26:00] something hard happened, something painful.

We're not actually telling ourselves the truth, whether we're piling on and saying Nothing good is ever gonna happen for me, or expect no good in the future, or whether we're saying it'll be fine. Don't worry about it. Just shrug it off. we're not giving ourselves the actual healing and truth.

That true joy. Or any of the fruit of the spirit, but in this case, joy. So tell me, in light of that kind of isolating what we're talking about, something that is healing, something that is. for example, again, using, if FS vernacular playfulness is a quality of the spirit, let itself playfulness, which I, I think is akin to joy is.

The ability when something really hard is happening and, and you have some friends that are really good at this. I have a couple of friends who are really good at this, and they just make you laugh. But it's not because they're bypassing the [00:27:00] pain, it's because you just see the absurdity in it and you're just like, tears are streaming down your face, and you're kind, laugh, crying.

That to me is joy. It's not bypassing. And so I'm curious in your vernacular, 'cause I, I love. This vernacular that you're bringing through restoration therapy, what is joy like? What is it actually, it's not bright siding. but I hear you saying it's also very much not kind of the opposite of that, which is sort of the, the pessimistic or the cynical component.

 how do you know it when you see it? How do you know it, when you feel it? What's your experience of that?

Nicole Zasowski: Well, I do have a definition that I personally hold, but I think to speak specifically to what you are saying is I'm often asked what's the difference between celebration and escape? Because I think we do tend to look at joy as falsely as you're pointing out bright sighting or,

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: and, and so you're exactly right.

Bright siding or getting pessimistic or, or doing those, any of those four things, blame, shame, control, escape. Are different forms of reacting to our pain. So they, they might have different consequences, but they're equally unhelpful and unhealthy and, and don't actually help us deal with that pain. And so I would ask.

You know, somebody that maybe is having a hard time discerning the difference is what are you looking for? Any sort of escape behavior, including bright siding, is looking to take us, 

 out. So I, there's nothing I can do to solve this pain or deal with this pain, so I'm just gonna check out and hope it goes away while I'm gone.

 Versus joy and celebration keeps us connected. It's an avenue of connection with our emotion and with other people and with God.

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: So, you know, the example you gave of your friends just having the gift of seeing the absurdity in something. They're not disconnecting from their pain and, you know, numbing it.

 they're relationally connecting in it. So one diagnostic question is. Is this disconnecting or is it connecting?

Alison Cook: great.

 Yes.

Nicole Zasowski: this connecting me to God to other people in my

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: To my emotional experience? Or is it something that's just hitting the pause button

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: on my emotional processing where I'm in a, you know, it's like when you take a nap and it feels so good to fall asleep.

'cause you don't have to think about that thing that's burdening you and then you wake up and it takes about five seconds for you to be like, oh, there. Yep, there it is. that's escape versus what's helping me emotionally process this, what's helping me connect to other people.

Alison Cook: Yeah, that's good.

Nicole Zasowski: Um, so yes, and the very simple from a spiritual perspective, definition of joy that I've landed on is recalling God's steadfast character and remembering his faithfulness in our story.

That's. Joy that's available to all of us in all seasons. So at, at the very root, from a spiritual perspective. that's the definition I personally hold onto is, is something that's available to me always.

Alison Cook: I love this 

 you're speaking about it with such depth. There's such a deep integrated understanding there. I love this quote. You say, Nicole, And I think this kind of gets at what you're trying to say here. I love celebrating with God instead of seeing celebration as merely the result of the struggles God has carried me through.

Nicole Zasowski: Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: And I think that there's something to that, the relational

Nicole Zasowski: Yeah.

Alison Cook: connected component. That you're getting at there when you're with God through it all, there's a ness in the joy, not God.

You know? Thanks for rescuing me from this hard thing, as if you weren't in the hard thing with me too, but there's a, oh my gosh, God, look at what's happening. This is good news. We're doing it. You know, there's that ness that's so beautiful.

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AD BREAK 2

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Nicole Zasowski: The story that really stood out to me in, in teaching me that particular point was, um, the story of the 10 men with leprosy. And if you're not familiar with that story briefly, you can find it in Luke 17. But, um, men have leprosy and it's their disease that's brought them together because.

That would've been a thing in that culture that defined them more than anything else. you know, more than their personality, they would've been. isolated from their families, isolated from their communities. And so these 10 men have nothing to lose 'cause it's not only a physical disease, it's, it's an emotional and relational cost as well.

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: They see Jesus and they cry out for healing [00:32:00] and he tells them, be on your way to the temple, which Might sound like a strange response, but it's typically the first step one took after being healed. So they had to exercise some faith that they would be healed on their way to the temple, and sure enough, they start to see their own healing in the faces and bodies of their friends and

Alison Cook: Mm.

Nicole Zasowski: only, mean, we can assume that.

Given the massive life change that this would've meant that they all felt grateful,

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: but only one were told and scripture returned to actually thank Jesus. And I looked at this story and trying to understand the difference between gratitude and Thanksgiving. 'cause Thanksgiving is the outward expression of the gratitude that we feel

Alison Cook: Mm.

Nicole Zasowski: our hearts.

And I love Jesus's response. It's a bit facetious when this one man. Comes to say thank you. He says, well, weren't all 10 healed. and I, you know, [00:33:00] it's easy to maybe take this as Jesus's bid for our praise, but that's not the point of this story. The point of this story is that Thanksgiving saying our gratitude out loud either to God in our prayers or to somebody else in your life. Is the avenue we've been given to celebrate the gift with the giver. So if you're a person of faith, Thanksgiving is the avenue we've been given to celebrate with God. Like look, what's happening. I think,

Alison Cook: so cool.

Nicole Zasowski: yes, this is awesome.

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Nicole Zasowski: I think often I was used to clinging to God, you know, overground, that was rough underfoot and then.

Pictured him saying, okay, have fun when you need me again, let me know, when you need me again, when we got to that ground, that was smoother and, and he absolutely wants to engage with us in the light of our joy just as he wants to be present with us in our pain. And Thanksgiving is, is a helpful practice for many reasons, but it is the avenue we've been given to actually celebrate God's good

Alison Cook: I love that there's a, it's a relational,

with God or with other people as well, like celebrating with a friend. I am so excited about. This and we give someone else a gift when, you if I've walked through painful times with a friend and then something really great happens, what a gift that I also get to be part of that experience.

So there you're so wise on that. There's a relational component to it.

Nicole Zasowski: I heard, um, I have no idea what the source was, so my apologies. It was something that just came across my Instagram feed. and because it was related to, to this conversation, I, I paid attention to it, and I am, I'm gonna paraphrase here, but it was a gentleman talking about, you know, how we often talk about that.

Best friend as the one you could call in the middle of the night, you know, with your deepest hurt, your deepest need, you know, when you're in your darkest hour. And he was saying, we don't often talk about that close friend. You know, the, the even more vulnerable close friend that you could call when you have something to celebrate and who you know is not gonna be threatened by that.

 Gonna rejoice with you in that

'cause there's vulnerability in that

Alison Cook: Yes, there sure is.

Nicole Zasowski: calling somebody to say, I need to celebrate this with you. This breakthrough just happened, or, I'm so excited about this and you're the person I thought to call, in addition to celebrating other people, but I thought that was so rich and so good to point out.

Alison Cook: That's so good that that hit. Yeah, that who's that person

Nicole Zasowski: Yeah.

Alison Cook: can call? And really, yeah. That's, that's a great, insight. Nicole, [00:36:00] what, just as we're winding down here, what are some some practices that have helped you personally and that you use with clients?

Stay attuned to joy, so. Whether as a therapist, as a mom, as a person of faith, what are some practices that help you keep this part of you or stay attuned to, to this idea of joy that we're talking about?

Nicole Zasowski: Yeah, and there's tons in the book and the Bible study if you're curious about what do I actually do, but the, there's a few favorites. Thanksgiving would be one, and again, that's the outward expression of the gratitude that we feel in our hearts. So I live in the greater New York City area and. all over the New York City subway system are signs, you know, if you see something, say something, and it has a much more ominous meaning there.

But I've adopted and tweaked that phrase as if I feel something, say something. Okay. And I use that to challenge myself toward this notion of saying what I'm grateful for out loud again, either to God in your prayers or to someone in your life. And it is vulnerable. It's vulnerable to look somebody in the eye and say, Hey, I just want you to know this is the difference that your friendship has made in my life.

Alison Cook: Wow.

Nicole Zasowski: This is how I've grown because of our relationship. We don't talk like that in everyday life. So but it is so powerful. Not only will you increase your joy because the research says. That you will experience much more joy when you actually share your gratitude out loud through Thanksgiving than had you simply written it down and kept it to yourself.

So you'll increase your own joy, but hopefully you'll also. Pass some joy onto the recipient of, of that news. savoring you mentioned being in the present moment. and you and I as, as clinicians both know that, um. When we are anxious, our brain tends to run ahead to the future and think about all the what ifs, or it runs to the past and thinks about all the, what it could have, should have, we should have done differently.

The problem is, we're not empowered in the future or the past to make choices we, we only have today. And so that savoring is a practice that's both helpful for anxiety and for increasing our joy and the way that you practice it. Is you take one snapshot, not a whole dinner party, maybe the look on your friend's face when you gave them a compliment across the table or the sound of another friend's laugh or you know something.

You could take a photograph with your brain and you simply ask your five traditional sense what they're going to remember about that moment. So what do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste and what do you feel? [00:39:00] And what this does is it. Extracts more joy from the life that you're already living.

So again, we tend to think of, ugh, celebration. I've gotta add something to my life, or I've gotta spend a lot of money or a lot of time. And this is about experiencing more joy in your every day. The. Already have, so you don't need to add anything. It's just experiencing more joy in what you've already got.

Alison Cook: hmm.

Nicole Zasowski: Also, we don't drift toward joy. Our, our brains are a little bit like Velcro with negativity and Teflon with joyful things. So this is a way of retraining our brain to not only recognize joy that our brain would typically dismiss, but also helping that joy be stickier. And you're telling your brain, uh, this is something that you would normally think is not important, but we actually need to keep this and we're gonna store it in a part of our brain [00:40:00] where we can actually recall it later as a fond memory, and it's not just discarded as something that we don't need anymore.

So it's part of how we retrain our brain. Toward joy when you practice this daily, you'll start to see more and more opportunities. My, my clients and and readers will often tell me, first it was a challenge to do one thing a day, and then it's like, oh, it's hard to pick one because, because I keep seeing opportunities to savor and extract joy from that moment.

So those are two really powerful practices that. Are easy to incorporate daily that I would encourage listeners to start with.

Alison Cook: I love that because it gets to your point of, regardless of your circumstances, not to quote Paul, but regardless of our circumstances, I mean that is what, that's getting at. Even when things are really hard, I can look for those moments to safer.

Nicole Zasowski: yep. Yeah,

Alison Cook: And I could think of those just when you were talking about it, I could think of those moments where I felt really depressed and my, my husband's face or or something else.

You know, it's just like, oh, and then taking that in there's an attunement that's intentional and I love how you're kind of guiding us through how to practice, noticing it, but then really pulling. All of that into our muscle memory.

Nicole Zasowski: Yes.

Alison Cook: That's beautiful.

 so what would you say to a listener right now who's in a hard season, maybe they're afraid to dream, afraid to celebrate, afraid of what could go wrong. What's one piece of wisdom that you'd summarize to say to them right now?

Nicole Zasowski: Hmm. Well, I'll go based on the research that, with that particular feeling, that foreboding joy, if you're holding something but you're afraid to dream or afraid to hope, Thanksgiving for what is, is what the research says is the only way to tolerate that [00:42:00] vulnerability of joy. So if you're celebrating something but you're afraid.

Um, it'll go away, or maybe there's a possibility of something on the horizon, but you're afraid to hope. Thanksgiving for where you are right now is what the research says is the practice that's gonna serve you best. And then I'll go back to my joy definition that is available to all of us because that's what we see.

Certainly in the Old Testament as we look at the Old Testament, that the Israelites, their celebration wasn't necessarily, I mean, knowing how difficult their story was at many points wasn't necessarily in reaction to, something good happening, but it was remembering God's character and remembering his faithfulness.

And so making celebration a rhythm. Versus a reaction in your family culture and in your own personal life, I think is a really helpful place to start as well.

Alison Cook: I love that you have to turn. Like you said, you're, there's that foreboding fear that's future oriented, we have to turn to today. What am I grateful for right now? What is good right now? What can I celebrate right now? That's, that's awesome. Tell us, Nicole, about how we, listeners can find you and especially about this newest project, daring Joy, which sounds like it's a very practical and biblically based way for folks who are wanting to incorporate more of what you've been talking about into their lives.

Nicole Zasowski: Sure. So my website is a great place to connect with me, Nicole Zaki, Z-A-S-O-W-S-K i.com. you can buy my book, what If It's Wonderful or Daring Joy. Uh, certainly on Amazon or everywhere you like to buy books. there's information on that on my website as well. and during Joy, I, I felt like when I finished, what if it's wonderful.

They're not companion projects, so you don't need to read them in order or anything like that. Um, content. Is largely different, but I felt like I wasn't done with the topic I just had this sense that we were gonna keep going in this conversation. and. That's where Daring Joy was born. It, it goes through six, the stories of six different women in the Bible.

And these women either hold up the mirror to what holds us back from joy or provide a beautiful example of what it actually looks like to practice joy when life doesn't necessarily serve that up. And.

Alison Cook: Wow.

Nicole Zasowski: I learned so much as I studied their stories. It's amazing how age old these struggles that we've been talking about in this conversation are.

 and because you see it right from the beginning with Eve and the, the women are Eve, Sarah, Miriam. Mary, mother of Jesus, Elizabeth and Mary Magdalene, if you're interested in that. And it's a more of an interactive workbook style resource, whereas what if it's wonderful is a traditional trade book. But it does have discussion questions in the back if you looking for a book club discussion guide or anything like

Alison Cook: Uh, I think it's great. I highly recommend, and again, as therapists, right, we are so often helping people work through their pain and their trauma, and it is so amazing to me and beautiful that as a therapist, you're bringing in the fullness. Of what healing is, because this is a huge component of it, no matter how hard things are.

This is a component of wholeness, and I love that you're bringing it in with that nuance of understanding. You're not trying to bypass, but I just highly recommend to anyone listening to the therapist listening. and all of you listening, these are. Great resources, uh, so that we don't lose sight of the goodness and the beauty and the joy and I, I just am so grateful for what you're doing.

Nicole Zasowski: Thank you. You know that I am love your work and and so appreciate you as well. So this was a fun and lovely conversation for me to have as well.

Alison Cook: Awesome. Thank you, Nicole.

Why do we work so hard to earn the approval of others?
And what is it really costing us?

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In this candid, practical episode, Dr. Alison tackles one of the most common struggles she hears from so many of you: people pleasing. You’ll hear powerful voice messages from listeners as she explores the many forms this pattern can take—from avoiding conflict, to saying “yes” when you want to say “no,” to slowly losing sight of who you really are.

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Together, you’ll learn:

• 5 common roots of people pleasing
• How certain Bible verses get misused to reinforce self-erasure
• The high cost of people pleasing
• 3 simple steps to move toward wholeness

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📥 Pick up your copy of The Best of You—Dr. Alison’s book on this topic here

📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.

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Other episodes you might like :

Episode 46: People Pleasing as Survival, How Jesus Regulated Emotions & the Problem With Toxic Positivity and Spiritual Bypassing with Aundi Kolber

Episode 33: People Pleasing & Developing Your Own Inner Compass: Thoughts on Depression, Mental Health & the Church, and Finding Hope in Dark Places with Dr. Monique Gadson

Episode 14: The Fawn Response

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💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.

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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.

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Transcript:

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Hi everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. I'm so glad you're here today with me. One of my favorite parts of this podcast is getting to hear directly from you. Your questions, your stories, and the honest reflections you share with me through your emails on social media, through your reviews, or whether I get the opportunity to meet you in person.

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And in today's episode, you're gonna hear some of your voices woven throughout our conversation. We're talking about something so many of us wrestle with, and that's people pleasing, what it looks like, how it shapes our relationships, and how we begin to break free from it in a way that honors both ourselves and God.

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Speaking of your voices, I'd love for you to be part of an upcoming episode where we're exploring comparison and competition within friendships, how it shows up, how we navigate it, and how we heal from it. If you've got a question, an observation, or an insight related to how you've dealt with comparison and competition within friendships, we would love to include your voice.

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You can call us at (307) 429-2525 and leave us a voicemail and we might just use your voice in a future episode.

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Now for today's topic one, I know so many of us wrestle with people pleasing. This was the top theme that surfaced through the voicemails that you've been leaving me these past few months. In today's episode, we're gonna name what people pleasing really is, the different ways it shows up and how we begin to break free, not by abandoning others, but by coming home to ourselves and to a God who doesn't ask us to disappear.

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We're gonna start off today with your voices because people pleasing doesn't always look the same, and the journey out of it is deeply personal. These different voices show us just how varied and also vulnerable the journey can be.

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Hi, Dr. Allison. My name is Elizabeth and I've been following your work for a few years. I'm a really big fan and I always look forward to Thursdays when a new podcast episode drops. As a recovering people pleaser, I have been working on showing up for myself and showing up to my life more fully. I'm trying to move away from postures of passivity, people pleasing, going along to get along, et cetera, and continuing to develop my bravery muscles.

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This sometimes means disappointing people or having conflict, which isn't easy. As someone who is very attuned to others, I'm working on differentiating, taking care of myself and asking for what I need. I'm so grateful for your work and encouragement to be true to ourselves and to who we are in God. 

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Hi, my name is Susan. I'm calling from Ohio. I love your podcast. I listen to it and I go back and re-listen to a lot of episodes and I love how you combine psychology and faith and an area that I would really like to grow in personally and spiritually is not meeting other people to make me feel like I'm okay when I feel that sting of disapproval from others or maybe even rejection. They're angry with me. Suddenly I feel like my prop has just been pulled away from me, and then I feel bad about myself or I don't feel okay. And I know that God loves me, but I really struggle to be secure enough in God's love that other people aren't like a mirror for me to see myself, to see if they approve of me or like me in order that I can feel okay.

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I wanna be more secure in God's love so I can forget about myself and just have that freedom and relationships to interact with other people. And to be focused on them and not always worried, am I okay? And if I am alone and I maybe don't have the support of others, am I still okay? 

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Hello, good morning. My name is Jeannie and I'm calling from the North Dallas, Texas area. I feel like I've been growing in many aspects of my life through various things such as meditation practices, centering prayer, shadow work, parts work. Understanding some of my core wounds and defenses, becoming alcohol free, making healthy choices, and incorporating changes from insightful podcasts and a growing relationship with Christ.

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So where I continue to struggle is building and maintaining relationships. I just still happier living a life of solitude, though I know relationships are important. Doing the inner work has taken a lot, and when I go into relationships, I don't feel the value of them. They feel shallow and make me want to hide from all the work I've done.

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I would like to grow on those deeper relationships of authenticity, and I don't feel like I can do that in some of my current close friendships.

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Hi, Dr. Allison. This is Bree and I am calling from Philadelphia. I'm so grateful for your work. You have been an integral part of my faith journey, and honestly, God has used you tremendously in my life. So I just wanna say thank you. Where I would like to grow is mainly in my spiritual life. I used to be very linear when it came to growth where I would only focus on spiritual and I would neglect any type of physical strength or emotional or mental strength learning from you and others.

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I have balanced that out some, but something that's been difficult is. Understanding how to incorporate my faith in this new understanding of my mental health and how that matters, and how it's important to not neglect things like rest and making sure that I am prioritizing myself when in the past I would neglect myself.

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And so now that I'm choosing myself more. Sometimes things that have felt hopeful for me are not as helpful, such as certain spiritual practices like sitting down, reading my Bible, going to church, listening to Christian music. I almost have started to have like a stress response to those things because for so long I just allowed myself.

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To only let those things be helpful. And now I'm finding that other things are helpful, like grounding exercises and listening to my needs and saying no. And so it's kind of been a little disorienting in this season of my spiritual life because. I don't know how to relate to God now, and I know you talked about this quite a bit.However, I feel this disconnect with trying to relate to God in this new season and this new understanding of me choosing me.

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Did you notice the different faces of people pleasing? Jeannie, you've done some deep inner work, but you're now struggling to connect in relationships that feel shallow, and that makes sense. Elizabeth, you're learning how to show up bravely even when it means you have to disappoint others. Susan, you're longing to feel secure in God's love instead of relying on others' approval to feel. Okay. Brie, you're learning to say no more often to choose yourself, and it's reshaping how you experience God. All of this makes sense and underneath it all, do you hear the longing in each one of these voices? In all of our voices? The longing for freedom, for real connection, and for clarity, and a deep sense of who we really are in God's love.

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What is people pleasing? I wanna start with a definition because people pleasing isn't the same thing as being kind, compassionate, or generous. Those are beautiful qualities that are often lying underneath our people pleasing tendencies, but those qualities are rooted in deep love and genuine care for the other person.

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People pleasing, on the other hand, is something different. It's when your sense of worth depends on other people being pleased with you. It's when your desire to be liked, to be accepted, to be affirmed leads you to abandon your own needs, your opinions, even your values. And here's where it gets interesting, because there's a deeper distinction.

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We don't always talk about. We often conflate approval seeking with people pleasing. Approval seeking is the motivation underneath our people pleasing behaviors. It's that inner drive to be liked, to be validated, to be accepted by others, and often it's sub subconscious. We don't even realize it's there.

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It's an inner belief deep down inside that you might not even be aware of That says. My okayness depends on your approval and approval. Seeking shows up in all kinds of ways. It shows up when we overexplain ourselves to make sure we're understood when we fish for compliments or reassurance, when we avoid disagreement so that others won't think poorly of us, or when we perform or curate a version of ourselves to earn praise.

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Now people pleasing is how that motivation often plays out externally. It's the behavior pattern that we see, right? People pleasing behaviors are all those behaviors we do to ensure that no one else will ever be upset with us. It often looks like saying yes. When you want to say no. Avoiding conflict at all costs, taking responsibility for other people's emotions, prioritizing other people's needs to your own detriment.

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Here's the relationship between the two. Approval seeking is the internal driver. I need your approval to be okay. And people pleasing is one of the ways that we act out on that drive. Here's what the research in psychology shows us. People who chronically seek approval from others, especially through people pleasing behaviors, report higher levels of depression, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion.

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And it's not because they're quote unquote, too nice. It's because over time you suppress your own needs, your own authentic voice in order to earn love. One recent study found that this pattern actually creates what psychologists call social disconnection. Despite trying to gain acceptance, people pleasers often feel more lonely and more misunderstood because the connections they form aren't based on their true self.

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The very thing we do to feel closer to others actually leaves us feeling more alone and acknowledging that truth is where the healing begins. I actually feel alone, even though I'm working overtime to make sure everybody else is happy. I feel disconnected and unseen even though I'm working so hard to make sure other people feel validated by me.

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The more you rely on approval from others to feel okay, the less seen and the more isolated you actually feel. Even though people pleasing is an attempt to belong, it often creates the very disconnection we're trying so hard to avoid. If it's so counterproductive, why do we develop these people pleasing patterns of behavior?

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This is where I find parts work to be such a helpful perspective. When you think about your own people pleasing tendencies, I want you to think about that part of you as a protector part of you. Some part of you took up, pleasing others, trying to win the approval of others as its strategy and what's underneath that protector part of you is a deep fear that if I don't make that other person happy.

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I will not be okay. My life depends on their happiness. My okayness depends on their approval of me. So there's two different things going on. We've got that part of you that takes up the strategy and does all of the people pleasing activities that make us so mad at ourselves, but underneath that is a deep fear that I have to earn their love, that I can't disappoint them or I won't be.

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Okay. And here are five common reasons that that pattern might have surfaced inside of your own soul. Number one, attachment wounds. You may have learned early on that love was conditional. You didn't experience unconditional love from your caregivers, from the people around you, so a part of you learned that you had to work hard to earn love.

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Number two, high sensitivity to others' emotions. People who are highly empathetic and those high and emotional intelligence often pick up intuitively on others' needs quickly and adapt to keep the peace. So part of you just never learned how to set gentle boundaries with a gift that God has given you.

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Number three, enmeshment or blurred boundaries. In childhood, you may have taken responsibility for someone else's emotional wellbeing, especially a parent or a sibling, or an immediate family member, and you learn to conflate their happiness, their wellbeing with your own. Number four, religious or cultural messages.

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Many of us were taught explicitly that it's selfish to say no to have needs or to even put ourselves first. We sort of cringe inwardly at the thought. It just feels so selfish, like it goes against everything we've been taught. And number five, it can also be a form of trauma response. People pleasing can be a form of what therapist Pete Walker has called fawning, which is a stress response.

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Just as we fight or flee when we feel fearful or when we notice stress, right? We run toward conflict or we flee it. The fond response Walker theorized is a different sort of stress response that looks like being nice. It's a form of survival. If I can stay small and camouflage myself, then I won't be a threat.

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So as you listen, think about which one of those roots resonates most with your experience and above all. Please know that people pleasing once did keep you safe. It is a form of survival response, but if it's running your life now, it's time to bring compassion to that part of you and help it rest inside healthy boundary lines in your soul.

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I wanna talk a little bit about the Bible and people pleasing, and that touches on that. Number four, some of the religious and cultural messages, many of us received. One of the hardest things I hear from readers and listeners is this, I thought I was doing what God wanted, putting others first, dying to myself, but now I feel burned out, resentful and lonelier than ever.

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That's real. And unfortunately there are a few Bible verses that can get misused to reinforce. People pleasing. Here are two examples. Number one, the verse from Philippians two, three that says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather, in humility, value others above yourselves. I love this verse.

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I have tried to live my life by this verse, but the truth is this verse is about humility. Not self erasure. It doesn't say, your needs don't matter. It doesn't say you don't matter. In fact, humility, I would argue flows from a strong sense of self, from being deeply acquainted with your own needs, with your own opinions, from being deeply connected with our own souls.

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Here are some examples of how humility differs from people pleasing. Let's say you're receiving critical feedback. Humility says, that's helpful. I hadn't considered that perspective. I'll reflect on it. People pleasing says, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do it wrong. I'll fix it right away. Please don't be upset.

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Let's say someone disagrees with you. Humility says, I see that we disagree and I respect your perspective. Here's where I am coming from. People pleasing says, yes, totally. I agree. Even when you don't, when someone is disappointed in you, humility says, I understand that this isn't what you hoped for. I'm also making the choice that feels right for me.

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People pleasing says, I feel terrible. I'll change my decision so that you are not upset when it comes to service. Humility sounds like I'd love to help where I can and here's what I can realistically offer people pleasing sounds like whatever you need anything, just let me know. And then you feel resentful or depleted when you give more than you actually have.

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When someone asks you to do something you don't have capacity for. Humility says, I really value what you're doing, but I need to say no right now so that I can honor my other commitments. People pleasing says, sure, I can do it. Anything, even though you're overwhelmed. Do you see the distinction? Humility honors the other person.

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It honors their perspective without erasing yourself. The other verse that I talk about at length in my book, the best of you is Matthew 1624. Jesus says, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. This one is a big one for me because I do believe in self-denial as a spiritual practice, but it gets so misconstrued, especially for women and especially for people who are inherently empathetic and especially for people who are carrying attachment wounds and trauma from childhood.

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Jesus isn't saying never have an opinion. He's inviting us to surrender false identities, not our God-given voice or our inherent dignity. And listen, sometimes our false identities that he's asking us to deny is the part of us working overtime to please. Others people pleasing is not the same as Christlike Love.

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Jesus was full of compassion and he had strong boundaries. He said no, he left crowds to rest. He sometimes disappointed other people and he spoke up when something wasn't right.

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Most of us try to fix people pleasing by only changing the outward behavior. We try to say no more often. We practice boundary scripts. We brace ourselves for disappointing others, and it's a good start. Sometimes we have to practice before something feels intuitive, but if we don't also address the inner fear.

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Driving those behaviors we're just muscling our way through. We're trying to fix ourselves instead of seeking the deeper transformational healing, I believe God has for us that deep inner fear is often that quiet voice inside each of us that says, if I stop pleasing them, will I be safe? Will I be loved?

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Will I be okay? This is not just about learning to behave differently. It's about learning to relate differently to the part of you that's afraid. It's about connecting to that part of you that never fully knew love. Let's walk through what that healing process can look like. Number one, name the part of you that people pleases.

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Simply notice what that part of you looks like, how it shows up. I notice there's a part of me that wants everyone to like me. That part of you isn't bad. It's trying to protect you, so we don't shame it. We get curious about it. What are you afraid would happen if I stop pleasing everyone? That one question can open the door to so much healing.

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Number two, let God's love speak louder than other people's approval. This one's hard because that approval often feels like safety, but this is why Susan's question was so powerful. How do I feel okay without someone else's approval that's such. A valid and real question. When we start to shift, it opens our soul up to a different kind of love, and it can often feel disorienting, uncomfortable, uncertain, like we've shifted how we show up with other people, but then what happens to the part of us that has been working so hard to fill that void with other people's approval?

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How do we bring that deeper part of us into. God's loving presence. It begins by rooting yourself in a love that doesn't shift with other people's moods, opinions or expectations. It means accessing that deeper younger. Part of you that maybe has never fully known what it's like to sit in the presence of love and to absorb into the depths of your being that you are not loved because you please others, you are loved because you are God's beloved child.

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Let that truth settle into your nervous system. Spend time in prayer or reflection with that fearful part of you. What if it's true that I'm loved by God? What if I'm safe, even if others are not pleased with me? When you stop pleasing others, it doesn't only affect your relationships with others, it affects your relationship with God.

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Parts of us have to learn what it feels like to receive. Love parts of us don't know what that feels like. When you've spent years pushing down your needs, beginning to care for yourself, your body, your mind, your emotions can feel like uncharted territory like Brie shared. It can even feel disorienting in your relationship with God.

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Here's the thing. Your body, your emotions are not obstacles. It's new to discover a God who is actually in your body, in your nervous system, in your breath, in your movement, in the way you breathe. Slow when you feel safe. What if God's present isn't something you only reach for outside of yourself, but something you learn to experience within yourself as you become more whole?

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Number three, practice speaking up bit by bit. As you become more aware of what's happening internally, take small steps to introduce change in your patterns. Healing doesn't mean swinging to the other extreme and becoming harsh or reactive. Healing is far more sustainable when you take small steps and introduce tiny changes and then allow your body, your nervous system, your emotions, the time to catch up.

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And lastly, get support. People pleasing patterns often run deep. They're often rooted in early experiences and deeply embedded cultural messages and spiritual beliefs. You don't have to untangle this alone. Check in with a therapist, a spiritual director, a good friend, a wise mentor who can help you notice these patterns and begin to rewrite them.

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As we close this episode, I want you to remember even the people pleasing part of you is. Beloved of God, don't beat yourself up for that. Part of you. Learn to get curious about those behaviors and the fears that lie underneath them. This is part of becoming integrated, becoming more whole. You are doing the brave work of coming home to yourself and learning to trust a God who wants to heal and be near every single part of you.

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That's the kind of love that doesn't require performance or pleasing, just presence.

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Thank you for joining me for this week's episode Of The Best of You, it would mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts and click the Plus or. Follow button that will ensure you don't miss an episode, and it helps get the word out to others while you're there.

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I'd love it if you leave your five star review. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God. You heal others and you stay true to your God given self.

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What if what keeps you going is also keeping you stuck?

Does venting actually help, or is it actually making you feel worse?

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This powerful, hope-filled conversation might just change your entire approach to rest—it did for me. Cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist Dr. Therese Huston joins me for a conversation that’s incredibly helpful for anyone feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained, or stuck in numbing patterns. I’m not exaggerating when I say it is a game-changer.

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If you’ve been feeling off-center, burned out, or unsure how to truly rest, this episode will meet you with both compassion and science-backed tools to help you reset—even when you don’t have much time.

‍

We cover:

• The surprising truth about venting—and why it may not be helping
• Why certain “breaks” leave you more drained
• How to reset your brain in less than five minutes (yes, really)
• Simple, science-backed techniques to calm your nervous system
• Why numbing behaviors (like mindless snacking, scrolling, or binging TV) can feel good—but keep you stuck
• Two powerful on-air practices you can do right along with us
  
  

This is not about productivity hacks. It’s about reclaiming your peace and tending to your soul—so you can show up as the person you want to be, no matter what your day looks like.

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📘 Check out Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science by Dr. Therese Huston 

📥 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 132 : 3 Strategies for Managing Overwhelm and Emotional Stress in the Sandwich Generation

Episode 80: Navigating Overwhelming Emotions

Episode 146: The Difference Between Escape & Relief with Annie F. Downs

📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here

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💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.

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• Check out cozyearth.com and use code BESTOFYOU to get 45% off. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, and embrace your cozy days with Cozy Earth.

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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.

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: 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. This is one of my favorite episodes, and the reason is it literally changed the trajectory of my summer,and I don't say that lightly.

The truth is I've been quietly working on a new book these past few months, and this one has been more personal than anything I've written before. It's really different than the books I've written in the past, and I'll share more with you about it later. It’s hard for me to come out from behind being a little bit more of the expert and be a little bit more vulnerable about some of the pain points and some of the wounds and some of the stories from my own life. 

And I had just turned in a rough draft of the manuscript the day before I was scheduled to record this podcast interview, and I was almost wanting to reschedule it, but I didn't wanna be unprofessional, but [00:01:00] the truth is I was tired mentally, emotionally, and physically, and over the last few weeks as I was kind of facing down the end of this deadline of getting this rough draft, and I had really started self-soothing in some old familiar ways that I haven't turned to a long time.

Binging reality television, reaching for sugar, ice cream. All the things I know aren't actually helping me feel restored, but that were just kind of old ways of trying to self-soothe and,

 And so I woke up the morning of the interview knowing to myself, I've gotta shift. I've gotta figure out how to get back into healthier habits. I don't wanna stay in this place. And I found myself literally asking, but how do I reset?

How do I come back? To center, especially when I still have so much to do and I, I don't wanna continue down this path, just muscling my way through and then checking out. I, I wanna get back to [00:02:00] a better place, a better way of working, and I'm not sure how to do that. And then this very day I recorded this conversation that I'm gonna share with you with Dr.Therese Houston. And I'm telling you the exercises she walks me through.

At the end of this episode, they only took maybe two minutes and it shifted something deep inside of me. Dr. Therese Houston is a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist at Seattle University, and she's the author of a brand new book, it's called Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life With Brain Science.

She's written for the New York Times Time, Harvard Business Review and more, and she has an incredible gift for making science both practical and deeply compassionate. In this conversation, we explore what kind of rest your brain actually needs. especially when a full day off isn't an option.

We talk about the kinds of breaks [00:03:00] that truly restore your energy, focus and presence. And which habits, like mindless scrolling or emotional eating, the ones I was turning to, can quietly drain you even more. And toward the end of the episode, Dr. Houston walks me through 

 two simple realtime exercises. I do them on air, and you could do them right along with us. And I am not exaggerating when I say I felt like I had just had. A massage, my whole body relaxed. My mind softened, and something shifted deep inside. This is not about a productivity hack.

It's about giving your soul space to breathe 

so that you can come home to yourself and return to your day, whether you're parenting, whether you're working, no matter what you're doing, a better version of yourself. If you've been feeling overwhelmed, depleted, if you've found yourself numbing out more than usual or just slightly off center, this episode [00:04:00] will 

 meet you right where you need to be met. I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Dr. Therese Houston.

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Alison Cook: Therese, I'm so thrilled to meet you and to have this conversation with you. You've got such an amazing body of research and expertise that I'm thrilled to dive into today, especially with this new book. Can you just share with us a little bit about yourself and your background? What exactly it is that you do and how, what led you to

Therese Huston: Oh, thank you so much, Alison. It is such a treat to be here. You have such a warm and helpful show. I, I think this is a resource more people need to know about. Well, I am a cognitive psychologist by training, not, cognitive behavioral therapy, but I'm a scientist. Uh, I spent a lot of time in the lab, so I have my PhD as well as I've done postdoctoral work in clinical cognitive neuroscience.

So really focusing on the brain [00:05:00] and then. In a a what probably seems like a strange detour. I also got a degree at the business school at University of Oxford, so that was a lot of fun and really provides a nice compliment to like learning about how to be a good leader as well as taking a scientific perspective on, on the brain and how to take better care of ourselves and be sharper.

You know, be as mentally sharp as we can be. And what led me to this particular work, this book, sharp, is that, uh, I don't know about you, but during the peak of the pandemic, I found myself so drawn into the news cycle I'd go to sit. Down at my desk to work and instead of getting into my work, I would check the newsfeed and, you know,do we have a vaccine yet, or do you know what's, what's the status on, on in my neighborhood?

You know, what are the rates in, in my local area of COVID? Anyway, I got, I developed some really bad habits in terms of not getting focused. The way I used to. And so I needed some strategies for myself [00:06:00] to improve, my ability to focus. And since I've got a neuroscience background, I looked, does neuroscience have any tips on how to get better focused?

And sure enough, there was some great research out there that I'd never seen and that made me curious about, oh, are there tips for improving memory? Are there strategies for being more creative? Or, you know, all from neuroscience perspective is what I. As the filter I was using, and sure enough, there's so much helpful stuff.

I, I realized I need to share this because if it's helping me, it can help other people.

Alison Cook: I am so excited. This is so timely because I think with the last election cycle similarly and just with social media in general, many of us get into that habit of, and I've seen it in myself. I've been working on some writing myself these last few months, and I'm just aware, I'm like, oh my. focus, I can tell, has, has changed.

And and you know, and I can go down the self shame cycle of what's wrong with me and beating myself up, but [00:07:00] the reality is something real is happening in our brains and there are real. Ways to reset and renew and refocus. And so when I saw this book, I was just so excited to have you on.

I wanna say one other thing -  you're an actual neuroscientist

Therese Huston: am, I, I, I've, done work in the lab and with patients and, um, done research on testosterone levels. So I am a real neuroscientist.

Alison Cook:You know, it's very trendy in many ways right now to say neuroscience

Therese Huston: right? Yes.

Alison Cook: What does that really mean? I, I think sometimes that's misused, but you are the person who's actually behind what we mean you, and you know many others, but [00:08:00] I mean, it's a very specific field. It's a very specific kind of study. So what do we mean when we say neuroscience?

Therese Huston: Such a great question and I'm glad you asked because all too often I'll, see a popular article in a popular magazine that says it's gonna talk about brain science or neuroscience, and then they don't talk about neuroscience at all. And I'm like, well, that's really good psychology research, which is very important.

We, we should be paying attention to that. But it's not about the brain or about the nervous system, right? So for it to qualify as neuroscience, there should be some mention of either a specific brain area, or something in the body that relates to the nervous system. So that might be talking about 

 dopamine levels, like neurotransmitter levels, cortisol levels, oxytocin, which is a hormone that can affect your thinking as well as how you feel. So if it's talking about something that's biological, right, and it might even be a term you've never heard before, like the anterior cingulate cortex.

If, if it sound like, I don't know what that is. [00:09:00] That's part of the brain. And so that would be neuroscience. Whereas if it's just talking about, for instance emotion regulation, deeply important and so much great psychology research there. But for it to be qualified as neuroscientific research, there'd be mention of a specific brain area or mention of, serotonin, something that's specific to the physiology.

Alison Cook: I love it. So 

 as such, you're studying not just cognitive, as the our thoughts, our thinking life. You're studying how that works in our

Therese Huston: Exactly, and what's exciting are. I started doing research in cognitive neuroscience in the mid nineties, and what's been exciting to see change is, in the nineties, we were only focused on things like, uh, how does attention work? And now we've gotten to a point where we can start to talk about.

Well, what happens when you're creative, right? What happens in the brain when a person's being creative versus when they're stuck in a rut? what happens when a person is feeling emotionally triggered? And so [00:10:00] there are so many things that we now know, we're beginning to understand what's happening in the brain.

There's so many things like we, we, we still need to move into the direction of what is the neuroscience of. Feeling connected to God. We don't know that yet. you know, that's, there are so many new areas. I know we will get there. We're not quite there yet, but we're moving in the right direction to understand so many more experiences through how the brain functions.

Alison Cook: Well, I, I love this and on behalf of many of my listeners, many of us, including myself, grew up in faith traditions that in many ways have created. Incredible resources, spiritual resources on one hand. And also there have been some misunderstandings of the biology of the brain where certain thought patterns, certain habits, certain behavioral styles, have been categorized as wrong or sinful, when in fact brain [00:11:00] science is now helping us understand.

This is just the way your brain is working. Doesn't mean maybe we like it, but it also takes away this stigma. And so I just wanna thank you for your work and your research. I think it's so freeing for so many people to really understand the brain and the mind and the nervous system. It's complicated and it's easy to.

Beat ourselves up and blame ourselves for certain ways that we behave, when in fact our brains and our nervous systems are just doing what they know how to do. And you're gonna give me

Therese Huston: Yeah, it's very true. I, I just had a recent conversation on a podcast about the neuroscience of bias, and that's a really fascinating area where, you know, we might judge other people for being biased and feel like we're not biased ourselves, but there are so many ways that. In-group favoritism is automatic and we have to fight it, right?

So it's really interesting. I, I do think that [00:12:00] we're often hard on ourselves around things that we don't want to see in ourselves or we don't wanna see in others. the good news is these things aren't inevitable. the hard part is, is that we need to educate ourselves as to, okay, I'm gonna fall into that pattern.

For instance, maybe I fall into a pattern of, of venting to people when I'm really, that's not productive for me, but I, I can't think of another way. 'cause I just need, it feels like I'm blowing off steam, but after I vent, I don't feel any better. Right. So it's really helpful to find out, oh, well we're, we're learning enough through neuroscience that we can find out what's a better way to spend that break instead of just venting to your colleagues or venting to your partner.

Alison Cook: Amazing. You just, okay. Teed us

Therese Huston: Oh,

Alison Cook: perfectly. 'cause this is what I wanna get into. Okay. So let's talk about breaks, right? We're, let's just, let's start there. I wanna get to sleep, but I wanna start right where we are with breaks, we. Going through the day, we've got a million things to do. Maybe we're parenting, maybe we're [00:13:00] at work.

Maybe we have 16 things on our to-do list and we're exhausted. and I've just been living this Therese, I've just been living this. I'm like, I know there's probably a choice I could make right now that would

Therese Huston: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Alison Cook: me, but what I really wanna do is eat a candy bar. is you know, scroll.

On TikTok, you know, I mean, which I recently discovered. I never understood it before. Now I'm like, I get it. I get why? It just is crack for the brain. I'm doing the very things I know enough not know this is not actually helping me, but it does feel like a hit of relief in

Therese Huston: It does. It does. And so what's tricky here is that we need to think there are things that are cognitively restorative. So there are things that can make it easier for you to make decisions easier for you to concentrate and focus. So that would, those would be cognitive [00:14:00] resets.

There are things that can help you emotionally reset so that you feel you can come in and be more patient or be in a better mood or help someone even when you're tired, OR lead even when you're tired. So that would be emotional reset. then there are unfortunately things that just make us numb, right?

Things that just.

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm.

Therese Huston: Help us get out of the moment. And there are times when you need to, and you probably know this from your own work, is there are times when we need psychological detachment. We need to be able to get some distance from whatever's upsetting, right? But if it's just for the purpose of numbing, so you mentioned candy bars.

For me it's ice cream. Okay. that's a break that I will sometimes take that it starts off as feeling so good and then it was like, uh, yeah. That, that is not helping me reengage with what I need to reengage with. So I think a really nice question to ask yourself after taking. A break, whether that's a, snack break or a scrolling break [00:15:00] or, You know, you take a walk or you do some jumping jacks, right? But after you you've treated yourself to some kind of break. Ask yourself, do I feel more ready to blank? Do I feel more ready to focus, to lead, to help? Or do I just feel like I've kind of checked out 

It's okay to check out some of the time, but if, if all of your breaks are just helping you check out, it's not doing that cognitive reset or that emotional reset that's going to to, to help you show up in the way you wanna show up.

Alison Cook: Sometimes it's healthy to get detachment. Like the, the times when I think that it's helpful to get detachment. I, when I think of a work context, there's just been an announcement of huge.

Therese Huston: Reorganization that's taking place and you're gonna report to someone you don't know or don't like, like you're like, you need a little distance from this because otherwise it's just gonna be a bad day all around. And all your colleagues are on the Slack channel or talking and they're all upset and you just need to push away a little bit.

That would be a time when you'd need some detachment. 

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AD BREAK I

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Alison Cook: I notice sometimes I will put on a podcast, maybe I'm cooking dinner, and I'll think to myself, I don't wanna listen to the news,

Therese Huston: Yes.

Alison Cook: but I will make myself, because I feel like I should know what's going on in the news.

What I really wanna do is listen to a comedian and are you saying that there's maybe something legitimate there?

Therese Huston: absolutely. So. in terms of, giving yourself a cognitive break or an emotional break, either one of those, those cognitive or emotional resets, there is so much legitimacy to, it needs to be something for the cognitive reset. It needs to be something that doesn't require your focus. Right. it's not taking effort for you to focus, right?

So reading a novel is something that actually stokes imagination, but it doesn't take, unless it's a novel you aren't enjoying and you're [00:17:00] just reading it for your book club, right? But if, as long as it's a novel that you're like, I can't wait to get back to my book, right? for me, it's mystery novels.

If it, if it's enticing, right? It's the thing that if anything, you're having to say, oh, I can only read for 10 minutes. That would be something that's going to help you both cognitively reset. It'll actually improve your. Um, what's something called the default mode network will become activated, and that's something that often gets suppressed when we're overly focused.

And having the default mode network activated is, is helpful in terms of feeling restored. So, so reading a novel as long as it's a fun novel for you, that that helps with the cognitive reset and also the emotional reset people experience. there's actually a study from 2009 that found that.

Just six minutes and that's all it took was six minutes of reading. A fun book decreased, perceived stress levels by 68%. That's huge, right? So short, right? Six minutes. You don't have to have a half an hour. You don't have to be on a beach. Or in my case, the hammock in the backyard, [00:18:00] six minutes. And it was more effective than walking.

It was more effective than listening to music. So in terms of if you need a stress reduction technique, you know, grab a book. What I do is I actually set a timer for me. I'll give myself 10 minutes, but I'll set a timer so that I don't, I'm not thinking like, oh crap, I need to get back to the thing.

Instead, I just set a timer.

Alison Cook: that is so helpful because when we're talking about what are actually restorative breaks. Versus kind of our, our go-to ice cream or sugar scrolling, which isn't giving us that restoration. Am I, am I correct in

Therese Huston: Yes. And we can, we can talk more about the pros and cons of scrolling, but chances are, it's not giving you a cognitive or an emotional reset. Yeah.

Alison Cook: Okay, so, I, this is very interesting to me. So I'm gonna say a couple of things and then we'll try to 'cause in my mind, and it's a little bit like eating our vegetables in my mind, I know. I'm like taking a walk, taking deep breaths. let's put it this way, when I've been [00:19:00] off game, I, I can think, oh, I should do those things, but they're not, it's like eating vegetables when you've been having a lot of sugar.

It's,,it's a big, big leap. It's hard to get there when you've been kind of on a bender, right? So lower hanging fruit, to me that might be a little bit like, you just said it, a novel. Music I heard you say like, then parts of me start to go, oh, that actually sounds enjoyable. Not just like jumping to vegetables, but maybe like a intermediary.

And so I think I'm hearing you saying there are many ways, some of them are enjoyable, but in this category of things that are going to be truly restorative.

Therese Huston: it absolutely does, and it's fascinating. So. Reading a novel, like I said, for as little as six minutes. Another good one that that might feel like it's a juicy, guilty pleasure is listening to music that gives you chills. So this is important. So you don't just wanna turn on [00:20:00] Pandora or Spotify and listen to, you know, some station that's, that's the top 40, right?

You don't wanna do that. What you wanna do is what's the song that when you listen to it, you get chills? Okay? Like where it gives you goosebumps. Um, for me right now, there's a song by Buzi that I really like that when I listen to it, I just like perk up and I just feel like I wanna move with it, right?

So what researchers have found is that, When you feel those chills, you're getting a dopamine hit and it's a good kind of, so there's, you know, people can talk about us being addicted to dopamine, but dopamine when, especially if you're feeling tired or depleted from caring or leading, when you get that dopamine hit, you will feel re-energized and you'll feel like you have more motivation to dive back into whatever is hard.

you can kind of make your own little dopamine playlist of like, what are the songs that give me chills? Doesn't matter if no one else likes 'em, but it does it for me. And then have that available, you know, on your phone or whatever device so that when you [00:21:00] need, or in your car have the cd, you know, already installed and ready to go hit that song.

And. Even if you just sit in your driveway and listen to it for three minutes, you, you can then be like, alright, I can, woo. I feel so much better. And, and even if you move right or if you're on TikTok you mentioned, you know, it's so easy to, to be critical of, of, of teenagers who are like, oh, they just wanna watch the dance moves.

Try them actually moving motion, if that's fun for you. Fabulous. No one needs to see it. You don't need to record yourself.

Alison Cook: Right. You don't have to fill

Therese Huston: Exactly. movement really helps shake off stress and reduce cortisol levels.

Alison Cook: Okay, so it's, it's as if science is validating that inner impulse, and I'm thinking about the Grey's Anatomy phenomenon, and I, I think Sandra o actually did this at, uh, she was the commencement speaker at my alma mater and she had everybody do a dance moment that dance it out, is actually helping you, it's actually doing something in your brain and nervousness.[00:22:00] 

Therese Huston: Yeah. Well, it's really interesting because, so, in broad strokes, we have a, two different nervous systems. We have a sympathetic nervous system, which is a strange name, but it basically is the fight or flight part of your nervous system. The, like, I'm gonna push hard, I've gotta try hard.

And there's the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest system. It's the calming down. And what's interesting is about. Dance is, it actually helps activate, it does many things to the brain as well, but it actually can help activate the parasympathetic nerve system. And when you think about it, you wouldn't dance if you were about to have to flee a scary animal, right?

That right. And so, you would, you would dance when you're relaxed, right? And so it's basically giving your body a signal like, Hey, we're relaxed right now. And so You're sending a signal through your body, up to your brain, like, Hey, everything's okay right now.

Alison Cook: Oh wow. And that gives your body some restoration. It, it actually, physiologically, uh. It's [00:23:00] such a bottom up to use the language of psychology hack and I'm such a head in my head person, and so it's telling yourself

Therese Huston: I'm okay. Yes.

Alison Cook: through your

Therese Huston: right. And we can talk about some other techniques where your body can signal to your brain, Hey, we're okay. but dance is kind of a fun one. and if it's, if dance isn't your thing, don't, don't put yourself under that pressure. But if that's something that like, oh, I can take a dance break and that would help me reengage and perform better the rest of the day.

Yes, please.

Alison Cook: Yep. That is Okay. I wanna, I'm curious because again, there's the things we, and again, there's no shame in this, but are the things we're sort of hardwired or conditioned or, you know, whether it's grabbing a, the food or, the phone.

The other one you mentioned this, that I think some of us do is

to a friend or to a colleague, or to a spouse. What is it about venting It [00:24:00] can feel good in the moment, but that is not actually giving us that restoration. And what would a alternate healthier, more restorative option B.

Therese Huston: Great question. So. I think part of what can feel initially helpful about that venting is particularly if the other person's really good at validating right then, that then you can feel like, I'm not crazy. This is truly awful, truly stressful, truly too much, right? And so that validation can be helpful.

 unfortunately ti I know I certainly did this with a number of colleagues over the years when we were in the workspace together is, you know, something awful just happened in a meeting. And you go in their office and you close the door and the two of you complain about how awful and awful and awful it is, and then.

And neither of you has come to any solutions. You basically have said this is outside of our control. And the brain loves control, right? So if all, and, and, and they're fabulous research with animals where [00:25:00] they put mice on a treadmill and they make them run. the mouse has the option to run when it wants, or it's forced to run on the little little mouse treadmill.

And when the mouse has the option to run and can control when it runs. Huge health benefits, right? Improved cardiovascular health, improved gut health, but if you force that mouse to run for the exact same amount of time and the same intensity. They'll develop stomach problems, they'll develop cardiovascular problems.

So the exercise actually hurts them when they can't control when they do it, which is fascinating, right? We just think of exercise as helping our bodies, not when you're forced to do it. So the takeaway shouldn't be, you should never exercise. The takeaway should be our bodies crave a sense of control.

So if you're gonna vent to a spouse, to a colleague, even to a friend, After you get past that validation stage, and you can even say What I right need right now is validation, then move into problem solving before you walk away. what's one thing I can do that could make this a little bit better and move, move into [00:26:00] that space.

And that will increase your perception of control. So you'll get the validation as well as you'll get, there is something I can do and you might not be able to change. Let's say it's something at work. You might not be able to change what's happening at work, but you can change your emotional response to it.

 I am going to, not get angry when this happens. Right. I am, I'm instead going to choose compassion or something like that.

Alison Cook: That's so interesting. So, gosh. there's a lot in what you just said. I, think what I hear you saying is the need for validation in and of itself isn't bad and can provide some relief. It's when it just goes negative dumping with no sort of counterbalancing. Okay, what are we gonna do? Sort of proactive. that's a nuance to that. 

Therese Huston: Yeah. And I think we've all been in the situation where someone else will start suggesting solutions and we don't see them as solutions that would work for us, right? So for instance, I have a, a [00:27:00] family member who's having some financial problems and I hear other family members saying, just talk to the bank or just do this, and this person will not take any of those routes.

And I know this is adding stress to his life because he's like, but I'm not gonna do that. Right.

Alison Cook: Right.

Therese Huston: In fact, if anything, it's taking away his sense of control because the solutions that are obvious to everyone else are not clear pathways for him. So, so what's important there is, is to move to the, what could I do that would increase my sense of control?

What, what would be one step that I would be willing to realistically take?

Alison Cook: so let's say I'm venting to a friend or to my sister, but at the end of it, it's really on, there's something about agency, about saying, this was hard, this happened. I'm struggling. I don't need you to solve it. 'cause that also, so, so you're right.

It's, it's the over validation doesn't solve it, but also them trying to fix it. Doesn't solve it, it's here's what's going on. So there's a little bit of [00:28:00] validation there. Okay. That helps me get back into the part of my brain that says, here's my agency in

Therese Huston: yes, very well said.

 you can say even at the beginning of the conversation, like let's say you go to to vent with a colleague or a friend and you say, Hey, I wanna vent first? I wanna hear your venting. And then can we move to problem solving? Like, that would be the most helpful for me because people don't know this.

If they haven't listened to our conversation, they wouldn't know that, that we need to end on problem solving. Right.

Alison Cook: Yes. So you can say,

Therese Huston: yeah, I think that's a very reasonable ask, and the other person's gonna feel better as well. So it's an educational moment that you can provide

Alison Cook: then they know how to help

Therese Huston: Exactly. And people want to, right? Yeah. And, and you probably know the people who only want to vent and don't wanna get to problem solving, right? Those would not be people to, to turn to in those extremely stressful moments.

Alison Cook: Yeah, that's really helpful. Okay, I wanna touch on exercise. You mentioned it with the research on mice, [00:29:00] and I wanna touch on it because I live in a family with others who find a lot of restoration through exercise. So the biggest stress reliever for a couple of my immediate family members is take a jog, work out, go to the gym. That is not what I wanna do when I'm stressed. I, I want to do that to be healthy, but it's not for me the primary way that I feel relief from stress. or restoration. Sometimes a good walk does. 

My question for you is, is what we [00:30:00] need to feel restored, unique? Are we different person to person? Number one, is it possible that for some people exercise is absolutely the thing For others it's not. It doesn't mean we don't need to do it, but we might need to do it for a different reason.

Therese Huston: Brilliantly said, what I encourage here is self experimentation and by that I mean we each need to find what are the breaks that are restorative to us. And you're absolutely right. Things that are restorative for some or not restorative for all. A classic example of that is there's a great finding. For women that a 32nd hug from someone who's safe lowers cortisol levels. That's not true for all women, but it's true on average. 

For most women, it's tends to be less true for men and. What's fascinating is some studies find it helps men. Some [00:31:00] studies find it doesn't, and researchers have kind of scratch their heads and basically what they find is there's just a huge difference among men and it kind of depends on the sample that you get in their research study as to whether you've got men who appreciate a hug and it makes them feel safe and grounded, or men for whom that now just raises questions of like, is this leading somewhere? Is this right? It as opposed to just for women, it seems to increase oxytocin. For men—it can increase other things that are then confusing. 

So researchers have found that 30 seconds of affection from someone else lowers cortisol levels. As long as that person feels safe and touch feels safe for you and so on, especially for women, it's, it's very restorative.

20 seconds is, kind of the tipping point. 30 seconds is even better. This is the thing that my husband and I will often do. we'll be giving each other a hug in the kitchen in the morning, and he'll start to let go. I'll be long. I'll say [00:32:00] longer. Today. I need longer. It's very sweet. 

AD BREAK II

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Therese Huston: Let's try something real quick here. Okay, we're gonna do, a soothing self touch. So some of you might be thinking, I don't have someone to hug Therese. At least not at this point in my life. Some, at least I don't have someone who will withstand a 22nd hug.

So let's try something else that you can do even without a partner. So, um. first of all, I would just like you to rate your stress levels right now, Allison, on a scale of one to 10, where a 10 would be, I'm as stressed as I've ever been, and one is I'm so low stress, I could fall asleep. What, what number would you give it? 

Alison Cook: Five. 

Therese Huston: Okay, there we go. Yeah. Five or six. Good. And that makes sense. We're having a recorded conversation, which, which takes the stress up a little. Alright, great. So now what I want you to do is I want you to take both hands and put them really gently in kind of your heart space, whatever feels like your heart space to you.

And just make some small, gentle, circular motions just soothing little. So like very soft caresses at the amount of pressure that feels good to you. Just, we're just gonna [00:33:00] do that for a few seconds and close your eyes if you want, or you can just keep them open, whatever feels right to you. And just really focus on the warmth of your hands, how that's feeling kind of resonating.

Imagine it kind of flowing through into your chest, into your lungs, into your heart. And if we were gonna do this for the full amount of time, we would do this for 20 or 30 seconds, but we're just gonna do it for about 10 here. Okay. Now you can keep your hands there if you want, but I'd love for you to rate, again, on a scale of one to 10, how do your stress levels feel?

Alison Cook:Three

Therese Huston: Three. Right? It's so nice.

Alison Cook: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Therese Huston: So psychologists would call that soothing self touch. Research shows that what we just did, especially to hold it for 20 to 30 seconds, will actually reduce your cortisol levels on par with a hug from someone else. Now. That's on average. Some people it will be hires. For some it won't work.

But this is a great self experiment to do. Ask [00:34:00] yourself before you try the technique. What's my stress level? And then ask yourself afterwards, what's my stress level now? And to see if it's changed. And if you find that the heart doesn't work. What's nice about the heart is it's if by putting your hands here, you're activating the vagus nerve.

 and the vagus nerve sends signals up and down, up to your brain, down to your heart's, lungs and gut. But by putting your hands on your heart, you're sending. Through your heart, a signal via your vagus nerve up to your brain. It reduces amygdala activity. It also increases activity in your prefrontal cortex.

So should, you should actually be a clearer thinker now than you were before we did that activity.

Alison Cook: more

Therese Huston: Yes. Right. Yeah. And it's, you know, maybe you can't do that in a meeting with your boss, but I've done it. I've done it in line. At a store where the line's not moving and I'm starting to be like, I should just return everything to the shelves and leave just jettison myself.

And I'll be like, you know what? You gotta finish this errand. You gotta do it. You're here. You've already invested the time, and I'll [00:35:00] do that. And I will be so much less stressed about standing in that line.

Alison Cook: that is powerful. I wish we had done that at the beginning of the interview, right? I mean, no, I, I could. That's a really, literally self-soothing exercise. Therese, what are other examples like that of these, especially, I'm thinking of my listeners who are really busy , you know, or maybe have little kids around them. 

Therese Huston: Yes. Right. So that's a nice one too. And you can teach it, especially if you have little ones you're taking care of. You can say, Hey, we're all gonna do a soothing self hug. All right, let's everybody get in their favorite spot. lie down or sit down, you know, get in your favorite cozy chair. We're all gonna do this for 30 seconds.

So you could, you know, that's, that's a fun one. If I can demo another one, another nice. [00:36:00] we're gonna do a, a breathing technique that also activates the vagus nerve and can send a signal again to your amygdala that there's no threat and activate the prefrontal cortex. We'll talk about that more in a second.

So, I'll explain the technique first and then we'll step through it. But here's what I'm gonna ask you to do in a moment. I'll ask you. To exhale all of your air. Not yet, but when a moment, I'll tell you to. And then I'm gonna have you do a slow inhale to a count of five, and I'll do the count out loud.

That's a long, slow inhale. Most of us don't inhale that slowly, so be ready for that. You're gonna hold for two. And then we're gonna exhale for seven, which is again, a very slow exhale. I find most people find that long inhale the hardest. If, if at three you're like, Therese, I've already inhaled all my air.

There's no more that I can take in. Just start holding your breath early. That won't. Affect the impact of this. What's most important is the super slow exhale. So what I recommend here is to purse your lips. So if you're good at slow exhales, you can [00:37:00] just breathe through your nose.

But if that, you think that's gonna be tricky, just breathe like you're blowing out through a straw. Okay? And that can help slow down your breath. And we'll do two cycles. and I'll step you through it. Okay. You ready? Okay, great. So exhale all of your air. And, and we're gonna inhale 2, 3, 4, 5. Hold, two.

Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Again, inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5. Hold. Two. Exhale. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Great. So going back to that scale one to 10, where would you be now?

Alison Cook: Oh, well now, probably two.

Therese Huston: Even lower [00:38:00] Wow. Between the two. Yeah. Right. I mean, even just, I, I wasn't just guiding you through it. I feel more relaxed,

Alison Cook: Yeah.

Therese Huston: the important part is just the exhales longer than the inhale. Some people play with like a four eight, where they inhale for four and they exhale for eight.

You can play with what's comfortable for your body, but. The slow exhale, particularly if you do it through purse lips, is activating the vagus nerve, by activating it partially through your throat as well as through your lungs. And again, that's telling the amygdala there's no threat. But the prefrontal cortex researchers have actually found that in the lab because this activates areas of the prefrontal cortex right behind your forehead that are responsible for making hard decisions.

Decision making improves. so not only can you do this when you're stressed out about something in your home life or your work life, you can do this when you're like, I just don't wanna make a decision and I can tell I don't wanna make a decision, do this, and you, you would wanna do it for about two minutes.

We just did 30 seconds. So two cycles is 30 seconds. Eight [00:39:00] cycles of that will be a full two minutes. And researchers find objectively that it's, it's like the murky clouds part and It may still be a hard decision, maybe one you don't wanna make, but you'll have more clarity. Isn't that amazing?

Alison Cook: it's interesting. It's sort of counterintuitive in a way because when we're stressed, when we're worked up, it seems like to me there's a part of us that wants to go harder, wants to push harder. And so there's a counterintuitive thing you're training your nervous system to do, which is, and I think we want that 'cause we wanna get to the other side. And so we're training our nervous system that actually the way to the other side is through the restoration.

Therese Huston: Well said. Yeah. Instead of thinking, I'm gonna power through, think if I don't do something, I'm gonna power down. And if you think that to yourself, it'll be easier to say, [00:40:00] okay, I need to, I need to take a break. for me, I will know that I need to take a break, and maybe it's gonna be a breathing break.

Maybe it's one of the soothing self touch breaks. I'll know that I need to do that if I'm going from calm to irritable in seconds, right? Because that's not my normal mode. If, if I'm getting irritated that quickly, that means that my prefrontal cortex, which. is key for in impulse control is fatigued and so my impulses are taking over.

And so maybe there's a different sign for you, but look for the signs that indicate like, oh, that's my body saying it needs a break, I'm gonna give it one.

Alison Cook: Wow, that, yeah, that's, that's actually a cue. I need a break. And these are two very, Easy, simple that anybody can do. Ways that you are, signaling to your brain that you're caring for it.

Therese Huston: your brain doesn't need long breaks. So often we feel like in order to get a break, we need to go to the spa,[00:41:00] 

Alison Cook: Yes. I was just thinking that.

Therese Huston: take a nap. Yep. You know, I've, I've got my mother-in-law, Gets respite care because she's caring for her husband who has dementia and she, doesn't feel she can get a break unless someone comes to the house for three hours and she can leave, which is too bad because I, you know, she certainly needs those breaks.

I'm not saying she doesn't, but it's, it's too, you know, I hope she listens to your show because they're called micro breaks by psychologists and neuroscientists. A micro break is anywhere from one to 10 minutes and. The kind of breathing breaks, reading a novel, a quick walk break. A break as, as little as a six minute walk has tremendous benefits for reducing cortisol, improving serotonin.

So know that a one to 10 minute break can be all you need to reset.

Alison Cook: That's amazing. So helpful. 

What is the difference between numbing and a true restorative break?

Therese Huston: That one is a great question. And it's tricky because with numbing, what you're doing is There are certain brain areas that need a break. let's say you've been trying really hard to be supportive of someone else, right?

Whether that's at work or at home, you will probably feel emotionally exhausted from having to be patient when you don't feel patient or having to be positive when you don't feel positive anymore, right? So that's emotionally tiring, and that's going to reduce your dopamine levels. It's gonna reduce serotonin levels, uh, and that's, it's called surface acting.you're faking it. 

You feel like you have to do it, and that's emotionally exhausting. And so you could do something numbing like, compulsive [00:44:00] snacking or scrolling on your phone and that's gonna take away in the moment that sense of like, I can't handle this anymore.

However, it's not going to improve your dopamine levels or improve your serotonin levels in order to do that. You need to do one of the things that we've already suggested, so dopamine will go back up. If you listen to music, that gives you chills. For instance, serotonin will go up if you go for a quick nature walk, or if you do the soothing self hug.

That can also help with serotonin and oxytocin levels. So doing something that even though you wouldn't have perhaps thought to turn to it. If it can improve these brain chemicals, you're, you're restoring something that was depleted and now you are going to truly feel like, oh, I can lean back in. a little litmus test that I do is, do I just wanna keep doing that activity?

Chances are it's numbing, right? that might be a nice litmus test where it's like, I don't wanna return to the problem. I just wanna keep the distraction going. That's sign of a bad [00:45:00] distraction. Whereas if you're like, I listened to one song, it would be nice to listen to another song, but you know what?

I can do this. I can go back in 

Alison Cook:  That's so helpful. and sometimes, again, that's why you're saying sometimes we do need that detachment that just, I've gotta distract myself. It's a survival mechanism in a way but it's not actually, I think of an athlete going out for a break. It's like sending that athlete out for a break and giving them, you know, a glass of wine that's not gonna help them get back on the court.

And win the game. They need actual nourishment to be able to re replenish and reset so that they can finish and get back in and finish the game.

Therese Huston: It's a really good distinction. Yeah. Gatorade would be better in that moment than, than wine, right?

Alison Cook: Yeah. But that's kind of with parenting or with work, it's similar. We, we actually wanna give ourselves something so that we can come back and do the hard thing that we wanna wanna do. That's, this is just so helpful.

Therese Huston: And I think a thing for anyone who feels guilty taking breaks. I, you know, I was in a leadership group recently where there was a woman who clearly felt guilty taking breaks and actually got angry at the leader who was facilitating the group, who was suggesting she needed to take more breaks.

I think a way to reframe this for yourself is that you're not stepping away from your responsibilities. You are stepping into the version of yourself that can better handle those

Alison Cook: Hmm. That's good. Yes, you're actually doing yourself and everyone around you a service.

Therese Huston: exactly, exactly. Because we need mantras. We need something to tell ourselves. In that moment, I tell myself, I, you know, you can't pour from an empty cup, which helps. But I really, I really like this idea of I'm not, I'm not stepping away from my responsibilities. I'm stepping into a version of myself that can handle them.

Alison Cook:  I love that.  Tell us about the book, where people can find it, and how you think the book will really provide this kind of relief that people [00:42:00] really need?

Therese Huston: I think so many of us feel in constant overwhelm, whether that's from the news cycle, whether that's from work and fear of jobs being cut, or your personal life, you know, you're caring for more. people and in more ways than you ever imagined you would, or that you feel prepared for.

you know, you feel like you're failing at everything. I think. So many of us are in a state of constant overwhelm and our devices just pull us into things that are numbing and give us that detachment, but that don't actually give us a break. And so I think we need more tools and, and my hope with the book.

Most of the tools in there are five minutes or less, just like the two exercises we just demonstrated. So there are things you can fit in, and I, I organize the book so that you could quickly turn to the chapter you want. You don't have to start from the beginning and read to the end. Instead, you can be like, I, I need help with decision making.

What does the chapter on decision making say? Right? Because I've gotta face a hard decision, maybe deciding whether to put them in assisted living or not. So some something that you need right now. I promise [00:43:00] you that book probably has a strategy that you can do in less than 10 minutes.

So that's my hope is to say neuroscience has got your back. your best days are still ahead of you.

Alison Cook: This is beautiful. The book is Sharp. 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science. Amazing. So, so [00:47:00] helpful. Therese, I would love to have you back on sometime. I think what you're doing is just so needed and I'm

Therese Huston: Thank you, Alison. I feel like we do good work together and I, I just feel honored to be here.

Alison Cook: Thank you. 

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Are you tired of holding it all together for everyone else?

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In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Alison explores the hidden ache of emotional caretaking—the quiet ways we overfunction, over-give, and overlook our own needs to keep the peace. Whether it started in childhood or has become a way of coping in adult relationships, many of us have learned to survive by tending to others while slowly disappearing ourselves.

‍

Alison shares what she’s learning about her own inner caretaker and gently invites you to reconnect with the parts of you that are tired, weary, and worthy of care. This isn’t about walking away from the people you love—it’s about learning to stay grounded in yourself as you care well for others.

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This episode explores:

• Why emotional caretaking can feel like love—but quietly wears you down
• How childhood dynamics shape your adult urge to fix, help, or rescue
• What most people get wrong about “self-care”
• The hidden cost of always tending to others while neglecting yourself
• A gentle practice to reconnect with your inner caretaker—and what she needs

This episode is a loving reminder: Your needs matter. Your soul deserves care. And you don’t have to carry it all alone.

‍

📥 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.

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Here are some other episodes you might like :

Episode 138: Breaking Free from Overfunctioning –– DIscover the Hidden Costs of Always Being the Responsible One

Episode 151: The Hidden Reason You Feel Overwhelmed –– Understanding the Mental Load with Dr. Morgan Cutlip

Episode 152: The Anxiety Beneath Perfectionism –– Why Trying Harder Won’t Set You Free

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📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here

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💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.

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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.

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Transcript

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. I am so looking forward to this time together today. Today's episode was birthed out of a need in my own life. And as I thought about some of the things I've been struggling with and working on, it occurred to me that so many of you are likely dealing with the same inner dynamics as I am and that some of what I've been learning in my own life might be helpful to you.

Today's episode is especially for the caretakers and specifically I'm talking about emotional caretaking, where we work to meet the emotional needs of everyone around us. These are the parts of us that operate silently without us even realizing it. At times, you might be the steady one in your family, the person, everyone turns to the one who holds it all together.

Behind the scenes, you are the one who shows up. You give, you carry the emotional weight quietly, persistently, because that's what you've always done. Yet, maybe somewhere along the way you lost touch with yourself. This episode is for all of you who care deeply for others, but sometimes forget to care for your own soul.

It's for the part of you that will not stop trying to fix. What cannot be fixed, at least not by you all alone, the part of you that's tired of holding it all together. If you relate to any of this, I wanna offer you a gentle invitation today. Not to walk away from the people you love and care about, but instead to come home to yourself and to remember that tending to your own inner world isn't selfish.

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It's essential. It's where true love and true compassion for others begins. In today's episode, I'm gonna share a little bit of my own story, how emotional caretaking has shaped me from early on, and how I'm learning to return to that grounded place within. We'll explore what it means to find your voice again and how to stop carrying what was never yours to hold.

And at the end I'll guide you through a short spiritual reflection, a prayer you can return to anytime you feel overwhelmed. Or lost in the needs of others.

I have a repeated pattern that shows up in my life to this day. I've worked on it a lot, but it shows up with different iterations and basically it's like this. I'll find myself compulsively checking in on other people. It might be on my family members, on friends. 

I'll catch myself literally scrolling through text messages to see who might need something. Mentally tracking past conversations, maybe even conversations from months ago, wondering if someone, anyone is upset or needs support. Just the other day I was doing this again, mentally circling around other people's emotional states and perceived needs, even though literally my own body was shaky.

I hadn't eaten that day. I'd had a number of things happen in my own life that were really stressful and really hard, and I couldn't figure out how to manage them. I was clearly in need of a break in need of rest, and yet during that inner chaos, a part of me was mentally scanning for anyone out there in the universe, literally anyone I might know who might need something from me.

Maybe I could do this nice thing for this person. Maybe I should check on this person. Why haven't I followed up on that person? Right? I was going through my mental Rolodex of all the people I could check in on. Of all the people. I could do something nice for it. That can be a really helpful quality at times.

But in this moment, I just became so aware of the disparity. My own body was literally shaking. Because I hadn't eaten yet that day because I was so overwhelmed with some of these stressful situations, both in my personal life and at work that had come to my attention, and I just began to realize, this is weird.

Why is my default to scan all the ways I could care for others while I was so clearly the one in need of care? I just had to stop and notice what was happening here. I was scanning vigilantly to try to figure out ways to help other people while I was so clearly in that moment, the one in need of care.

It's such an old and familiar impulse. If I can just make sure everyone around me is okay, then maybe I can finally rest. It never works because the reality is trying to survive my own needs through losing myself in other people's problems, keeps me on a hamster wheel. This part of me keeps running and running and running, trying to fix what cannot be fixed in the world around me, trying to carry what was never mine to carry, and it's a never ending loop of exhaustion.

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And it's tricky to navigate because here's the thing, you can always find someone in need of care. And sometimes we even hear people say, listen, if you're struggling, do something nice for others. And that's a valuable principle, and I get that, but

For those of us with extreme caretaking impulses who tend to manage the pain of others.

Instead of our own needs, it can be very challenging to know how to step off that hamster wheel of compulsive caretaking, and finally attune to our own needs, to our own inner cry for care. This is what I mean by the ache of the caretaker. There's something sacred about showing up for others. We know this to be true, but when we lose touch with our own center, even our care becomes distorted. We stop listening inward, we override our own needs, and we begin to try to fix what was never ours to fix.

So where does this compulsive. overactive caretaking impulse come from? 

It can come from what psychologists call parentification. This is when as a child, maybe you're asked to step into an adult responsibility before you're developmentally ready. This can happen emotionally, logistically, or both. It can happen. If you had a parent who struggled with their emotions, who maybe confided in you or leaned on you, or even became emotionally unpredictable, and at a very young age, you learn to kick it into high gear to become the steady one, or maybe you became the emotional buffer in your family.

You sensed conflict between your parents or maybe between a parent and a sibling, or between other siblings, and maybe nobody said it out loud, but your nervous system. Picked up on it and without realizing it, you became that buffer for everybody that peacemaker the mood stabilizer. You learned to kind of stay small to shapeshift, to stay agreeable, to stay attuned, to keep the system from falling apart.

Maybe you were the secret keeper, the one everybody confided in, or even just the one who kind of held all of the emotional tensions in your own body. Sometimes it was even more direct. 

Maybe you literally had to care for an adult who was physically ill or emotionally unwell, unable to work, or maybe just chronically unavailable. Maybe you had to cook the meals, you had to help with siblings. You learned how to read the needs of others before you could read a book. I'm not laying any blame here. This happens even in the most well-intentioned of families, but regardless, a part of you learn to take on the role of an adult far too young.

Lastly, sometimes these caretaking parts are formed in a more subtle way through a slow layering of our God-given temperament and personality, and even gifting our emotional sensitivity, our empathy combined with the family dynamics and the cultural dynamics around us. Some of us were simply born with very tender, intuitive nervous systems.

You might have always been the kind of child who felt things deeply who could walk into a room and immediately sense. The emotional temperature and that kind of empathy is really beautiful. But when it's left unsupported or misunderstood, if no one ever taught you the boundaries of that and how to differentiate and step back from all of that empathic knowing, especially when you're taking in data that isn't actually yours to process, it can turn into a sense of over responsibility.

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And I mention this because I still remember even now, the names and faces of kids in my. Elementary school classrooms from as early as second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, who I knew intuitively were struggling, who I knew maybe weren't being cared for at home, who maybe the other kids were mean to.

There was a part of me that took in all of that data that just kind of intuitively understood human pain and human suffering way earlier than I knew what to do with it. And so even apart from our family dynamics, sometimes we just have that temperament and if we didn't have anybody kind of come alongside of us and help us understand, Hey, I love your sensitive heart. I love that you see the pain in others, and I wanna help you learn to honor that as I also wanna help you learn how to let it go when it's not yours to fix. When it's not yours to heal, when it's not yours to mend. That's a pretty nuanced skill even for those of us as adults. So if you had that kind of temperament as a kid, no wonder it's hard for you to learn how to turn that off.

Regardless of whether this part of you developed in your family of origin or whether it developed as part of your God-given design, and probably in most cases it's a combination of both. This caretaking part of you is highly attuned to the emotional states of other people. It might be to your own kids.

It might be to your own spouse, to other family members, to friends. To people in your community, to strangers in the grocery store, right? The list can go on and on, but this part of you tracks everyone else often without you even realizing it. It notices who's upset, who's withdrawing. Who's even hinting at a need, and it doesn't just notice it.

It jumps in sometimes with support, sometimes with solutions, sometimes by simply silencing your own voice or your own needs because you do not want to impinge on the needs of someone else. Often this part of you jumps before you have a chance to pause and ask yourself. Am I the one called to step in here?

Do I have the capacity to meet this need? Is this my responsibility or is some part of me acting out impulsively and compulsively to meet needs that are not mine? In fact, to meet. If you've ever found yourself waking up with jaw tension, a dull headache, or tightness around your face, you're not alone.

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Typically this part of you, this internal caretaker gets extreme because it started to form beliefs about what makes you valuable in relationships. These parts of us tend to believe things like this. My value lies in being needed. My piece depends on everyone else being okay. If I stop showing up for others, I'll lose my place in the system, in the family, in the friend group, in the community. This is how I stay connected. This is how I stay. Loved to abandon myself and show up constantly for the needs of others. And so this part of us keeps working. She stays ahead of everybody else's needs. She fuses connection with responsibility.

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And before you know it, caretaking becomes a way of life, a default. The only way you know how to show up. In your relationships, maybe you recognize some of these indicators of a caretaking part in yourself. Maybe you're the one who always remembers all the milestones, the holidays, the events, the anniversaries, regardless if anyone else remembers yours, maybe you're the one who always sends the check-in texts, who's always sending the encouraging word.

Maybe you're the one who senses tension before anyone even speaks a word. Or maybe you're the one, always one step ahead. Emotionally, logistically, relationally, always on guard, making sure everything's working. But all the while you are the one running on empty. You are the one in need of care. Because here's the hard part.

Other people rarely notice the toll that all this caretaking takes on you. 'cause you're really good at hiding it. That's part of the survival. You've built your identity around being the one who can hold it all. And so other people don't notice when you need care. But inside, there's often a younger part of you just aching for someone to notice her, to care for her, to tell her it's okay to stop, to rest, to receive care, even for just one moment. 

When I actually connect to this part of me who's so busy taking care of everybody else, and I kind of find that place in my soul that's doing that, she doesn't show up to me as that competent, capable adult that I feel like when I'm blended with her, she actually surfaces as more of a neglected orphan, she sort of has scraggly hair and she seems malnourished and she seems emotionally unkempt and kind of confused and like, what would it even be like for someone to pay attention to me? And as I've gotten to know this sort of inner neglected part of me, I realize so much more clearly that she doesn't even know what it feels like to receive love or care, how would she know how to ask for it from someone else when she doesn't even know what she needs? 

She only really knows how to give it. So it's sort of a foreign idea to her. And the first step is really just learning that. About this part of myself that this is going to be a process. It's not as simple as just taking a day off or as going to a spa or some of these superficial ways that we talk about self-care in our culture.

This is a deeply embedded part of the soul who has to learn what it's like to trust that there's an adult present who wants to give care to her. It's a process of rebuilding trust because here's the deeper truth. This part of you doesn't have a full understanding yet of true belonging. She doesn't yet know that you are loved, not because of what you do for others, but because of who you are.

You are worthy of love and belonging, not because of all that you do for other people, but because you are made in the image of a loving God who longs to come alongside you with emotional attunement, with rest, with reassurances, with all of that love and devotion and encouragement and wisdom that you are so good at pouring out for others.

The caretaking part of you does indeed have a beautiful gift to offer. She's sensitive, she's empathetic, she's emotionally attuned, but first and foremost, what this part of you has to learn is that she also is worthy of love. Giving care to others when it's rooted in a sense of your own inner belovedness is a beautiful thing.

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It's a gift when you are grounded in the truth that you are already loved. Your care flows from a place of abundance. You become a wellspring of compassion, not because you're trying to earn love or connectedness or belonging, but because you know love. You become a healer because you've been healed, a lover of other souls because you've experienced love in your own soul.

But on the other hand, when you're care for others is rooted in survival, it gets distorted. You may still show up with kindness, but underneath there's fear. Fear that if you stop caring, you'll lose connection. Fear that if you name your needs, you'll be seen as too much fear that if you bring your full voice, you'll blow the whole thing up, that you'll lose all that stability that you've worked so hard to hold together.

This is where something sacred, your gift of compassion becomes compulsive. You get back on that hamster wheel. You start to over-function in relationships driven by fear more than you're driven by love. You give more than is sustainable. You say yes when your body is saying no, you anticipate others' needs.

Before they even name them, and you begin to disappear in the process, instead of mutuality, the relationship becomes lopsided. You might unintentionally begin to enable. Other people who aren't taking responsibility for themselves, you may enable dysfunctional relationships around you because you can't bear to let the other people around you fight it out amongst themselves.

You may find yourself attracting other people who are emotionally unavailable or draining because you've trained them that you will carry the emotional weight. And in that process, an incredibly vital thing gets lost. You are God given voice, the voice inside of you that carries much needed truth and wisdom and power.

Even if the truth in this moment is I can't do this right now. I'm the one in need and I need to be able to speak up for myself without fear of losing everyone around me. When caretaking becomes compulsive, it stops being holy and it starts becoming harmful. Harmful to you, harmful to the other person who isn't doing the work that God has given them to do, and harmful to the possibility of true mutually beneficial connection.

Because real love includes boundaries. Real love includes mutuality. Real love always also includes you. Your voice, even your needs. It's unsustainable and exhausting when you consistently override your own needs and it becomes disorienting when your voice is always tangled up in someone else's expectations.

Over time, you begin to lose your sense of what you think, what you want, what you feel, what you need. Your nervous system gets trained to read everyone else's emotional landscape while your own inner soul remains unexplored and untended, and even as other people might be praising you for being so thoughtful or so dependable or so helpful, you can feel the toll in your body, in your relationships, in your sense of self.

You may feel anxious, but you're not sure why. You may feel resentment, but you don't feel permission to express it. You may feel invisible and yet terrified of taking up space. That's the distortion, that compulsive caretaking part. You were made to love and care for others. Yes, but you were never made to lose yourself in the process.

If any of this resonates with you, I want you to take a deep breath with me as you're listening. Maybe place your hand over your heart as you take that deep breath and send some love to that hard working caretaking part of you. We are not here to lay blame or to shame. We are here to get curious about her and to let her know she is no longer alone.

She is not broken. She's just tired and for just a few more minutes today, we're gonna take a moment and finally pay attention to her if it's safe to do so. 

If you're not driving in a car, maybe even close your eyes and place a hand on your heart. Take a slow deep breath in and a long, steady breath out.

Let your body soften. Let your mind settle. Let your spirit open for just a few moments and I'm gonna ask you some questions for you to consider. Again, if your hands are free, you can take notes or journal while you're listening or just mentally join with me and reflect as I walk you through some of these questions.

What part of you is tired today? See if you can notice her not as a thought, but as a sensation in your body. Maybe she's in your chest, your shoulders, your stomach. Maybe she's hunched over from carrying too much, or maybe she's frozen, curled up in the corner, unsure. How to ask for help. Can you simply acknowledge her presence?

This part of you who works so hard, you don't need to fix her. Just be with her. Let her know she's not alone. If it feels like it's helpful, you might try to picture this younger part of you, the one who learned to care for others. Before herself, what does she look like? What is she doing? Can you see this younger version of yourself who always stayed quiet to keep the peace who cared for others to feel safe? Who believed her worth came from being needed? As you notice this part of you in your body, in your mind's eye, just see if you can sit with this part of yourself in the quiet and let this part of you know you've done so well, you've helped so many, and you don't have to keep going alone.

And if you're able to tap into this part of you that lives in your body, check in to see what would help her rest and feel loved just a little bit today, what would she wanna do with even just five minutes to her herself? What music would she like to listen to? What words of kindness would she like to hear from you or from God. 

See if you can listen for her voice, something she love to receive in this moment from you or from God. Even now, let her hear you say you're not just here to help everybody else. You are worthy of care of love. Take some deep breaths in and out and just notice what that feels like to connect with the part of you who really only ever knew how to pour out and notice what it might be like to commit to this part of you to spend just a few minutes each day checking in on what she might need from you or from God.

If that was helpful to you, you can save this episode and go back and play it again. You can replay that section each morning until you have a better sense of what it feels like to tap into that part of you who also needs care. You are already an amazing caretaker of others. What might it be like to take all of that caretaking and turn even just a portion of it back toward yourself?

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For many of us, learning how to tune in to our own needs is a process tending to that part of you who learned to care for others before she ever learned how to receive. This is sacred ground. This is how you build this inner sanctuary where love can truly grow, where your voice is also heard, where your needs are also brought to the surface, and where God wants to meet you, not so that you can do more for others, but because God longs to lavish love on this part.

Of you. Jesus said, love others as yourself. God never asked us to disappear in our love for others. You'll become a much better lover of others as you take consistent. Time each day to also love this part of 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'd leave your five star review. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God, you heal others. And you stay true to your God given self.

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What does it mean to risk love again—after loss, heartbreak, and the disorientating grief that follows?

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In this incredibly tender and powerful conversation, I’m joined by Stephanie Duncan Smith, author of Even After Everything, to talk about the kind of spiritual confusion that often follows personal loss.

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Stephanie shares how a painful pregnancy loss just before Christmas reshaped her understanding of God. Together, we explore how to stay grounded in God’s love even when your emotions feel muted, your prayers feel flat, or your sense of spiritual connection feels off.

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Whether you’ve experienced loss or walked alongside someone who has, this episode is an invitation into honest faith and the sacred practice of hope.

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This episode explores:

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• Why spiritual numbness is a natural response to pain
• What it looks like to grieve without having to fake it
• How to handle deep pain during seasons that are supposed to be joyful
• Why naming your loss honestly can help you heal
• How Stephanie processed the grief of pregnancy loss

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📘 Get Stephanie’s book: ⁠Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anway⁠

📥 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.

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LIsten to more episodes on grief and healing:

⁠Episode 133⁠: Navigating the 6 Stages of Grief with Renowned Grief Expert David Kessler

⁠Episode 102: ⁠How to Name, Frame, and Brave Complicated Emotions About Faith & God

⁠Episode 159:⁠ Spiritual Drowning, Honest Questions, and a God Who Doesn’t Let Go with Heather Thompson Day

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📖 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.

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Thanks to our Sponsors!

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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.

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Transcript

Anyway. Stephanie is [00:01:00] someone I deeply respect for her honesty, her depth, and her spiritual insight. As a senior editor at Harper One, she has shaped the words of many bestselling and award-winning authors that you and I know and love, but today she's sharing her own story. In our conversation, Stephanie opens up about her own experience of pregnancy loss.

The spiritual and emotional disorientation that followed. We talk about what it means to hold both deep grief and fierce love, and to take the risk of opening your heart again even after it's been broken. In today's episode, we get really personal. We talk honestly about pain, about healing, and the slow sacred work of learning to trust.

Again, we talk about how it's not through grit or forced resilience that we find our way forward, but through receiving the. Full spectrum of our lives of what's achingly hard and what's achingly beautiful, and knowing that at the heart of both lives, the promise of God with [00:02:00] us. I want to gently acknowledge that today's episode includes themes of pregnancy loss and miscarriage, which may be difficult for some listeners.

Please take care of yourself and as always, feel free to skip this episode if it's not the right time for you. Stephanie Duncan Smith is a writer and senior editor at Harper One who has spent her career developing, award-winning and bestselling authors. She's the creator of Slant Letter, a bestselling Substack email newsletter for writers looking to deepen their craft.

Stephanie lives with her husband Zach, a professor in their two children in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Please enjoy my conversation with Stephanie Duncan Smith.

INTERVIEW

[00:02:44] Alison Cook: I kind of wanna start this conversation where your memoir starts, which is with this incredible tension where you experienced the loss of your first pregnancy, right? As Christmas was. [00:03:00] Approaching, and that begins to serve as an anchor for the structure of the rest of your book. But tell us a little bit about the background and about that moment.

[00:03:10] Stephanie Duncan Smith: So I should start by saying my husband and I were childless by choice for almost 10 years before we decided that we were going to try for. A pregnancy, and this was a, you know, a storied decision and we didn't come into it with a lot. It was more of a cognitive choice, if I'm being very honest than an emotional one.

We knew that we wanted a family, but we felt pretty ambivalent for a while about the when and wheres of that. And so it was really meaningful to me that December, to grow. Into the idea, even just the very fresh concept that I was pregnant and for that experience to parallel the advent [00:04:00] season because this is what's important, I didn't go into this pregnancy with high hopes, frankly.

I went into it thinking, I think this is what we want, I guess. So it was really meaningful to me to. Walk through this advent season and really for the first time experience firsthand, the wonder and the mystery of new life. That wasn't something that I carried with me into the process until it became part of my embodied experience.

And then I thought, wow, this is amazing. And then that parallel, very suddenly starkly broke. And it was the week before Christmas and in the advent season, each week is sort of themed, and that week was advent week of joy, and it felt like a slap in the face. It felt like divine abandonment, and it felt [00:05:00] like the whole world in across cultures and generations and traditions.

So many people were readying to celebrate this most historic birth. And then it was like a, just kidding, not for you. And it broke me. It just broke me. It would've been painful anytime of year, but the juxtaposition really felt searing in a way that sent me reeling.

[00:05:31] Alison Cook: It makes so much sense, and one of the really. Incredible and meaningful parts of the book is you talk about how you began to lean into this liturgical calendar, this idea of the seasons, and we're gonna get into what we mean by that. For my listeners who aren't as familiar with that type of background, but as sort of a structure or a scaffolding.

For that [00:06:00] process of grief and pain. Right. So the very thing that in a way was such a added, this coming of Christmas, kind of compounded in many ways, the sense of loss also became something that you began to lean into. Can you talk to us a little bit about that and how that kind of played itself out inside of you?

[00:06:21] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Absolutely. So I gave you my raw reactions in the real time of this event, and what I had to work through and work out for myself was how does a story, the liturgical story, the narrative, and the shape of the Christian year, which follows the life and death and resurrection of Christ Square with an experience like that.

How does the story of what I understand primarily to be the incarnation God with us, the coming of [00:07:00] God to be in our humanity, how do we square that with personal moments that truly feel like and are marked by death? What are you supposed to do with that juxtaposition? I mean, the book shows my.

Wrangling and reckoning through this. So I don't come by any of what I'm about to say lightly, but I think for me, a lot of it was realizing that there's a promise in the paradox, and it is God is with us and that presence follows us through any personal moment of our life, death, and life that defies death.

That is the constant. The actual, the whole beauty and consolation of Advent is that a world is hurting so deeply that God says, I can't take it anymore. I'm going to come be with you. And not just be with you, but in the depths of the worst of your [00:08:00] human experiences, I am there. So what I experienced at first, and this is valid. was, this is an unsolvable paradox and I actually came to see it's not,

[00:08:15] Alison Cook: so I wanna slow down there on the unsolvable paradox. Tell me more what you mean by that.

[00:08:21] Stephanie Duncan Smith: I think we approach Christmas as a universal story. A universal hope. A universal promise, and that is a part of the Christian year.

Right? So in broad terms, the Christian year. Begins in Advent, which is a preparatory season toward the celebration and the feast day of Christmas,you know, these are the major seasons. And then time goes on and it moves from Lent, which is a preparatory season for the Feast Day of Easter.

And there's other seasons in there, but all of these are sort of high holidays, right? And. [00:09:00] In the calendar of a year, each of us will have particular personal experiences and life events that might align with those larger narratives, or they might clash in unbearable ways. And when that happens, as it did for me.

It's so painful and that dissonance can feel unbearable and unsolvable. And that was really the driver in my writing this book and working it out for myself, thinking, okay, but where is God in this dissonance as I'm feeling it? Because this doesn't feel like something where you can solve for X.

[00:09:43] Alison Cook: So in the process of wrestling with that very tension of when. This tragedy in your life occurred, which was right at Christmas. It kind of forced you into dealing [00:10:00] with tremendous dissonance. This doesn't compute. How can this incredibly painful loss be occurring? At the very moment that much of the world is celebrating this incredible. Hope.

[00:10:17] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yes. And I think that is the core of the question. It's how can anything be so beautiful and representative of hope for so many other people? But to me it's salt in the wound.

[00:10:30] Alison Cook: Yes. Oh, that I'm imagining so many listeners resonating with that on a lot of different. Levels. You know, when something so incredibly painful happens on a day, on an anniversary in a moment, and suddenly that very beautiful thing becomes something incredibly painful.

And that was sort of the impetus for you to have to almost begin, not only to process. And so I wanna kind of break this apart, not only to process the [00:11:00] loss, but also to process it against your larger spiritual framework. It's almost like you didn't have a choice in that because of that juxtaposition, right?

[00:11:10] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yes. So authenticity is a guiding compass for me. I do not have a poker face. I can't fake it. And this was the first year I think, in my life that I did it not go to the Christmas Eve service because I knew that that would not be good for me and I couldn't. Put on a face and pretend that the ultimate had not just happened when it had.

And I think, you know, for anyone in any kind of grief, I often say the loss or the hardship is the first grief and the pretense is the second. And there's not much you can do to control. The loss or the hardship itself, you know, that's what has happened, has happened. We can't undo it, [00:12:00] but we don't have to put on a pretense and we don't have to put on ourselves the burden of pretending that things are fine to make other people feel more comfortable.

And that's one simple, but I think really profound way. To really own your own grieving and healing process. And for me, in the spirit of authenticity, that really began with, I have to call this what it is, and I have a chapter in the book called Naming the Night, because I think that's the call when the unthinkable happens, when we brush up onto, you know.

Pain and death. You just have to call it what it is, and you're allowed to do that. And I think that there's a lot of shoulds that get charged into the grief experience, [00:13:00] like, especially when it comes to pregnancy loss. I've heard so many women say like, I don't know. Should I really be feeling this sad?

It was so early, or kind of dismissing and discounting. What's an authentic emotion, and I just don't believe that's helpful. And I'm sure you could talk a lot about this from your work. I think there is freedom and a sort of cathartic release in naming the night when it's night.

[00:13:30] Alison Cook: Yes, yes. And again, the courage. For all of us to do that, and I am imagining putting myself in your shoes. I'm thinking about those weeks leading up to Christmas and after Christmas, the courage to do that during a season when you're especially not supposed to be doing that.

[00:13:48] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yeah, the hardest thing for me that year was coming back to work. On the other side of the holidays and everybody's like, how was your Christmas? [00:14:00] And I just didn't have the energy. And actually, you know, everybody gets to make their own decisions for themselves. What's good for you in a place of grief? What will be supportive for you? You get to decide that. And that's not anything that I can tell you or anybody else, but actually for me, again, in the spirit of authenticity, I told a lot more people than I socially needed to because it felt easier for me. Not, and that's a choice that I made for me, but I think we all have to decide what's gonna help us.

[00:14:32] Alison Cook: But again, I love that you gave yourself permission because you knew yourself and you knew it is going to hurt more to pretend. Therefore, I'm going to tell people and that is what I'm doing for me. Which is really what's key.

There wasn't, I'm not doing this to make other people feel a certain way. I'm doing this because this is what I need to be able to navigate this. I need to be able to say whatever the truth was. It's so powerful and so [00:15:00] important. Anything else from, those couple of weeks after? When you said that, when you said I had to go back to work, that was helpful to you in terms of honoring the grief and in terms of what you're saying, not having to pretend and giving yourself permission to be in the emotional space that you were in while also simultaneously still.

Trying to find ways to function in the world. it's something I hear about a lot from clients, you know? It's like, I am feeling this heavy thing and I'm expected to show up at, you know, my job or show up at this event, and how do I do that authentically to your point where I'm still doing the thing I need to do, but I'm not betraying this tremendous burden that I'm carrying.

Any other thoughts from? Your own experience, and I know some of that's trial and error, it's figuring ourselves out through the fact of being thrown into something. But any ideas on what was helpful to you or maybe what wasn't helpful?

[00:15:59] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yeah, [00:16:00] sure. So I haven't told this story often, but this is a good place to share. I ended up not writing this into the book For various editorial reasons, but there's sort of an extra chapter to the events of things. AndI went into the ER and was told we couldn't find the heartbeat, but they also said, you know, come back a week later just to be sure.

And I watched movies for a week. I didn't have anything else to do. It was a long week and at the end of that week, I. I had to go back in and they confirmed it, but in the middle of that week, I was actually summoned to jury duty, and that's a medical reason to not have to go. So I should have been excused.

And there's a story here that essentially my provider did not provide a letter in the time that I needed it, so I had to go federally.

[00:16:57] Alison Cook: Oh my gosh.[00:17:00] 

[00:17:00] Stephanie Duncan Smith: I was absolutely, I was furious, but it's the fury that comes with helplessness and powerlessness and just the loss of control. And I was pretty certain, I knew what was happening in my body at the time, but it was the one time I left my house that week, and when I was there, I was a mess.

And it's an even bigger story because it was actually a criminal trial for murder, and I just couldn't take all the emotional inputs. I just couldn't do it. So after I was finally excused from the selection process, I went to my car and I called. I was too angry to drive. I didn't feel sober. In my rage, I didn't trust myself to drive.

So I called my provider [00:18:00] and I said, I need to speak to the manager. Like, who do I talk to? And they, you know, put me through some voicemail and I just thought, I have to do what I can do here. And I'm able to sort of, you know, see the humor of this in retrospect, but. I'm not laughing at myself. I actually, after that, made a series of calls and it was like to the airline that had sent me on a nine hour delay and needed to gimme a voucher.

And it was stuff like that. And it's kind of funny that I did that, but I get it. And I see that woman in her car and I have so much love for her and compassion because she was flailing and. There was so much she couldn't control and she was doing what she could, and I actually am so proud of her [00:19:00] for practicing self-advocacy as a channel for her rage.

[00:19:06] Alison Cook: Yeah,

[00:19:07] Stephanie Duncan Smith:I mean, it didn't heal me, but it was a lifeline. Where otherwise I just would've felt like I'm so helpless and powerless. All of this is outside the realm of my control, and I think that matters. I really think that it matters to say in small and large ways to self-advocate, especially when so much feels overwhelming to you, and whether that's saying to your boss.

I'm overloaded right now and I can't take on that extra project. Or it's, you know, saying to your mom or your mother-in-law, like, I would love to see you, but I don't have the capacity this weekend. Do what you need to for yourself and that will feel empowering in a way that is hard to come by in those moments.

[00:20:06] AD BREAK 1

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[00:20:06] Alison Cook: It's really good. I just recently did an episode on boundaries where I'd really kind of taken a deep dive into the newest research on it, and one of the studies I found was talking about how, and it kind of gets at this idea of agency and self-advocacy that you're describing, that when we, we really speak up for ourselves, it actually lights up the prefrontal cortex, which is giving yourself that gift of agency of here's what I can, and again.

There might be days where you're like, I cannot do this, and that's okay too, but where there's that moment of I've gotta find a healthy outlet for this rage, I'm gonna do it, and what a great way to do it. Just really honoring the different parts of you that needed you to. Understand how real that, you know, I'm angry, I'm sad, all the different things. Giving yourself an [00:21:00] outlet for those different experiences.

[00:21:03] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yes, and I wanna close that story too by saying I did get a hold of the founders of the practice and. Prompted them to institute a policy that for anybody who needs a letter 24 hours.

[00:21:17] Alison Cook: That's amazing.

[00:21:18] Stephanie Duncan Smith: And that felt great. Yes. 'cause I don't want anyone to have to be in that position ever again. I should be the last one.

[00:21:25] Alison Cook: It reminds me, you talk at the end of the book about the stress cycle. I think it's Emily Naski. You were talking about it almost with the stress of allowing yourself to feel joy again. And we're gonna get there. But it also is another version of it. I am am raging and I need to find a way to let it flow through.

[00:21:41] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yes. Get it out of your body. Yes. Whatever you can do to get it out of your body, it's not meant to stay locked up in there. Yep.

[00:21:49] Alison Cook: I wanna just touch on this idea of grief that you described. You write of a pregnancy loss. It's not just the loss in the moment, it's the loss of the future, the loss of all the [00:22:00] future possibilities that in your case, you'd barely just started to dream about in a way.

It resonated with me. And I wanna name this also for listeners because there's so many ways we experienced this. I didn't have biological children. And when it became clear to me that I wouldn't or couldn't, It was like I had a parade of images of sixth grade graduations, high school graduations, you know, the future losses.

And it surprised me. It just the way my psyche just. Had to process those losses. So tell me a little bit about how that was for you and what that was like for you.

[00:22:42] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yeah, I think this hearkens back to what you were saying about finding our permission to grieve, and I'll speak particular to pregnancy loss and then more broadly, 'cause I think this is a really interesting dynamic.

But in the case of [00:23:00] pregnancy loss. It would be fairly easy on a face value way for someone to say, oh, but you didn't even know them. You know, how can you grieve someone that you don't even know? And it's like, oh no, that's not what's happening here. You are grieving an entire imagined future. The future of a life together.

And I would say that that is sacred imagination at work. That is the mind imagining something good and true and beautiful, that God honors and celebrates whether it comes to being or not. So who are we to dismiss that sacred imagination? And I think that carries to any kind of loss of the future. And if, you know, an, an example we could all pull up from this is from the COVID years.

How many [00:24:00] weddings or family reunions or graduations did families and individuals imagined that never got to be, that is worthy of your grief. Again, these are good and beautiful things, and we're right to put our hope in them and be shaped by that hope. My, the subtitle of my book is The Spiritual Practice of Knowing The Risks and Loving Anyway, and I have been very formed through, you know, living this story and then writing about it.

My very strong belief that the risk is always with us, and there could be an argument that it's better not to take that risk, but I am convinced that we really like who we become and we're proud of who we become when we [00:25:00] use that sacred imagination for hoping for something good, no matter what.

[00:25:05] Alison Cook: I love that phrase, that sacred imagination, because there is something holy about it. It tells us something about ourselves, about what we need as humans. These milestones matter and there's something about them that we need to honor. I really love that you write Stephanie kind of as we lean into, because it, it is true that part of the book isn't just about the grief, it's about how you began.

To hope again and in a very specific way, which is relevant in this case. And there's this quote you have in the book that I think is so powerful. You say the line between love and loss is thin as the rim of a coin and as if tossed into the air ever shimmering. And you know, that's just, that's the reality, right?

And how am I gonna hope again and how am I [00:26:00] gonna. Dare to imagine loving again in this specific way, and again, like you said, in broader ways that relate to everybody. This can happen in any kind of situation. And as you were wrestling daily with loving any way, how did you work through that, especially when you had experienced such a profound loss and the real risk. Of love is that it can get taken away.

[00:26:27] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yeah. I'll put it this way. I have two children today. I have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old, and they were both born after losses and I have never known pregnancy to be anything but truly a daily terror. It's just a true confrontation of mortality from waking to sleeping.

And I don't wish that on anyone. I certainly never saw it for myself at the beginning of [00:27:00] this journey, but I found it truly terrifying and I had to find solid anchors for myself or I wouldn't have been able to function. I think a few of the anchors I found are, you know, simple yet profound. And again, this is for any kind of unknowing because we all live in unknowing.

This is not an isolated experience, but I, the first thing that really helped me was just staying grounded in the present. One of my pregnancy books had a line kind of a mantra for today, and it just said simply today I am pregnant and. I don't know what tomorrow is. I don't know about next week.

I don't know. But right now I have whole body, whole person access to the only time I have whole person access to right now. This is where I am [00:28:00] and letting that be enough for today. And I, you know, there's a way to expand that into whatever your own. Love against risk scenario is it's just like today I have what I need today, I'm safe.

Today I am cared for and it's daily, but it's, I think it shapes us, and I wouldn't say this is a practice, but maybe something to stay close to is I was really interested to learn. There have been some studies, and you may be in the deep on these, but there have been some interesting studies that show.

People who are insecure relationships, where they're loved unconditionally, they're supported unconditionally. It's healthy, stable support. They are more emboldened to take risks. And I found that certainly personally in my marriage and family relationships, [00:29:00] and I think leaning on the support from those secure relationships.

Can give us what we need to face the unknown, and that can be the people in our lives. And I also think that, you know, in my case of really kind of stepping away from the Christmas season in the wake of my loss, again, that was valid and not without reason, but I had to do my own work to mend what I knew was a secure relationship with.

The God of Advent. I knew that cognitively, but I did not feel that emotionally, and I had to do my own work to restore that trust and sort of come back into the remembrance that trust is earned. So that I could experience the benefits of, okay, I've got a solid anchor. I can take some risks, like [00:30:00] I have a widened capacity for the unknowns because I know that where it matters most. I am held and seen and supported.

[00:30:08] Alison Cook: This is really powerful and I want to make sure the listener is grasping what you're saying. There's a lot in this. So first and foremost, that I've gotta be anchored in the present moment. It's that today, this is what is true, which is such a powerful way to live life, but is almost essential when you're risking to your point, right when you're risking.

But I also heard you talk about loving anchors, and I wanna make sure I'm hearing you correctly, Stephanie, you had your, the support of your husband there, loving anchors in our lives. Loving family members, but then you went to God, and I think I heard you saying that was a little bit risky too. Yes. Wait a minute.

Is this a loving [00:31:00] anchor in this? Right, right, right. So when you're back in that position now of maybe taking a risk to go through another pregnancy. You had to really rework that with God. God wasn't necessarily intuitively that safe loving anchor is that, I'm kind of putting words in your mouth, but am I?

[00:31:21] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Absolutely. Absolutely. And also, I don't think for a second that God is threatened by that sense that maybe there's some trust that needs restored. That's the work of relationships. I don't think God is scared by that. I don't think God is put off by that to the contrary, you know, I wonder if maybe God sees that as an invitation to get more authentically connected and for a more authentic trust.

So there's something powerful there. And you know, without [00:32:00] giving too much away, but I do just wanna preview a big as it relates to Advent and. My sense of being very unseen by this season. I had to re-envision that story for myself. And I found a lot of when things started to turn for me, and I can tell you when that was, things started to turn for me as I revisited that narrative, and I realized that upon deeper reading, this is not a one dimensional story of.

Celebration and triumph because the context of the world into which this baby is born was war torn. And not only that, but specific somewhat to my, you know, context. There's the gospels don't cut out this [00:33:00] whole other narrative. Of what's called the massacre of innocence, and that's when Herod jealous King goes out and tries to preserve his kingship by preventing this baby from being born.

And rather than sideline that narrative, this is part of Advent as much as the birth of Christ is. And in fact, God came through the incarnation because of stories like this, because this should not be, it was so serious that God had to come down himself and enter our narrative and our pain, and that's when it really started to turn for me, that realization that this too is part of the story.

And if you are feeling like Christmas. An advent is painful to you. It's not lining up with your experience. The gospels give a fair [00:34:00] hearing also to a story of deep tragedy. And you know the gospels even echo prophetically. You know the prophets from the Old Testament. Rachel is part of Israel. They echo her cries through the centuries and it says Rachel is crying for her children.

For they are no more. And I hear that today and I had to learn to hear that is your sorrow is sacred to God. And if you are crying, you are being heard and honored by a God who remembers your grief in every season. You are not alone, you are not unseen. And that's when I, especially at the time, begrudgingly, I will admit, I was like, okay, I'm hearing this.

And that felt like a gift in a season that felt like, oh, you are not participating in this. This [00:35:00] isn't for you.

[00:35:01] Alison Cook: In fact, you are staying home on Christmas Eve as just as much you participating. Oh, yes. In that story, yes. As anybody else. It doesn't always feel that way. And I hear you, it feels like. We are the ones stepping away when in fact, oh no.

But it took a while. I hear what you're saying to recalibrate in your own body that not just slapping on some sort of cognitive, but really allowing your embodied wisdom to understand. No, this too is part of the story. Yeah. Yes. Wow.

[00:35:39] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yes. And it is deeply seen by God, and God is grieving. In Rachel's Tears and in yours?

[00:35:47] Alison Cook: Yes. Yes.

[00:35:54] AD BREAK 2

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[00:35:54] Alison Cook: You've said this, Stephanie, but I really wanna underscore it because it comes outta your lived experience. [00:36:00] What was surprising to you as you recalibrated not only that season of Advent, but you also kind of began to recalibrate to the different seasons of the church calendar? What surprised you about God?

[00:36:15] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yeah, I think it's been an unfolding, but. I'll tell you this, I'm looking at it right now over my desk. I have an ancient Celtic symbol and oh gosh, I'm gonna butcher this pronunciation. I think it's a Tri Ketra, and it's basically a sort of Trinitarian image. There's three interlinking arches, and then in the middle there's a center that they create.

And my sisters gave this to me. It's like a stained glass kind of hanging, and they, my sisters gave this to me after my first loss, and I, at the time, hung it up over the kitchen sink and [00:37:00] just started looking at it. And over time, I've really started to see the center of this piece as the place where we are held by God.

I think about this beautiful verse in Colossians that says, in God, all things hold together. And I think what for me has emerged through much contemplation on where is God beating me in this healing process? And. What has really emerged for me is new and kind of renewed images of God, both as mother and midwife.

And I started to think of that verse in Colossians as it got all things hold together. And I started to think of it as, you know, in this center, this space that I'm [00:38:00] visualizing in my tri catchup, we are held together and I think about the imagery of. A woman in pregnancy, it's, we talk about she's carrying and she's carrying life and she's carrying mystery.

And that is very kindred language to the salvation metaphor actually, that Jesus speaks of when he's talking to Nicodemus. And Nicodemus asked, what do I need to do to enter the kingdom? And Jesus says, you need to be born again and. At a very face value reading, who is doing that Earthing, who is doing the divine work of that earthing, it's God.

And that might feel unfamiliar to some Christian practice and it might even feel a little, you know, can we say that? Can we do that? But I [00:39:00] think if you take a close look, you'll find so many. Images and language in scripture that is really rich with these. And you know, it's all metaphor, right? You know, even God as father, that's a metaphor just as much as any of this is.

But metaphor is helpful. That's how we can understand the abstract. And I think it metaphor becomes for us, a, a threshold to new understanding. And that's what it was for me. I thought, you know, I am held, I am carried. And the promise and the presence in that is meaningful to me.

[00:39:37] Alison Cook: That's powerful. And that is, you know, sometimes I think about even when you were saying whether you were working it out, that holding is, it is.

And I think about as you're saying, it's like when we think about the ideal, not that this is everybody's experience, but the ideal of mother love, right. Of it's a love that just holds [00:40:00] through. Yes. Everything.

[00:40:01] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yes. So I have a master's in theology and I actually did my capstone thesis on images of God for women and what kind of a male savior means for women.

And so I've done these studies and there's one that really interests me. There's a scholar named Phyllis Tribble, and she has done a study of the Hebrew word for womb. And the Hebrew word for womb and mercy share the same root. They're very close etymologically, and there's even a dynamic to this word in the, there's so much you know, to be said about gut's, mercy, and loving kindness.

I think that's the same word here, but she calls it. Kind of one and the same. This is God's womb love. It's a mercy that is all encompassing and [00:41:00] holds it all. This is a love that holds space for us, all that holds our pain. And there's even a dynamic in the linguistic study that talks about this mercy, this womb love that's trembling for the beloved.

Like this is a very active love, a very, you know, dynamic ever present. Stance toward us. And I think that's really beautiful. And you know, for all of the wishful thinking promises that won't hold up, of which there are many, this is not one of them.

[00:41:36] Alison Cook: I wrote down this quote as toward the end of the book, you do end up giving birth to your first baby girl Quinn.

And here's this quote, I just thought it was. Stunning, and it's similar to what you're describing right now. You're describing your new baby girl and you say, “surely her life. Surely every life will hold a great shimmering spectrum of [00:42:00] everything. Resurrection mornings and dark nights of the soul sweeping pandemics and paper cut griefs. Great loves. Sucker punch losses and disorienting in tweens for all my burning goodwill. As a mother, you're saying, I can't promise my daughter safe passage, but I can promise her presence in any passage, and that's it.”

 That's incredible.

[00:42:32] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Yeah, I was really on a mission. With this book to shake the trees free of any kind of promise in the face of pain that wouldn't actually test true.

And this is what it came down to. You just found the very bottom of the funnel. This is it. It's presence.

[00:42:52] Alison Cook: What's amazing about that, and again, this is not, this is the true gospel of death, [00:43:00] resurrection, and ascension. That is the Pascal mystery, right? If you go to a liturgical church, right, every Sunday, Christ has died.

Christ has risen, Christ will come again. This is the ongoing pattern of all of our lives, and you're saying it so beautifully because this isn't a. Superficial bandaid. This is a, oh my gosh. Through my own experience of this incredible pain, I've come to a deeper understanding of what with or presence is.

And now I will have more of that to offer to this little girl, which is really what she needs. And there are just no words to describe this, but that comes pretty close. That's really beautiful, Stephanie. That's just a gorgeous naming.

[00:43:45] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Thank you. I have a brief piece too that I'd like to tag onto that. I had a couple scares during my pregnancy with my daughter, and there was a moment when my doctor, just a routine checkup [00:44:00] and you know, it was like third trimester, everything's looking good. And my doctor said, uh, you're great, but you're out of the woods now. And I sort of laughed bitterly to myself thinking, are we ever, you know, my kids are very earth side army out of the woods.

I don't know. You know, there's still so many unknowns. So I wrote this in response to that. There are so many woods. Life is an outright wilderness of them dividing up the furniture with the one you thought would be your forever gritting your teeth through the toxic work environment because you need the health insurance.

Grappling with the crushing weight of helplessness as the news cycle breaks your heart again and again. While it would be far preferable to live our lives where we can see the sun above the tree line, where we can feel its warmth on our skin and the safety of some gold clearing, we know the forest will always be part of the landscape.

We may not ever be [00:45:00] out of the woods altogether, but we can live our lives in communion. We can live sealed as God's own. Forever. The I am with us in any wilderness. What's more I believe we are meant to.

[00:45:15] Alison Cook: It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing your story, not only with us today, but through this beautiful book. It's called Even After Everything, the Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving. Anyway, and I just so appreciate you're a writer's writer, it's a beautiful book, but you're taking that hard earned wisdom and bringing it to folks so they don't feel alone in it. And I just wanna thank you not only for your time today, but for doing that hard work.

[00:45:45] Stephanie Duncan Smith: And I likewise, I want to toast the courage of all the listeners to this conversation. Whatever unknowns you're facing, whatever risks you are taking on, that makes you one of the brave ones and that matters. And you are. [00:46:00] Radically accompanied. Which is a quote from Wendy Wright in all of that.

[00:46:06] Alison Cook: That's beautiful. Thanks so much for just giving us your time and just so grateful for you.

[00:46:11] Stephanie Duncan Smith: Thank you, Allison. So good to be with you.

Alison Cook: ​Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. Today's conversation is tender. It's courageous, and I'm just so grateful for this opportunity to share it with you. I'm joined by Stephanie Duncan Smith. Stephanie is the author of a stunning new book. It's called Even After Everything, the Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving.

[00:46:17] Alison Cook: 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.

What if anxiety isn’t something to pray away—or push down—but an invitation to deeper healing?

In this week’s re-air of one of our most downloaded episodes, Dr. Alison sits down with theologian and mental health advocate Curtis Chang about how anxiety can actually become a doorway to your truest self in God.

We explore:

🌿 Curtis's personal journey through debilitating anxiety

🌿 How Jesus himself experienced anxiety—and what that means for us

🌿 The shame that keeps us silent, and the healing that comes when we name it

🌿 How to walk with your kids through anxiety (without projecting your own)

This conversation is honest, hope-filled, and rich with both theological wisdom and practical insight. If you’ve ever felt anxious and ashamed—or if you’re supporting someone who is—this one is for you.

📘 Learn more about Curtis Chang’s work at ⁠Redeeming Babel⁠ and his book, ⁠The Anxiety Opportunity⁠.

📥 Get your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources ⁠here⁠: 

📥 Get Alison’s ⁠free printable⁠ with five simple boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.

For more on the anxiety series, check out:

⁠Episode 55⁠: Am I Supposed to Distrust Myself? 

⁠Episode 56⁠: Am I Really Supposed to Die to Myself?

⁠Episode 57⁠: Should I Turn the Other Cheek?

📖 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.

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Follow ⁠@dralisoncook⁠ on Instagram to join the conversation!

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.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. Today we're re airing a powerful conversation that originally kicked off one of our most popular series. The series was called What Does the Bible Really Say? And in this four part series, it was episodes 54 through 57. We explored big, often misunderstood spiritual questions like, am I really supposed to die?

To myself, can I really trust myself? Should I turn the other cheek? And today's question, can I pray my anxiety away? These are the kinds of questions so many of us have carried, especially when we're navigating pain confusion or inner conflict. And in this episode, we take a deep dive into anxiety. What is it really?

How does our faith inform the way we engage with it? And does the Bible actually tell us that it should just disappear if we pray hard enough? To help me explore this question, I spoke with Curtis Chang, someone I admire deeply for the depth of his theological insight, his honesty, and his heart. Curtis is a theologian and a consulting faculty member at Duke Divinity School.

He's a senior fellow at Fuller Seminary and the host of the Good Faith Podcast. He's written for outlets like The New York Times, Christianity Today and NPR, and he's the author of a beautiful and transformative book called The Anxiety Opportunity. How Worry Is the Doorway to Your Best Self? This is such a thoughtful, hope-filled perspective on anxiety.

It's both deeply personal and spiritually rich. Curtis shares his own journey through debilitating anxiety, including a moment that brought him to his knees and how that experience eventually reshaped the way he understood God himself. The process of healing. If you or someone you love wrestles with anxiety or if you've ever been told to just have more faith, I know this conversation will meet you right where you are.

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Please enjoy my conversation with Curtis Chang.

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Alison: I've read a lot of books on anxiety, Christian books on anxiety, secular books on anxiety. And I said this to Curtis, I said, "This is one of the first books I've read in a really long time that stunned me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or "If this wasn't the case."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‍

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Curtis: That's right, exactly.

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

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

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

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

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

"Am I still loved?"

"Am I still accepted?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alison: I love that.

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

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

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

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

‍Curtis: Oh, thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by your emotions or stuck in patterns of self-criticism, this episode offers a practical path forward rooted in both psychology and spiritual wisdom.

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In this powerful re-air of a foundational episode, Dr. Alison introduces the transformative approach behind Boundaries for Your Soul. Drawing from Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Christian faith, Alison shares how to lead your inner life with clarity, kindness, and strength.

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Instead of pushing away difficult emotions, you’ll learn how to create space for them—with healthy boundaries that bring healing and peace.

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This episode explores:

• A step-by-step framework to navigate emotional overwhelm
  
  
• The 3 internal roles we all carry—and how to listen to each one with care
  
  
• Why spiritual growth requires emotional awareness
  
  
• How Jesus modeled soul-level boundaries
• An effective way to approach anxiety, anger, or fear without shame
  
  

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Whether you're just beginning your healing journey or deep in the work of personal transformation, this episode will give you tools to understand yourself better and lead from a place of wholeness.

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📥 Get your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here

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📚 Explore Alison’s books: 

• Boundaries for Your Soul: https://a.co/d/fwOjZde
• The Best of You: https://a.co/d/fjkMhoc
• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way: https://a.co/d/5x1cgie

📥 Get the Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools mentioned in last week’s episode when you sign up for her weekly email.

For more on internal boundaries, check out:

• Episode 40: 5 Steps to Healing Painful Emotions
• Episode 41:  Boundaries With Fear And Anxiety
• Episode 42: How to Honor Sadness & Set Boundaries with Loneliness
• Episode 43: How to Tame Your Inner Critic
• Episode 44: Why Anger is a Surprising Friend

📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here

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💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.

‍

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• 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.
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• Check out cozyearth.com and use code BESTOFYOU to get 45% off. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, and embrace your cozy days with Cozy Earth.

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.

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Transcript

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. Today we are re-airing a special episode. This episode was the first episode in a six week journey through the key ideas of my first book with Kimberly Miller, Boundaries for your Soul. This has been one of our most listened to episodes on the podcast, and I wanted to re-air it this summer because on the podcast, we often refer to the ideas laid out in boundaries for your soul.

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This episode is all about your inner family, what's happening beneath the surface, and how to bring peace and clarity and compassionate leadership to the different parts of your own soul. I'm bringing this episode back to you right now because I keep hearing the same questions from so many of you. Why do I keep reacting in this way to my own parents, with my own kids, to my own friend group?

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Why do I feel so divided? I wanna do certain things, but I can't, and how can I stop feeling so overwhelmed, so anxious, or so bothered by this other person? We talk about external boundaries a lot on the podcast and how important they are to the health of our relationships, but this episode is gonna focus on inner boundaries.

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The boundaries you set with the parts of your own soul, your. Inner critic, the anxious part of you, the sad part of you. Maybe your inner perfectionist, maybe the part of you that's beating you up. Because of the way you keep showing up in your relationships with other people. As I said in last week's episode, episode 165, so often boundaries start inside of you, and that's where we're gonna go.

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Today. We're gonna talk about how to create space internally. To lead the parts of your soul from within you in partnership with God's spirit. At the end of today's episode, I'm gonna give you what I think is one of the most profound insights into how we are to relate to our own souls. Rooted in how we see Jesus relating to three different types of people that he encountered when he walked on the earth.

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I love this wave of. Thinking about how Jesus interacted with other people and mapping it on to the way we are to be with the parts of our own souls. If you wanna go deeper into this internal work of setting boundaries with the parts of your own souls, check out the entire boundaries for your Souls series.

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It's episodes 40 through 44, and we'll link to those in the show notes. And to help you get started on this work, I've created three free resources that you can download today. They're at https://www.dralisoncook.com/books/boundaries-for-your-soul You'll find a beautiful map of the soul, PDF. It's a visual depiction of what we're gonna walk through together.

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In today's episode, you'll find an 11 day devotional that helps you connect this inner work with scripture. It's perfect if you're looking to pray through this material, and you'll also find a guided. Audio reflection, and this will help you practice this framework in real time, right? So whether you're more of a reader, a visual learner, or someone who learns by listening, I've created something to meet you right where you are.

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Again, that's all at Dr. Allison cook.com/ifs bundle, and that link is in today's show notes. Now, whether you've been following me for a while or this is your. First time hearing about this approach. This episode is a great place to start. Let's dive in.

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So I wanna start off today by talking about wholeness. Wholeness is this thing we all want. We want to feel whole. We want to feel aligned. We want to feel at peace with ourselves. It's a sense of being undivided. It's integration. It's a feeling that who you are on the inside matches how you are showing up in your external relationships.

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Another word for it is authenticity. We wanna feel at peace with the decisions we're making. We wanna feel at peace. With the past, we wanna feel at peace with the people in our lives. This is a picture of wholeness that we all want. The problem is that we tend to think of this idea of wholeness as the absence of conflict, as the absence of tension, as the absence of challenges even inside our own souls.

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We tend to think of it as this magical place where we'll suddenly arrive when we are just suddenly at peace with ourselves and with. The world around us, but I want you to think about a puzzle. This is the best metaphor I can think of where there are all these pieces laying around and you have to take your time to painstakingly take each piece one after the other and put it together in its proper relationship with the other pieces.

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In order to create the beautiful whole, the beautiful picture, the pieces matter to the whole. If you lose some of those pieces or you can't figure out how to put certain pieces together, you miss out on the beauty of that. Whole, right? There's a process. There's work to be done inside our own souls to get to that picture of wholeness.

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And so this is what I wanna walk you through today. We first have to understand the pieces, the parts of our souls in order to bring these parts of our souls together. To create this beautiful wholeness, this harmony, this way of being in the world that is just a little bit lighter, a little bit more calm, a little bit more clear, a little bit more brave.

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We're really operating out of all of who we are in a way that is emotionally and spiritually. Integrated where we're showing up in the insides of our soul match how we're showing up with other people. And today I wanna give you a map of these parts, a framework, a way of understanding the different parts of your soul.

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Because in order to get to that wholeness, that harmony, that peace we all crave, we have to understand the parts. 

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And so in my work, I've developed a great respect for an evidence-based model of therapy that looks at the soul as an internal family, where every part of the family, every family member has a role to play.

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Every family member is valuable. Every family member needs to have a voice. A healthy family, no one individual is taking over the family, but also no one individual is getting shoved aside or not getting heard. 

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Now, if you've seen the Pixar movie inside Out, I would encourage you to go back and watch that film as you listen to this series. It's a great film. It's a children's movie, but it's great for adults too, and it depicts a little bit of what I mean by these. Family of parts, these different emotions where you've got fear, you've got anger, you've got joy.

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This will to be happy all the time. You've got sadness, you've got disgust, sort of the eye rolling part, all existing inside the minds of each character and each one of those emotions, each one of those parts is vying for control of that person in any given moment. And it's a great picture of what happens inside our own souls.

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Now this internal family approach that inside Out does such a great job of depicting is based on the work of psychologists. Dr. Richard Schwartz. Dr. Schwartz came up with this model of therapy called Internal Family Systems. It's an evidence-based approach to therapy. I also view it as a spiritual practice and in my book, boundaries For Your Soul.

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With Kimberly Miller, we combine this. Approach to therapy IFS or the internal family systems model with Christian theology, faith, and practice. And so this is an approach you can use every day as a spiritual practice. It's also an approach that people can use with the help of a therapist to heal deep wounds.

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It's a way of orienting to the parts of our soul so that we can lead ourselves with clarity, with courage, with compassion, so that we can lead the parts of ourselves. Wisely. The basic premise of this approach is that we're all comprised of parts, and if you think about your day-to-day interactions, you can imagine a part of you might be tired and wants to stay home or call in sick from work today.

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Another part of you is saying you can't do that. You've gotta get yourself to work, you'll lose your job. Right there you are experiencing an inner. Tension. There's some inner conflict between two parts of you. A part of you wants to stay home, a part of you, a very dutiful, responsible part of you is trying to drag you out the door to work.

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You are in conflict with yourself. Maybe it's a little conflict. Maybe you're not even aware of it, but these are two different parts of you that have two different ideas about what you should do with your day. Maybe a part of you wants to go out with other people. This. Weekend and another part of you just feels shy and exhausted in people doubt and wants to stay home.

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Maybe a part of you is tired and another part of you will not let you start volunteering for more projects. At work, at school, at church, we are comprised of different parts. God made us this way. This is not a bad thing. We're complex. Wholeness doesn't come through. Shoving one part aside, it comes as a result of learning to attune to these different parts of you, to pay attention to them and to negotiate within yourself the best way forward.

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Now, I know some of you may be thinking, this sounds like a lot of work. It's hard enough to raise my kids, get to work, do all the things I need to do, and how. Am I gonna do this work of parenting my own soul? And sometimes I'll say that to clients. I'll say, you've gotta parent your kids. And guess what?

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You've also gotta parent the kids inside of you. It is a lot, and I get that. But this is the biggest thing that's on my heart in this work that I do, is to encourage you that creating space, just a little bit of space each day for this relationship with yourself. Is as important as all the work you put into your relationships with other people, and it's a deep, profound part of your relationship with God.

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Let's talk about nutrition, not the crash diet kind, but the kind that actually fuels your life. I'll be honest, I try to eat well, but between work, family and just life, it's hard to know what my body really needs. I found myself reaching for what's convenient and then wondering why I'm exhausted, and that's why I'm so grateful I found Faye.

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Whether you're dealing with PCOS food sensitivities, or just wanna stop second guessing every food choice, Faye makes expert nutrition support simple. Visit faye nutrition.com/best of you to see if you qualify to work with a dietician for as little as $0. That's faye nutrition.com/best of you, because you deserve to feel your best.

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According to Dr. Schwartz, there are three categories of parts of the soul. The first category is our manager parts. These are the parts of us that protect us by preventing bad things from happening. These are parts of us that worry and analyze over and over and over when they're not really solving the problem anymore.

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They incessantly people please, because we're terrified of what other people are going to think about us. They're the parts of us that keep working long hours. Long after we needed to take a break, they overanalyze, they overthink. They are critical primarily of ourselves. These parts of us think they're trying to help by forcing us, shoving us, criticizing us, berating us to make sure we never let anybody down or never let anyone else see our vulnerabilities or our areas of weakness.

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Then we get tired because we are not machines. We are human beings. And so this second category of part kicks in and Dr. Schwartz calls this category firefighter parts. They're called firefighters because they come in to put out the flames of pain after you start to feel overwhelmed. They are the parts of us that just wanna shut it all down.

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They. Numb. They escape. They indulge in whatever feels good in the moment just to make it through the end of the day. These parts are often operating outside of our conscious awareness. If you've ever found yourself mindlessly surfing the internet for hours on end, you can't believe it. When you look at the clock that all that time had passed, they reach for the credit card and just start buying things.

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When you don't really have the money to spend and might not even need the things, these are the parts of us that go to food or sleep or exercise or otherwise good things, but to an excessive degree, that's not healthy. I. These are the parts of us that binge television for hours on end. They can turn toward excessive daydreaming, a fantasy life.

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And these are the parts of us that can also turn toward addictions like alcohol, drugs, pills, anything to put out the flames of pain inside of us. And this is the dichotomy. We are working hard and then we're shutting it all down. Now, here's the thing, there's a third category of parts and Dr. Schwartz calls these parts exiles.

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They're called exiles because we shove these parts aside. They're the parts of us that harbor shame, fears, self-doubts, and insecurities, or hurts our wounds and our unhealed pain. They harbor feelings of being less than feeling worthless, of being unappreciated, unseen, invisible, alone. These are the parts of us that need our care and God's healing the most, but we are so busy managing or shutting it all down that we don't get these parts of ourselves the care that they need, and as a result.

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Sometimes these exiled parts ambush us. They've been left alone at the corners of our soul where they're not getting the care that they need, and then they can take you over and suddenly you can just be overwhelmed with sadness. You can be overwhelmed with pain. Sometimes we exile anger, and you might find yourself.

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Overwhelmed with anger, they come roaring out from where they've been exiled and overwhelm us with the fear, the heartaches, the self-doubt that they carry, and we begin to think of ourselves as only sad or only lonely or only broken, and we lose sight of the whole. This is just one part of our story.

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It's not the sum total of who we are. Your depression, your sorrow, your fears, your anger, your loneliness. Yes, they are real and they are not the sum total of who you are. They are not your identity. And when we get outta balance, these parts of us can start to feel like all of who we are. The truth is there are two opposite and equally unhealthy ways of relating to these parts of your souls.

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One, you can keep them too close to you, right? And you become that one part of you. And that's what we saw in the Pixar movie Inside Out when one part tries to take over. But you can also push these parts of you too far away. If you're too close, you risk being overwhelmed by them. And if they're too far, you risk being cut off from them only to be influenced by these parts of you in harmful ways.

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Our job is to learn to lead each of these parts of us wisely. Together, these three categories of parts create a whole. None of these parts of you is bad. Please hear me say that. We need the manager parts of us that get us up in the morning, that help us comb our hair, that help us clean up the house or get the chores done.

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These parts of us are not bad, right? We need them. We need to put our best foot forward from time to time, but they become problematic when they take over. At the expense of other parts of us. Same with these firefighter parts. They're not all bad. We need healthy relief, healthy comfort, healthy distractions, healthy escape.

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Even we talked about this in this series on detoxing. The goal of a detox isn't to remove our coping tactics. It's to find healthier ones, but these firefighters, when we're not aware of them, can take us over and they're really sneaky. They can sneak in and get us to just mindlessly numb out instead of helping us get the actual relief, the actual comfort, the actual care that we need.

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And these exiled parts of us are precious. They remind us that we're tender, we're vulnerable, we're human, and that we have needs. They remind us to slow down because we might be the one who needs our attention. I wonder what this loneliness is about. I don't want to sideline it, but I also don't want it to overwhelm me, so I want to get curious about it and name it and start to talk to other people about it.

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These are the parts of us that help us identify where we have needs and where we need to learn to speak up on behalf of ourselves with safe people. They are the parts that need our compassion. Our attention, our kindness, our patience, our gentleness the most. So, how do we know when we're outta balance?

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How do we know when a part of ourself needs our attention? Well, the biggest cue is when you find yourself doing something at an extreme. You might notice, man, I just cannot stop working. I, I'm exhausted. I've worked long past my deadlines. I just can't stop myself. I wonder what else is going on inside of me.

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Or I cannot stop analyzing this situation. I'm not getting anywhere. It's not helping me, but I can't stop. I need to slow myself down and pay attention. Some part of me might be hurting or I cannot stop saying yes or pleasing other people. It's like a compulsive need meeting and I can't stop, and it's starting to hurt me.

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I wonder if there's a part of me that needs my care. How can I slow it down to discover what's really going on inside of me? Or I just checked out for hours, like I could not get myself to do something. I wonder if there's a part of me that's hurting or that needs my attention. An extreme emotion like anger, like frustration, like worry, like fear, doubt.

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A lot of things can serve as a cue to pay attention. That's like a light on that dashboard of your car, right when it goes off saying, pay attention to your car. Something isn't working quite right. These extremes are an opportunity to get curious. A part of your soul needs your care. Now, remember we talked about this in episode four on trauma.

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Do not take this journey alone. If it feels overwhelming to you, bookmark it. Say, wow, this is something I might need to pay attention to with the help of a therapist or in the safety of community.

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There's something about summer nights that should feel restful, but let's be honest, when it's hot and sticky, sleep can be anything but refreshing. I've had those restless nights where I just couldn't cool down, and that's why discovering cozier bamboo sheets made from visco has been a game changer.

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From the first night I noticed how they naturally wick away heat and moisture. I woke up cooler and honestly more rested. Their all day. Tea and studio pant collection have also become my go-to for slower mornings and weekend getaways. They're light, breathable, and luxuriously soft. What I appreciate most is how cozier takes those off hours, the five to nine, and turns them into something restorative.

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It's more than just lounge wear or sheets. It's an invitation to care for your body in a simple, daily way. It's risk free. You get a 100 night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty on all bedding from July 11th to 13th. Go to cozier.com and use code. Best of you to get 45% off sleep cooler, lounge lighter, and embrace your cozy days with Cozy Earth.

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Now here's the good news. At the center is a place inside where the Holy Spirit comes to live, and Jesus promises this Holy Spirit, the comforter, the counselor, God's very own spirit coming to live inside of you in John 14. And so often we tend to look externally to God to solve our problems or externally to other people.

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And I talk about this in the best of you in chapters two, three, and four, but we forget that there's this internal place inside of us where the best. Of who you are comes together with all of who God is to lead these parts of you into Wise, brave Action. Henry Nowan talks about this place inside of us as a place of truth where we hold ourselves together.

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With compassion and Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend talk about it as a place inside where we become aware of our different thoughts and feelings. We can name them without shame, without judgment, without criticism. Dr. Schwartz in IFS called this the self. It's the center of the soul and in boundaries for your soul.

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We call it the spirit led self. It's the place where who you are comes together with God's spirit so that you can lead yourself well. Before we close, I wanna give you a metaphor that I really love to describe this process as well as an example from scripture. It's the metaphor of a middle school band now.

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I played in a middle school band. I played the saxophone, and it was chaos, frankly. I mean, it was a lot of fun, but it was chaos. And if you could imagine a middle school band without a conductor and the trumpets are over there just taken over, they think they're knocking it outta the park. They're in charge, but really they're just playing too loud and not really on key.

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And then you got the flutes who are playing so quietly you can't even hear them. They're such an important part of the band, but if they're not led well, you can miss them. They can get drowned out. And then we have the drums in the background, and these guys are just having a ball. They could care less about anybody else.

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They've got the power and they're just beating at whatever pace and whatever rhythm, and at whatever speed and whatever noise volume feels good to them in the moment. Right. And it's chaos. It's a cacophony. It's just a lot of noise. Then imagine a wise, capable, kind, present, strong conductor, steps up in front of the band, and slowly, methodically with wisdom, with tenacity, with tenderness begins to help each of these different parts play their role well.

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Suddenly the trumpets are in key and they're playing at the right volume. The flutes come in and sound so beautiful. They add a gentleness, a serenity to the melody and the drums are doing their job well. They're keeping everybody on beat on tempo, and they bring some life, some joy suddenly. You have a beautiful harmony, and that Wise conductor has helped each of those parts play their role.

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Well, the truth is we all have access to that wise inner conductor, and that's our job is to learn how to show up for these parts of ourselves with gentleness, with honesty, with Holy Spirit, led. Wisdom. And as you consider these different parts of your soul, I want you to think about the way that Jesus interacted with three different kinds of people in the gospels.

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And I love this because it maps onto these characters inside our own souls. Number one, we see Jesus interacting with the sanctimonious, the stubborn, the self-sufficient religious leaders who thought they could do it all on their own. Like those trumpets, they thought they had it down pat. They didn't really need Jesus.

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They were just gonna get it done on their own strength. And how did Jesus respond to these folks? He often asked them to take a step. Back. He accused them of shining it up on the outside when the inside remained empty. And then we see Jesus also engaging with those who were straying the sinners, the ones who were cheating, who were stealing, who were lying, who were engaged in adultery and all sorts of numbing, pleasure seeking behaviors.

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They were marching to the beat of their own drum. And how did Jesus engage with these folks? He did not shame them. He didn't. He named what was happening and he invited them in to a different role. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, and then your faith has saved you go in peace. He did not shame them.

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He gave them a new role. And then finally we see Jesus engaging the suffering. Those who were sick. Whether mentally, emotionally, or physically, the wounded, the hurt. By no fault of their own, they had been marginalized by society, kicked out, tossed aside, exiled, and yet Jesus stopped. Invited them to draw closer.

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He slowed down and he attuned to each one of them with compassion. He welcomed them in and gave them purpose. Get up, pick up your mat and walk. You have value here. You matter. I see your pain and I'm going to bring purpose from it. You are no longer invisible. You have a seat at the table and suddenly we see a glimpse of the whole.

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You see, we all have a little bit of each of these types of people inside our own souls. We have the sanctimonious, stubborn, sometimes self-critical manager, parts of us that just think we can muscle our way through and get it done on our own. And we all have parts of us that are tempted to stray, to cut corners, to avoid hard things, to just drown it out in whatever way we can.

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And guess what? We all have the suffering parts of our soul that have been wounded. That have been silenced, that have been shoved aside. And Jesus comes in as that wise inner conductor and he helps us reorient our own soul to create a beautiful whole. And we start to shift how we relate to ourselves.

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It's okay. Inner critic, I see you, you've done your work, you've been telling me all the things I've done wrong today. Could you take a step back? You're not really helping me in this way and I see you. That part of me that just wants to grab that bag of cookies, that credit card, that numbing device, and drown it all out.

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Could I take a deep breath and consider a better way of soothing myself in this moment? And there you are. Sadness or loneliness or weariness or self-doubt, it's okay. You can be here. I don't want you to take me over, but you can have a seat at the table. You're valuable. You have important information for me.

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I'm gonna get to know you better, but I want you to stay within these healthy boundaries. And suddenly it's like our inner lives become this grand boardroom where all these parts have a seat at the table. Our inner critic, our fear, our worry, our sorrow, even our inner perfectionist. We start to honor the value in each one and the good intentions behind their actions, the ways they've learned to survive so often from long ago.

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And we also start to give them new boundary lines. We start to lead them from this place inside. Where the Holy Spirit dwells. This is the work of becoming whole. It's the work of patiently taking every part of your soul and bringing it into the light of God's presence where you can begin to lead yourself well with confidence, with courage, with conviction, even with some playfulness, you start to delight in parts of you that can sometimes drive you crazy.

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And you're no longer shaming yourself for the parts of you that simply need your God-given care and attention, you are delighting in the intricacies, in the beauty of how you were made. This is the beauty, the spaciousness of healthy boundaries inside your own soul.

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Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts and click the plus or follow button that will ensure you don't miss an episode and it helps. Get the word out to others while you're there.

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I'd love it if you leave your five star review. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God. You heal others and you stay true to your God given self.

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Is summer leaving you more frazzled than refreshed? Between travel, family gatherings, long days, and shifting routines, summer can test your limits in unexpected ways. If you’re feeling stretched thin, resentful, or just plain exhausted—this episode will be your practical step by step guide to resetting your boundaries. 

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Backed by recent research and years of experience, Dr. Alison walks you through why boundaries are essential for your brain, relationships, and emotional health—and how to set them with clarity and kindness.

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In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How healthy boundaries light up the part of your brain responsible for resilience
  
  
• Why even Jesus modeled limits—and what that means for you
  
  
• The difference between healthy boundaries and controlling behavior
  
  
• Three levels of boundaries—from simple resets to firm protection
  
  
• Five boundary shortcuts you can start using today (with practical scripts!)
  
  
• Why the hardest boundaries are often the ones we set with ourselves
  
  

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If you’re longing for a summer with more peace, more joy, and less emotional exhaustion, this episode will leave you feeling empowered and equipped.

📥 Get the Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools mentioned in this episode when you sign up for her weekly email.

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For more on boundaries, check out:

• Episodes 24 — Boundaries, the Spectrum of Toxicity, and a Note About Evil
• Episode 25 — Types of “No” Part 1 — How to say “No” in Healthy Relationships
• Episode 26 — Types of “No” Part 2 — How to say “No” to Toxicity, The Real Meaning of Turn The Other Cheek & How to Form A Boundaries Committee 
• Get the first 3 chapters of The Best of You + a free boundaries devotional & workbook here

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📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here

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💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.

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Thanks to our Sponsors!

• Go to ⁠Quince.com/bestofyou⁠ for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
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• 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.

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.‍

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© 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 the Best of You podcast. I'm Dr. Alison, and my goodness have I been thinking a lot about boundaries. We're only about a month into summer. Phew. I am in need of a summer tuneup, and so that's what we're going to do today. 

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Today's episode comes out of a need in my own life for a summer tuneup, as well as it's coming out of what I'm hearing over and over again from so many of you, because summer, with all its beauty, has a lot of chaos and it has a way of testing our limits—whether it's travel, extended family time, parenting, fatigue, social obligations, or just the change in structure. The longer days, the pressure to be on all the time. You might find yourself stretched too thin, out of gas, resentful of other people, or just desperate for a tuneup.

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And that's where I want to meet you today. I want to walk you through a summer boundaries tuneup, a practical check-in, just you and me to help you reset. Take a deep breath, make some low hanging fruit, low stakes decisions to just take back a little bit more control this summer and discover just a little bit more peace, a little bit more clarity, and a little bit more joy.

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Now before we dive in, I want to encourage you with some recent research on the power and importance of boundaries. As I was diving into some of these articles over this past month, it was incredibly encouraging to me to read how important it is to stay on top of our boundaries and how it is an ongoing process.

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So here's what I found:

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Number one: There are recent studies that show that when you set boundaries, you actually light up the prefrontal cortex. That's the part of your brain responsible for decision making and emotional regulation. So when you set boundaries, you're helping to build resilience over time. It's good for your brain to set boundaries. 

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Number two: boundaries can help prevent emotional overload or emotional collapse. One journal found that establishing healthy boundaries can temporarily. Increased confrontations, which most of us don't like. However, when we step up decisively, when we take command, when we finally put our foot down about something that we need, it reduces our long-term anxiety. It reduces burnout and it reduces emotional exhaustion.

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Number three: Several recent studies have confirmed that there's a strong link between boundary setting and happiness, boundary setting, and more trusting healthier relationships and boundary setting and better overall wellbeing, Healthy boundaries are good for our relationships. We don't always like 'em on the front end, especially if we've been conditioned to always put other people first, to always make other people happy. But it's such an important muscle to exercise, and it's good not only for you, but for your relationships. 

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Number four: I thought this was so interesting. There's some really interesting research coming out of Australia where a survey of teenagers revealed that one in four misidentify controlling behaviors as healthy boundaries. Now, this can go both ways. We can misinterpret someone else trying to control us as them having a healthy boundary, but I've also seen it the other way where we can slip into trying to control others—which is not having a healthy boundary. It's crucial to know the difference between healthy boundaries and controlling behaviors. We're going to get into how to do that today. 

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And number five: there's also a lot out there warning against an overcorrection with boundaries, right? Where any conflict is labeled toxic, anyone else's misstep is seen as an excuse to sever ties. We don't want that. That's not what we're after here. What we are after in this community is that “both / and”—we want to be people of grace, we want to be people of kindness. We want to be people who honor the legitimate, genuine needs of other people. We want to be people who care for others. And we want to be people who are gracious and kind and honoring of ourselves. That's where healthy boundaries come in. 

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So if you've been feeling overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted, anxious, indecisive, incapable of sticking up for yourself, this episode is for you. We're going to walk through just some really practical tips and scripts to help you reboot your summer boundaries. 

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First up, let's start with just a simple boundaries check-in.

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I want you to take just a minute right now, wherever you're sitting, wherever you're listening, whatever you're doing, and just ask yourself the following questions. 

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• Where are you feeling most drained right now? 
• Who or what is getting more access to your soul—taking up more mental real estate in your mind than is healthy for you?
• Where are you overexplaining yourself, over accommodating other people, or feeling quietly resentful?

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Just take a minute to notice what comes up for you. You don't have to fix it right now. Don't blame yourself for what you're feeling. Don't even blame the other person. 

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Just Notice.

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Recently in my own life, I found myself just feeling like I was moving in 25 different directions at once. And what happens for me is when I get overwhelmed, I get more compulsive in my need meeting. I get quicker to respond to texts quicker, to respond to emails quicker, to check in on someone who might be hurting. It's like that default part of me ratchets up. The more overwhelmed I am when what I really need to do is pull back, take a deep breath, give myself a moment to reset and reconfigure and take ownership back over my time and what I'm giving out to others.

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And so in my case, those questions really brought me back to an inner place of not even figuring out how to set boundaries with others, but instead figuring out how to set a gentle boundary with that compulsively need-meeting part of myself, right? There's endless needs around me when the kids are home and their friends are in the house and family's all around it, and there's a million logistics with travel plans and trying to get to the mountains and trying to pack up food and coolers and the dogs are needy and there's just a million things outside of me that I could focus on.

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There's just that gentle cue to turn my focus inward and check in with that part of myself that is frantically trying to meet every single. Quote unquote need because they're not all real needs around me. So often boundary setting starts inside yourself. Sometimes the hardest boundaries to set aren't with other people.

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They're with the parts of ourselves that feel responsible for keeping everybody else on track, happy or okay. You might recognize this inside of you. Maybe a part of you jumps in really quickly to meet needs. Smooth things over. Anticipate disappointment. Anticipate boredom in your kids. And while this part of you likely developed for a good reason, it can become compulsive. Exhausting. And at the end of the day, counterproductive—where you begin to meet needs all around you that don't need to be met. 

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So how do you work with that internal boundary? 

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Number one, name it. Oh my gosh. There's that part of me again, trying to earn love by being indispensable. Anxiously trying to ward off boredom because I can't stand to see my kids melt down. Trying to keep the peace between my kids, between my family members, between my friends. Instead of letting them fight their own battles. 

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Number two, listen in to that part of you with compassion. What are you afraid would happen if you didn't work so hard? This part of you usually carries old fears. Fears of not mattering, fears of being unworthy. Fears of being abandoned. Just notice what fears come up if you were to stop working so hard. 

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Number three, anchor yourself in truth. Remind this part of you: You don't have to keep everyone happy for me to be loved. You don't have to keep everybody at peace. For me to feel. Peace. You don't have to wait until everybody's needs are met to take time for your own needs.

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And then number four, offer this part of you a new role instead of overworking to keep everybody else happy. Invite this part of you to help you discern when you need a break. When you notice that part of you ratcheting up its energy to meet everybody's needs, to make everybody happy, to keep the peace to overperform, to overproduce: let that become a cue that you might need to take a deep breath, turn all that energy on its head.

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When you create space inside for that part of you to feel seen, understood, and heard by you, you begin to build healthy inner boundaries, and that becomes the foundation for your healthy boundaries with other people.

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When it comes to your external relationships, here are three levels of boundaries you might need to set—because sometimes you just need a little tweak and sometimes you're dealing with something a little more complicated. And I break all of these down in this series I did on boundaries episodes 24, 25, and 26. So if you want to go deeper on these, go back and check out that series—Episodes 24, 25 and 26, but I'm going to give you the very quick overview right now. 

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Level one is when you just need a simple reset of boundaries with the healthy people in your life. It could be your kids, could be family members, friends, work colleagues. These are the people who can hear you. You're just out of sync and you just need to hit a quick reset button in some of these relationships. In this case, it might just be as simple as saying to a friend. “I am so overwhelmed this week. Can we press pause on our plans?” or saying to your kids, “Hey, you guys are on your own this afternoon. I'm going to close the door and take a nap.” 

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Or maybe taking an hour of personal time at work when you're caught up, you're not going to hurt anybody, and you just say, “Hey, I'm going to cut out. A couple of hours early today, I need the personal time.”  These are situations where it's just a matter of giving yourself some space, an hour, two hours, that's just for you, where you're inserting a pause to give yourself a breath.

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Level two is when you're needing to reinforce boundaries with people who are really draining to you. These are people who may not realize how much they ask of you. They might be family members that actually need your care. They rely on you, and while you love them, it's challenging.

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These might be friends who are going through a hard time and you want to be there for them, and you also need to pace yourself so that you can stay in it with them over the long haul. There's no shame in acknowledging this to yourself, and this is where it's so important to have that healthy reframe internally. I need to pull back just a little bit so that I don't burn out, so that I don't overextend myself this summer and have nothing left to give down the road. 

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You're actually doing other people a favor when you manage your own pace and when you don't overextend what you have to give. But remember, this isn't being cruel. This is being wise. 

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And then level three are those unsafe people in your life where for whatever reason, maybe you've never had good boundaries with them. Maybe you're just beginning to realize how unsafe they are. Maybe you—because of summer— are overwhelmed because of everything you have had on your plate, you actually have kind of let them back in because it's just your default.

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This happens to so many of us, especially when we're overwhelmed. And here's the good news about this level three, especially when we're trying to go for the low hanging fruit, the quick wins. So often what you need in these cases are actions. You don't even have to figure out how to get the words right.

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Just let your actions do the talking. This is what I wish therapists would talk about more. Boundaries aren't always about the right words. They're rarely those polished scripts that you see online. So often boundaries are about your posture, your body, the energy with which you enter or leave. A room.

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They're the look in your eye, the way you rise up and excuse yourself from a space. They're that quiet energy that says, I'll stay in the room with you, but you don't get access to me. Or I'll listen to your words, but I'm not absorbing them or I'm here, but I will excuse myself the moment you step out of line.

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These boundaries don't always show up with words. They show up with an energy in your body with actions. They're embodied, and that's especially important in summer when you might be with people who don't listen well, who share more than you want them to share, who gossip about other people or who don't respect your words.

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You might just need to let your energy, not your explanations do. The work, and this is a powerful kind of boundary. So again, listen, this isn't cruel. This isn't the silent treatment. This is self protection, especially when the other person won't or cannot meet you with mutual respect. 

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Now let's get super practical.

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I want to give you five boundary shortcuts to keep handy this summer, and we're going to send out a little document in my weekly email. If you get my free weekly email, it comes out Thursdays. We're going to give this to you as a printout that you can literally paste on your fridge just to remind yourself, or better yet, paste it on your cell phone so that when that text comes in, when that call comes in, you see this right here, and you remind yourself, wait a minute. Look at the sheet before I agree to something I can't do. 

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Number one, the pause button. The pause button sounds like this. Let me think about that and get back to you. Use this one liberally. You're allowed to not respond to other people immediately. In fact, I would encourage you this summer to almost always answer any request for something from you with, let me think about that and get back to you.

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Number two. The gentle, no, the gentle, no sounds like, ah, that doesn't work for me this time. So simple. That won't work for me this week. No drama, no over-explaining. Just kind firm clarity. 

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Number three, the redirect. You simply say, that's not something I want to talk about right now. You can use this one with your kids, you can use it with your in-laws.

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You can use it with visiting out of town guests. It's especially helpful with intrusive questions or recurring conflict. You just say very nicely, oh, that's not something I want to talk about right now. 

Number four, the exit strategy. This is my favorite one, and this is one you can use without words, especially in those toxic situations. It simply means just have a plan for when you need to step away. Know what that plan is in your mind. I'll stay 30 minutes and then I will excuse myself and you do it. Or the minute they start criticizing me, I'll excuse myself and you do it. Or the minute the conversation gets political, I'll excuse myself and you do it.

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And if you do want to use words, just say, oh my goodness, I've gotta head out. I'll check in with you later. It's that simple. You don't owe anyone an explanation. 

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Then number five, the support squad. And this is so important. Who are your one to two safe people you can text or call when boundaries get hard? This is your boundaries committee, right? These are those folks where you just say, I need help. SOS! I don’t know what to do in this situation. And just that very act gives you the gift of agency. It creates a pause and it allows you to set the healthy boundary. 

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Remember, boundaries are not about pushing people away. They're not about controlling other people's behaviors. They're creating space for your soul to thrive too. You are not an eternal need meter. It is not your job to make sure everybody else thrives at the expense of yourself. So as you listen, take a deep breath, tune in, reset. Remember to let your actions speak.

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If you need to simply walk into a quiet room, shut the door and give yourself 10 minutes to breathe. You can do it. You don't owe anyone an explanation. You're protecting what's sacred inside of you. 

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If you want more tools, don't forget to check out those older episodes, 24, 25 and 26, which is a boundaries deep dive. You can also grab the free workbook plus the first three chapters of my book, the Best of You, which is all about boundary setting. The link is in the show notes as well as the link to my free weekly email where we'll send you those five quick practical tools. As a cutout for you to hang on your refrigerator or put next to your phone.

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You deserve a summer where you are not exhausted by the end. Wherever you find yourself this weekend, this summer, whether you're resetting with someone you love, reinforcing a boundary that's long overdue or quietly stepping back from a dynamic that just isn't safe, I want you to remember this. Boundaries aren't about pushing people away, they're about protecting what's sacred inside of you.

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You don't have to explain everything. You don't have to do it perfectly. You don't have to get your words just right. You just need the courage to listen inward and take a step that's good for you. And so I'll leave you with this question I always want us to return to when we think about boundaries.

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This is when I invite you to sit with a journal on or bring into your time with God. This week, and that's this. 

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What is it you want to say Yes to this summer? 

What would bring life to you? 

What brings out the best of you? 

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Because every boundary you set isn't just a no. It's a yes to your peace, to your health, to your freedom, to the goodness and flourishing in life of your soul.

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So as you consider the nos, you need to say, don't forget that crucial question this summer. What's one thing you want to say yes to?

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Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts and click the Plus or. Follow button that will ensure you don't miss an episode, and it helps get the word out to others while you're there.

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I'd love it if you leave your five star review. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God. You heal others and you stay true to your God given self.

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What if your story—even the complicated parts—could become a doorway to deeper faith?

In this inspiring conversation, Dr. Alison Cook is joined by author and professor ⁠Dr. Esau McCaulley⁠, whose journey is a powerful example of how owning your story—even the hard parts—can lead to growth, healing, and deeper purpose.

Together they explore how to reflect on your past with clarity, how to honor your roots while still moving forward, and how to build a faith and life that reflects who you truly are becoming.

We talk about:

• How to grow stronger by facing your story with honesty
• Why your past doesn’t define your future—but it does matter
• How to forgive and still honor your boundaries
• The role of family, race, and faith in shaping identity
• How to live with more purpose by integrating your whole self
• A hopeful perspective on becoming grounded, resilient, and open to change

If you’re on a journey of becoming more emotionally and spiritually whole, this episode will leave you feeling inspired, grounded, and more connected to your own growth.

📚 Learn more about Esau’s work at⁠ esaumccaulley.com⁠

📖 Read his new memoir: ⁠How Far to the Promised Land⁠ 

If this episode speaks to you, you’ll also love:

• ⁠⁠Episode 156⁠⁠ — Why Fear Shows Up When You’re About to Grow & How to Break Free from Self-Sabotage with Mary Marantz
• ⁠⁠Episode 163⁠⁠ — Healing Spiritual Wounds: Understanding Abuse in Faith Spaces with Rachel Clinton Chen

📖 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!
• Visit⁠ ⁠GoGeviti.com⁠⁠ to learn more about how you can start optimizing your health without leaving home today and use code BESTOFYOU.
• Go to ⁠cozyearth.com⁠ and use code BESTOFYOU for 40% off best-selling temperature-regulating sheets, apparel, and more. Trust me—you’ll feel the difference the very first night.
• 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.

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.

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Transcript:

 Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. This summer, we're revisiting some of the most beloved conversations from the past three years of the podcast episodes that struck a chord with so many of you and ones we think are well worth a second. Listen, there's just so much good stuff in them.

These are stories that continue to offer wisdom, depth, and hope, and I'm so excited to bring some of these episodes back to you. Before we get started, I also wanna mention how much we have Loved hearing your voices on the call in line, your questions, your reflections, your personal observations have been such a gift.

We are working hard on some brand new episodes based directly on your feedback and featuring some of your voices. We'd love to hear from even more of you. So here's a prompt for you to consider. What's one area of your emotional, mental, or spiritual health where you'd like to grow right now? Call 3 0 7 4 2 9 2 5 2 5 and leave a voicemail with just your first name, where you're from, and your answer to the question.

We may feature your voice on a future episode of the best of you. Now, I'm thrilled to share this powerful conversation again. I had with Dr. Esau McCauley back in 2023. Esau is a New Testament scholar, a professor at Wheaton College, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and the author of several books, including his deeply moving memoir called How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family's Story of Hope and Survival in the American South.

It's a story of heartbreak and healing of faith, forged in the fire and of the kind of forgiveness that doesn't gloss over harm, but names it honestly and holds it in grace. Issa and I talk about what it means to revisit our stories, even the hardest parts of them, not just to survive them, but to reclaim them.

We talk about complicated family dynamics, cultural dynamics, father wounds, and the quiet power of small moments, like when he found himself playing basketball with his own son in his own backyard, and how that became a sacred ground for healing. This is a conversation about costly grace, the long arc of redemption, and the kind of spiritual, emotional, and psychological integration that makes wholeness possible.

I know how much it meant to so many of you when it first aired, and I'm so grateful to share it with you again today. Please enjoy my conversation with Esau McCauley.

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Alison: Esau, you're a New Testament theologian and scholar. Then you write this memoir that's your lived experience, and they're both powerful. They both matter. You talk about that in the first part of the book, the introduction, you're like, when people ask you these questions about racism or whatever, you're like, you need to know the whole context. I love that.

Esau: I think that sometimes when we arrive at adulthood, and maybe people see us, we go and speak places, we have nice outfits on, and at least for me I'm shaved and all of the things–I’m put together. They think, oh, you're a Christian because Christianity worked for you. That things went a certain way in your life and that Jesus makes everything go.

They may sometimes extrapolate from the present picture that they see and suggest that we're only Christians because God is helping us in a way that's visible and material and I want to say no, you met me at this point in my life, but God met me a lot earlier.

In order to understand what I say now about God, you need to understand how God was there from the beginning of my story and through the generations of people in my family.

So you're right, it's a much different kind of writing process, but I think it's more along the lines of saying, these accounts that I give about God and the Bible and Scripture and these things aren't simply intellectual. They're also deeply personal.

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Alison: That's right. They're lived, they're experienced. The book is not explicitly about forgiveness, but I saw that thread all the way through it. I also wanted to tell you Esau, my husband and I were just talking last week about how we'd never heard a sermon about Esau, the character in the Bible.

I'm getting to the end of your memoir and I'm like, oh my gosh, you connected those dots to the Esau who forgave. To take us back, take my listeners back–Esau, you tell many stories in such a beautiful way. It's a beautiful book. It's insightful. Like you said, it's not heavy handed. You tell your story as it is. But there are these moments that you described. 

The first one that stood out to me was a moment when you were a little boy. I thought about trauma. I think about how we talk about trauma on the podcast as unwitnessed pain, as something that happens, especially as children, that goes deep inside where there's not an adult there to help us make sense of it.

You talk about these moments of being hurt that you internalized without necessarily having an adult there or a father there to help you process those. So tell me a little bit about that younger you.

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Esau: It might be helpful for the reader, I'm assuming, and the listener, if they haven't read it, I'm going to put the book into a bit of context, and I'll try not to ramble too long. In 2017, my father passed away in a single car accident. He was a truck driver heading back from California back to our family.

We don't actually know what caused the accident, he just dies. It quickly becomes clear that my family wants me to do the eulogy for my father. That was tricky because my father was, he struggled with addiction throughout our entire, most of his life. So he was in and out of our family, in and out of jail, in and out of our lives.

That kind of absence created its own sense of trauma and brokenness. So now I'm tasked with this idea of telling his story because the eulogy is an attempt to tell someone's story and tie that story to the wider purposes of God. So I was really struck with this idea, but how can I tell the story of someone who I don't know?

It generally leads to me sitting down with friends and family who knew him, relatives who were alive when he was a child to get an idea of who he was. That process though, of returning to his past, caused me to return to my past. Because his story and my story aren't easily separated. 

When I began to write, the book has two versions of my father. The perception of my father that I had as a child, and then the perception of my father that I developed later, after I learned his story. One of the stories that I tell early on in the book is in a chapter called, The Making of a Villain. 

When my father came home and he struggled when he was high on drugs, he would also become violent and abusive. I talk about what it's like to be in that room, afraid and praying to God that God might be there to rescue us. In one of the stories, the police are called and he comes in and he's sent off to jail. But the next morning I have to go to school and I misbehave in the school and I get in trouble.

So the teacher is asking, why is this person misbehaving? Why is this child doing these things he or she shouldn't do when they know that they should be listening to what I say? It's because I was so hyped up on adrenaline. I couldn't focus. But I also didn't have the tools to explain to the teacher, my family life is chaotic, so I don't care about anything you're trying to teach me in this class. 

That idea of the person who you want to love you the most is the person who causes you the most pain. When you're a kid and something bad happens, who do you run to? You run to your parents. What happens when one of your parents is the person who's doing the bad thing?

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Or what happens when your mom is also dealing with the trauma from having an abusive husband? I can't go to my mom and talk to her, so a lot of this stays inside for a long period of time.

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Alison: You're saying that so well, and I so appreciate what you're describing. Those moments where you don't know how to give language to, and so you internalize, I would think, some shame. You're getting in trouble. 

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Throughout the story, there's this sense you're a pretty good kid. You're trying to do the right thing, but you don't know how to make sense of these things. 

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Esau: Yeah, I think you're really afraid because you don't want anybody to know. Like you go to school and you walk around and you think, can people see it on my face? So it's not just the difficulties of what's happening to you. That's it’s own trauma. But the trauma that there's no one you can share it with is a double pain.

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I talk about this in the book, that as far back as I can remember, it's actually been a tricky part of me becoming an adult. As far back as I can remember, I didn't have any career goals. I never had career goals. Like, I didn't want to be a doctor. I didn't really care. I just want it to be a husband and a father because as a kid, I had this, I had an awareness that what was happening to me wasn't good and that it was damaging me in a certain way.

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I wondered what would happen to a kid if from the moment they were a child all the way through their adult life, if they had a parent who loved them. I wonder what would happen to a woman if she had a husband who thought she hung the moon.

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Before I thought girls were gross in middle school/elementary school, I had this idea almost like a lab experiment. What would it be like, to be in a house that was different than the one that I was in? So in some sense, the trauma turned me inward because like I said, I couldn't share with anybody, but it also shrunk down my goals. My entire life, I only wanted to be a husband and a father. 

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It was funny–yesterday I was playing basketball with my son. We had just bought him some new shoes. They're like 40 or 50 bucks, but they were the Giannis Antetokounmpo shoes and they came in the mail and he's got the Giannis’. It doesn't matter. There was the last season. He doesn't know. He's eight years old, nine years old, doesn't get mad at what I give him his right age. 

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He went outside and you could tell–we have a little goal in the backyard–you could tell that he was trying to do moves that he couldn't normally do but he thought, I got new shoes on. And so he just wanted to play. He wanted to play with his dad.

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That moment, it was such a joyous, untroubled moment. He's just a kid thinking he can play basketball like the guy he saw on TV. In a lot of ways, those moments that I have with my son are very poignant. He doesn't understand why dad is so emotional when he's just playing basketball.

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But for me, I really thought to myself, this is all I ever wanted. I just want to see a kid be happy. So I think that in the first part of the book, the writing is even trying to reflect that reality. I'm trying to describe what it is like to see the world through the lens of a kid who's undergoing particular traumas.

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So even the writing and the way that the language, like it's, the book is written, I tried to simplify the prose.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Esau: As I try to think about how it felt as a kid, obviously complex memories have developed, but there's a certain sense in which I know what it feels like to be that young kid in that place.

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Alison: You feel that when you're reading it. It's so well written. Like you said, you put us in those shoes. I want to touch on what you just said. You're describing so beautifully almost what we talk about in the therapeutic world–reparenting, where there's a sense of you're reparenting your own younger self as you're allowing yourself the taking in that moment with your own son.

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That's beautiful.

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Esau: One of the things that I tried to do was like, it's funny, I'm trying to do my best to avoid reparenting because when one of the other things that I've noticed is that with my daughters is a totally different experience because with my daughters, I don't know what it's like to be a young girl who's looking for a dad.

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It just feels like the memories don't stack in the same way. So I feel freer in my parenting with my daughters. With my sons, I've tried very hard to allow them to be them and not to undo my past. In other words, like I'm a big sports person. I was playing sports growing up. My oldest son runs track, but athletics isn’t his entire life.

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He actually is in the scholastic bowl. That's what he does. He's really good, like varsity, and he's amazing. So I go to his scholar bowl like things and I can't cheer it on because you got to be quiet. But I try to embrace him as him instead of saying he needs to be what I want him to be because when I was a kid, I wanted my dad to go to my football games.

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My son's school doesn't even have a football team. So I've tried to do my best to unburden my children from the responsibility of undoing the things that I did, to embrace them as unique George, which isn't always easy. Because the feelings always come. They always come and you can't completely avoid it, but being intentional about saying he's not me and I'm not my dad.

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Alison: That's right. Two things can be true simultaneously in that you can be fully present to your boy in his experience, which is so different from yours, and present to your own emotional experience and awareness of,oOh my gosh, I'm doing it. I love that.

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Esau: Yeah. It's healing. It's healing to see untroubled joy. It just is. 

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I cannot articulate how much I enjoyed watching my son try to do a crossover in new shoes that he couldn't do because his dad bought him some shoes and he said, thank you dad. Even when we go on car rides, my oldest is 15 and turning 16–pray for us ‘cause he's driving now, but driving around just in the car with him and being able to have conversations.

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In some sense, I don't know how to do this because my father was long gone by the time I was 15. I don't know what you ask a 15 year old. No one asked me anything. So those complex feelings are both new experiences, but like you said, the past is always with you as you live. I can't escape it, but I try not to pressure them with the responsibilities of undoing all my childhood trauma.

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Alison: It's really beautiful. I want to ask you, Esau, there's so many things I want to ask you. In the interest of not using up your whole afternoon, I started to make a list as I was listening to your book, and it's really cool to listen to it in your voice.

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The different injustices you've talked about–a few that were in your household with your dad, but then you also describe being handcuffed and detailed numerous instances of crazy injustices and as I'm listening, I'm like, I would be filled with resentment.

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You're clearly a deep feeler. You're a big thinker. You're engaged. You're in tune. You don't minimize some of these things that happened, but you also don't strike me as someone who is filled with resentments.

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Esau: Yeah. I think it was really hard because I'm trying to strike a particular balance that I think is important for people to learn how to function with–people as believers. I didn't want to say that things that happened to me weren't bad.

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Because if you move towards forgiveness or grace too soon, then you can have the impact of minimizing these things. There's this point in the Bible where Jesus goes, if I didn't do anything wrong, why did you strike me? He's being questioned. He's no, like I need you to know that, and I know that what you did for me in this moment was an injustice.

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So part of what I wanted to do was to write about those things. That those injustices were real and they happened. One of the tricky things when you start talking about things like this, I think about the different parts of the book. So when people talk about family trauma, it's a little bit less controversial. We can understand that. We at least empathize. 

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When people talk about racial trauma, they get defensive because they feel like they're convicted somehow. Then the idea of talking about racial trauma and family trauma in the book about finding God feels like that's a distraction.

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But I want people to understand that it’s a part of my testimony. It's making sense of the goodness of God in the context of family trauma and anti-black racism. If I eliminate that portion of the story, then I'm cutting out a significant point of healing that God did in my life. What happens to a lot of listeners or readers is that they struggle to accept that as a true experience.

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So what I wanted to do in the story is to say, these are the things that happened to me, so that you understand when I'm wrestling with the idea of God and how God can be good and kind and forgiving and just, I'm wrestling through these particular issues. One of my favorite books, by C.S. Lewis, I love C. S. Lewis, I've talked about him a lot, is Surprised by Joy. 

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He's converted in Oxford and he's dealing with these existential questions and like literally the greatest literary minds in human history are evangelizing him. So he's like arguing while talking about God.

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That's not my testimony. I didn't come to God in the context of walking around Oxford, having these kinds of questions intellectually. I'm trying to figure out God in the midst of trauma. Anti-black trauma. So what I want to say to people is how do you make sense of that?

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This may seem to be overly superficial–only God was there to help.

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When I talk about that, how sometimes you can go to college, get an education, you learn and read all of these books, you learn about all of these critiques of Christianity and all of the ways in which God can be good, you start relitigating your past. But I can say the people who were encouraging me to set aside my spiritual values weren't actually there when I was suffering. 

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They were there to convince me that God wasn’t there in my suffering later on. So what I want to say is that in the midst of those things, who was the person who was my comfort?

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Who was there? Who was helping me? I didn't have my dad, but I had a bunch of people who were men in my life from my church who cared about me, who prayed for me, who listened to me complain. So part of it was simply the presence of God is the reason that I survived. Another reason is to say that it was the people around me who loved and cared about me.

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As to why I might not be as bitter, I'll put it this way. I don't think that we're always immediately ready to tell our stories. Sometimes we go through things and we just survive them. The only testimony we have is that God helped us survive them. So there's stuff in the book that I didn't talk about publicly ever, because for a long time in my life, all I could say is I survived it.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Esau: I think sometimes you get to a place where the stories no longer control you, but you control them. Once you have control of those stories, you can then redeploy them for the sake of healing and for God's glory. I talk about this and I thought about this a lot. I don't know if she ever listened to these podcasts, but I mentioned her a couple of times.

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One of my heroes is Rachel Denhollander. Rachel went through a trauma that she now talks about for the sake of helping other people. It doesn't mean that every trauma survivor can do that or they're required to do it. For some people, that's too difficult. For every person there’s a cost.

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Every interview costs a trauma survivor something to tell their story. But for those of us who feel comfortable, that they are in a place spiritually where they can tell that story, we can begin to use those stories for God's glory. So I'm at the point now in my life that I can tell those stories without bitterness and I can see the ways which I can use this story to help people live healthy and fuller lives.

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But that wasn't where I always was. I like to give people time to say maybe in the grace of God, you might get to a point one day where your story is not something simply that you survive, but there's something that you can actually use for the glory of God. Not that God caused it or anything like that, but you can use it.

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There's things that aren't in the book. There's stories that are not in the book because I'm not ready to tell those stories. People think, why'd you do a memoir? I said hold on. It's 60,000 words. These are like, like 10 or 15 stories. These are the ones that I felt comfortable sharing with people.

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There's other stories that I'm still trying to make sense of as a believer. Maybe in the future I'll be able to tell those stories, but I'm not there yet.

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Alison: Yeah. I love that. I love what you're saying. It's complex. There's different moments that I work through resentments in my life. We were talking with Curt Thompson a couple weeks ago, and he was talking about some resentments he was working through, and I was like, oh, isn't that interesting that I wouldn't talk about them at this point because they're very real. I could certainly tell you something about 20 years ago. So I love what you're saying.

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Esau: There are two or three things that I'm just like, I can't talk about them. This happened like in the last three to five years. I think that the pandemic was hard on everybody. But the last five to 10 years of my life, a lot of things have happened that I haven't processed yet.

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When I speak about them, I still feel the emotion, so I don't talk about them. There's a reason why basically the events of the book all end in 2017, effectively. 

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Alison: That's where you were ready to go.

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Esau: That's where I'm ready. So that was one portion. We'll see if I'm ever able to write about what happened after that.

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Alison: Tell me those moments when you were a kid, when you were a teenager, maybe as a young man, those moments of breakthrough. I love how you said “God was there with me”. There were a few people that broke through, I think you used the word uncomplicated joy to describe your son. 

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So for you, it was complicated. There was a lot of complicated, but there were moments as glimmers we talk about in psychology, where something broke through, whether it was through the Holy Spirit, whether through a human, where you were like, oh, I want more of that.

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Esau: Yeah, I think a part of it was my mom who played a tremendous role in my childhood and she was one of them. I think it can be really difficult to talk about my mom because once again, there are other people who had great moms who ended up under different circumstances.

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I talk about that in the book, but for this sake, I can say this: she could imagine a future for her children. It was not rooted in our circumstances. That was a deep conviction that she had from God, that God had better plans for us. Even when we didn't believe it, we believed that she believed it.

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So that was one of those things that carried us up. The language of the book is like, how far to the promised land? One of the things that I realized is that in some sense, my mom's home was the promised land. It's this place of safety. Even before we arrived, it was like this kind of promise within the context of poverty and suffering and anti-black racism.

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My mom said, you're not gonna let these people tell you who you are. I tell you, this one time where she said we can't, she came home, she worked for the school board, so she'll go across town and then she'd come back from across town because we lived in the black part of town and the school board is always in the white part of town.

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She had friends over there and so she would say, man, they said that you all couldn't learn, that you couldn't think, that you guys are nothing but a bunch of animals. Is that true? Is that true? Is what they're saying about you true? Because if that's true, then I've failed as a parent. For me, that was it.

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One of the other things, I don't know if I talked about this in the book, but it was our church. It was our church. Week in and week out the pastor would preach with such an urgency because I think he knew that life and death was actually the decision that we had to make each week.

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I had this running joke where I was like, okay. We were in church every Sunday. The door was open. We was there. So I would say I'm coming to church and if the pastor preaches a good sermon, I'll be a Christian for another week and I won't sin. If he preaches a bad sermon, I'm in the streets.

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So it was like a week to week thing and it's actually influenced how I think about preaching because I know what it's like to walk in a church on a Sunday with every desire not to have hope, and to have someone who will help me to hope for a little bit longer. I wanted to say that they did that more often than not.

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Even when I thought it wasn't doing its work, I'm pushing these things off, they were somewhere inside of me doing their work and in the fullness of time, it bore fruit.

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Alison: I love that. Esau, one of the things that I'm really interested in–the topic of my first book is this idea that we have an internal family of parts. It's a model of therapy that acknowledges we're complex. We have different parts of us and it helped me a lot being someone who has lived in a lot of different parts of the country, like I said, grew up in rural Wyoming, ended up at an Ivy League school in New England where I felt like a complete misfit.

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I think about you, reading your memoir, you even talk about the different parts of you. You find your way to St. Andrews where you're studying with N. T. Wright, yet you carry with you all of these former selves.

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I'm very interested in that. I think, especially as trauma survivors, those things don't go away, these parts of us, and we don't want them to. What's that like for you? Talk to me a little bit about how you bring all of these parts of you so that you feel like your whole self, wherever you are. 

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Esau: That's a good question because for a long time, I don't think that I did that very well. I think that there was this idea that in order to get to college, I have to be someone else.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Esau: Then they teach you who they want you to be at university. So then you become that person. Then I leave the South and I go to graduate school in New England. Then we eventually go to Japan because my wife is in the military. Then we go from Japan eventually over to Scotland. 

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I'm running. When you're in the rat race, when you're running towards something, it's almost like your bags were checked before the departure and you're flying without the bags, but eventually you land wherever you're going and all the bags come back.

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Alison: That's good.

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Esau: So at a certain point I arrived and this is what 2017 is, I arrived in the place where I was supposed to be and then all the bags showed up. I realized that I wasn't happy being the version of the person who they wanted me to be. That it actually felt stifling. That I was going to lose my mind unless I let everybody come back.

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So part of my writing is my journey to reintegrate myself. I have to be someone who grew up in the black church. That's just a part of who I am. I'm someone who fell in love with the liturgy and I love the sacraments. That's just a part of who I am. I'm someone who loves the Bible. I'm a Bible professor. That's a part of who I am. I'm also a writer. 

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I'm like, I'm a mess of stuff. Like I have five books in five different genres that I've yet to read because I'm just interested in different things. So I am always trying to say now only in the last three to five years, how can I be who God made me to be instead of the person people wanted me to be? You want to say, how did you do it? I said, I think I had to do it to keep my sanity. 

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Reading While Black was for me. My first book that you all know about was my Declaration of Independence.

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It was saying, I have to be a Christian this way or I can't do it at all. I'm going to be a Christian this way or not at all. So I can't be anything other than who God called me to be. How Far to the Promised Land is the story in a sense, of journeying towards becoming that person.

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So I guess I want to say, I think there's a lot of people who get to a place in life where they have the things they want, but the cost is too high.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Esau: I felt like the cost of not being myself was so high, I had to integrate them back so that I wouldn't lose myself. So I try now to be utterly myself for the sake of my own spiritual, emotional, and mental health, which means that the people who liked the version I knew how to perform for them may not like me as much anymore. That's okay.

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Alison: Preach it. I love it. That's so much of what we talk about here on the podcast is this internal integration, this integrity. It's not just emotional, it's a spiritual process. I'm curious, because you talk a little bit in the book about what you're saying, how I knew the person I needed to be to fit into whatever setting.

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So was writing the book helpful to you, writing the story? I would imagine, helpful to you in pulling in the different threads.

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Esau: I think that everybody should write a memoir. I don't know if everybody should publish one, but everybody should write one. Because what I realized is there are stories that happen to you. They just exist in your head that you return to over and over again, but aren't actually integrated in your life.

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They’re just regrets. They visit you like the ghost of Christmas past. They're just unresolved. Because when they occurred, you didn't say what you wanted to say. There were things that were happening and what I figured out in writing this book was, and this was glorious, I wasn't expecting it, is that I can't undo the past. 

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I can’t undo what happened, but I can actually end the past. I could write a conclusion, not to redo it. I can say, okay, I didn't say this. I didn't do this. I regret it and I wish that I had, and had I had the wisdom, I would have done this. So what I've discovered in writing this book is it actually helped me in the process of integrating different parts of myself.

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It helped me, the final chapters when I dealt with the story of my father and our final interactions with one another. That was, I think, some of the best writing that I've ever written in my life. Because it was honest. I realized that the things that I said at the time that I believed, that I actually believed...oh, that's actually true. 

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It's one thing to say you forgive someone and to feel it at the moment. But there is something in the sense of, in the context of writing the book, processing all of the forgiveness that I had articulated. So for me it was tremendously healing.

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One of the other interesting things about it is like, there's been no other sermon in my life that I wrote and then I revisited six years later. The book is framed around the eulogy and the last chapter contains actual words that I wrote. Seven years ago. To return to that text again and to say, yeah, I actually believe this stuff.

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Alison: Yeah.

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Esau: A real account of what happened. It's true. One of the weird things is I've had people who reached out to me since I wrote the book to say, oh, I knew your dad. One person reached out to me cause the book concludes, I'm going to give it too much away, he ends up at Oak Cliff Bible Church with Tony Evans as the pastor.

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It was a big church, influential with me as well. I ran into someone online who said that my dad was in the Bible study that he talked about in the book. He said, oh, I led that Bible study with your dad. He used to talk about you after church all the time. I was like, I didn't even know that. So maybe you put a book out into the world and you find out stuff that you didn't know.

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Alison: Yeah, Dan Allender talks about narrative being so important to healing from trauma, and it's what you're saying. It's telling the story over and over. It's why we need stories. We're telling the story of our lives, trying to piece together the threads, and as we grow, as we mature, we pull in new threads and we start to see it a little bit differently.

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We see a few more contours. I think you're onto something when you say, and even just the research on journaling, for those of you listening, telling your story, retelling your story and if it's painful, as I'm sure there are painful spots where whoa, I'm not sure I'm ready to tell that story.

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Just notice. That's okay. You don't have to, again, you don't have to publicize it. You don't have to, there might be a time when you're ready to do that, such as you said, but I think you're really saying something profound about telling our stories, revisiting the stories, adding chapters to the stories.

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Esau: I'm glad you talked about this. Sometimes you don't know that you're still angry about stuff until you start trying to talk about it. You realize, oh man, this really still bothers me.

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Alison: Did you find some of that when you were writing?

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Esau: Yeah. So there's a chapter called fleeing the South where I talk about the police encounters that I had, and it's the final police encounter that I had when I'm driving from my hometown back to my university and the police officer pulls us over. We're in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee, and he says, I'm pulling you over for a sudden change in speed.

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We had gone from a speed of 55 to 35 because of the speed trap. That's how we changed speed suddenly. It was like the sheer ridiculousness of it. See I'm, you can feel it now. It's coming outta my voice, like the sheer ridiculousness of this thing.

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But we're in the middle of nowhere, so I can't say to him, oh, you shouldn't pull me over 'cause what am I gonna do? Then he asked, there's two of us in the car, he asked for my license and the license of the person next to me because we told 'em we're going to college. We're going back to campus.

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He asked for our student IDs, and there's no law in America that says you have to prove that you go to college. But once again, we are at the mercy of law enforcement in the middle of nowhere. So we have to do whatever he says.

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Alison: You talk about how your mom had taught you.

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Esau: You told me to do it. But I think, and I talk about this, like the idea of the fear, the confluence of bad days.

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One of the ways that God was gracious to me is that every time the police officer was having a bad day and he was taking it out upon me, I was not having a bad day. I was emotionally in control. So when he's calling us, even though we're 22 years old, he's calling us boy, or 21 years old.

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He's calling us boys. You boys go back to campus. The person in me who wants respect wants to say who are you calling a boy? That's what I wanted to say. But if I say that it escalates the situation. I had this fear, this real genuine fear of what happens when my bad day and their bad day occur on the same day.

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And so that was one of those things that took me out of the South. One of the things that's been really interesting about the last five years for me, I've written so much about the South. This book is set entirely in the South. Reading While Black deals with a lot of the South. 

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I felt a little bit of sadness that I had to leave a place that I loved because it had broken my heart. So in the context of me writing that section of the book, I was like, man, I love this out. I'm so mad that they made me leave, and I felt that there was still a little bit of me that's a little bit still processing that particular trauma.

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Alison: Yeah, I love that. Again, the power of going back, it's like pressing on an old bruise a little bit and maybe it's no longer a gaping wound, but there's still some emotion there. Thank you for the work that you put into that. It's amazing.

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Esau: Thank you. I really felt and this is what I was trying to get at earlier. Really quickly the world is in some sense moved in a way from my discipline to your discipline. This might seem like a strange way of putting it, and I'm not saying we don't care about the Bible, I know you do Bible and theology and psychology, I know you do them both.

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What I'm saying is, I was abroad, and when I came back to the states in 2016, 2017, there was the question–what does the Bible say about these topics? I feel like now the question is, given my trauma, can I trust God?

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Alison: Yeah. 

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Esau: What I was trying to do was to say, I'm not giving you a prescription of what to do, but maybe seeing the life of someone who went through difficult things and who came out on the other side as someone who still has a robust trust in the goodness of God gives you as the reader, a chance to have that same confidence.

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I feel like both of those things are necessary. In other words, I think that we need practical tools to help us process the complexities of life. 

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Forgive me for rambling on about this, but I remember thinking Christianity ought to be easy by now. When I was a kid, I thought, oh, you get married, you have kids, you got to rent to repeat until you die. It's hard and you live long enough and people who you really put your trust in break your heart. So how do you follow God after that?

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Alison: Yeah.

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Esau: I feel like the work that you and others are doing helps us process these things, and to think about how we might function as Christians. This is beyond my competence to be prescriptive. How Far to the Promised Land is descriptive and I hope that people can find that useful.

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Alison: Gosh, that's beautiful. I really think about what you and I do, and this is why I was starting to be a psychologist, but I was like–it's Augustine–I can't study the soul without studying God. You can't study God without studying the soul. So what you and I do is, two sides of the same coin.

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I lead with psychology, and a lot of what I lead with is, okay, so Jesus says, forgive. How do I forgive somebody who has never asked for forgiveness, who has never even owned it, which you have plenty of in your life? How do I forgive somebody who has asked for forgiveness, but has really hurt me?

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How do I build trust again? You touch on that. You go down every single one of those in your story. I want to hear your theology about that, too, but I want to hear more about it after I've heard your story, because I'm like, oh, dang. It's just part of human nature.

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Esau: I'm glad that you learned the secret because there's a bunch of ways into the book. But the way into the book that you capture the most of what's going on is a long meditation on forgiveness

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Alison: That's how I took it.

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Esau: It's like the secret sauce of understanding what's going on. The first thing that you actually read is the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Oh man, we love this story, the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

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The Pharisee thinks he's perfect and he says, God, I'm glad I'm not like this other guy. Then the Tax Collector goes, God have mercy upon me, a sinner. We love that story. Oh, we love it. Because we can say no matter what you did, God can forgive you and blah, blah, blah. 

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Then I said hold on for a second. Did the Tax Collector come to your house? He had taken the last bit of money that you had to pay for your kids' food. Now the tax collector has robbed you and your kids are starving. What has the tax collector done over 20 years? Basically, he was a terror to his community, destroying lives wherever he went.

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That's what the tax collector was. I want to promise you that the Jewish people who were around that tax collector were not rooting for his forgiveness. When the tax collector converted, came back home, I'm pretty sure people are like, I'm not sure I want to kick with this guy, which is why people didn't want to mess with Paul in the Bible. It took Barnabas. 

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So the question I wanted to ask is what happens then if I'm trying to process in effect what a tax collector like character did for me? Because my father does have a turning at the end. But the turning of the end doesn't undo the 25 to 30 years of trauma that he caused.

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That process of saying, I am glad the tax collector converted or repented. It's not as simple as we hear it in the story when we're actually a part of it. One way to read How Far to the Promised Land is to say, what happens to the child of the tax collector whose life is forever changed by the decision of his father?

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I don't go too deep in the Bible, but I'll say a little bit more. One of the things about tax collectors is they were shunned by their community and oftentimes that shunning extended to their family. So you can imagine if the tax collector was the one who was robbing all of the families, do you think people want to play with the kid or the tax collector?

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No. So the kid finds himself isolated. So you know what that means? He's often stuck in that same life of his father. It creates generational trauma. It's passed down. Tthe tax collector's son, his entire life, even the opulence that he has, is probably rooted in what he knows is the suffering of the people around him.

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Now it's not a direct analogy because my father doesn't enrich our family by his actions. He makes us poor. But in the same way that everything that happens to me in the book is set in motion by my father's failure is similar to what the tax collector did in the communities around him. So you get to the end and you say, yes, I'm glad that he repented.

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That's a journey the book chronicles, it chronicles both that journey and the chaos that was caused in my life by his departure.

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Alison: Yeah, I think it's Bonhoeffer who talks about cheap grace. This is costly grace. Costly forgiveness. There's a cost to it. Also there's redemption in it. As you're made whole through your own journey as well.

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Esau: Because I think you have to actually, and this is where things get really tricky. Because I don't want to, this is descriptive, not prescriptive because I have to own my own actual need for grace. If you're going to know how to forgive, you actually have to believe that you need the doctrines of grace.

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What I mean by that is the difference between saying I like grace. Grace is a good comfort that helps me even though I think I'm 90 percent Christian and only need God to do 10 percent of the work. ‘Cause I'm pretty good. 

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But we say no. I actually need the grace of God to function as a Christian and that I'm not just someone who has victimized, who's a victim, which I am, but that in other ways I've also hurt and wounded other people.

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The forgiveness that I want to be available to me in theory, I have to extend to other people. So it's only when you own in a deep way, God's grace, his ability to forgive you, that you can actually hope that God forgives someone else, even if you don't benefit from it. 

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So in other words, I got to the point where I couldn't have the father that I wanted as a child because I was an adult now. So I wasn't wishing for that. What I could say is I genuinely hope for a better ending for his story than someone who abandoned his family and then died alone. 

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Forgiveness wasn't reconciliation. It was actually hope–hope that even if I never get anything out of it, I hope that this person finds him or herself before the end.

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Alison: Yeah, that's so powerful. It's so nuanced. One of the questions we ask, and you touched on this, is what's bringing out the best of you right now? How would you answer that? 

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Esau: I think that right now, two things. One of them is my family. I realized yesterday, I was on a walk with my dog. I said to my wife, people don't actually pay me to come and speak. I would do that part for free. People pay me to leave my family.

That's what you actually like. If you invite me to come somewhere, you're actually paying me to not be with these people whom I love and whom I care about. Because I just enjoy being with my wife. It sounds lame. I enjoy being with my wife and kids and they bring me real joy. I'm like, I think that you're amazing. And I like my wife and kids better. 

So it's always so what's bringing the best out of me is seeing that it is a privilege to watch a life unfold before you. That's what you have in the family. It's an intense community watching a life unfold. So I would say right now my children and my wife are bringing me real and great and lasting joy.

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Alison: Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for all you poured into this beautiful book. Your books are amazing. I'd say read both and whichever. If you're someone who wants the biblical theological version, read Reading While Black first, if you need the lived story to go, I need to know this person's going to relate to my suffering and what I've been through before I trust his theology, read the memoir first.

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Esau: I'm not saying I'm like C. S. Lewis. Remember when they talked about the order of the chronicles of Narnia? If I were the reader, I would read How Far to the Promised Land first, and then Reading While Black, even though they were published differently. But How Far to the Promised Land is the introduction to everything.

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Alison: Yeah, it is. It's the prequel. It's amazing. Thank you so much, Esau,

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Esau: Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me.