Science-backed tools.
Spiritually-based wisdom.

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.

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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.

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📥 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 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

‍

📖 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!

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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.

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

📖 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!
• Better sleep starts today! Get a birch mattress and test it out for 100 nights risk-free PLUS a discount for being a listener by visiting ⁠birchliving.com/BESTOFYOU⁠.
• If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at ⁠NIVapplicationbible.com⁠.
• Reconnect with what truly matters and rediscover a purposeful life you love with ⁠Social Media Reset⁠.

Editing by Giulia Hjort

Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik

Music by Andy Luiten

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

© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.

‍

Transcript

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.

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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: 

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⁠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?

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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. 

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

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.

‍

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.

‍

📥 Get your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here

‍

📚 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

‍

💬 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. 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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They connect you one-on-one with a registered dietician who helps you understand your unique body, your actual needs, and how to build sustainable habits that make you feel good day in and day out. And the best part, all FA dieticians take insurance. So 95% of people pay $0. I checked it out myself and within minutes I was matched with someone who helped me build a plan for steady energy, hormone support, and better sleep.

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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.

‍

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.

‍

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. 

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

📖 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!
• Better sleep starts today! Get a birch mattress and test it out for 100 nights risk-free PLUS a discount for being a listener by visiting birchliving.com/BESTOFYOU.
• If you’re looking for a Bible that helps you live the Word, not just read it, then grab this beautiful one I’m currently using at NIVapplicationbible.com.

Editing by Giulia Hjort

Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik

Music by Andy Luiten

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

‍

© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.

Transcript

Hey everyone, and welcome back to 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.

‍

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 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.

‍

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.

What do you do when the very place that was supposed to nourish your soul becomes a source of deep harm?

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In this deeply moving and necessary conversation, therapist, pastor, and trauma specialist Rachael Clinton Chen joins Dr. Alison to talk about the pain of spiritual abuse—and what it looks like to begin healing from it.

‍

Whether you’ve experienced overt harm in a religious setting or carry subtle wounds from spiritual messaging that shaped your identity in unhealthy ways, this episode offers a gentle, powerful invitation toward healing, dignity, and reclaiming your voice.

‍

Rachel shares:

• Her own story of healing from spiritual abuse
  
  
• Why spiritual pain is often so hard to name
  
  
• How systems of control in churches and families silence women and survivors
  
  
• The importance of embodiment and “coming home to yourself” in healing
  
  
• A theological lens for honoring your anger, grief, and truth
  
  

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If you've ever questioned your worth because of how faith was used against you—or wondered how to hold onto your spirituality while confronting the harm—you’re not alone. This episode is full of insight, validation, and hope for your journey.

‍

📋Spiritual abuse can be hard to recognize, because it’s often the water we’re swimming in. That’s why The Allender Center put together a self-guided checklist designed to help identify signs of spiritual abuse in your own life or the lives of others. You can download it here.

‍

🖥Take a healing step and start The Spiritual Abuse & Healing Online Course and use code COOK20 for 20% at checkout.

‍

If this episode speaks to you, you’ll also love:

• ⁠Episode 67⁠ — The Inextricable Link Between Faith & Emotional Healing—Gen Z & A Hidden Search for Meaning with Cindy Gao
  
  
• Episode 153 — Embodied Healing, Spiritual Trauma, and the Journey Home to Your Body with Dr. Hillary McBride
  
  
• ⁠Episode 17⁠ — What Is Church Hurt and How Do I Heal?

‍

📖 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!
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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 The Best of You. I'm your host, Dr. Alison, and I'm so honored to bring you today's episode with the incredible Rachael Clinton. Chen Rachel is a trauma practitioner, a pastor, a teacher, and a spiritual abuse expert at the Islander Center, which is housed within the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology.

She holds a master of divinity from the Seattle School, and she spent years [00:02:00] working at the intersection of trauma, faith in healing. Rachel has just a rare gift. It was so fun to talk with her throughout this conversation. She brings theological depth, psychological insight, and just such a real and embodied presence to some of the most complex conversations around harm and healing in the church.

In this episode, Rachel opens up about her own story from an early call to ministry at 12 years old in a system that didn't know what to do with her voice, to the healing journey that led her to reclaim her gifts and help others do the same. You'll hear her story as well as how she began to recognize the impact of spiritual abuse in her own life and why she's so passionate about helping others reclaim a safe and sacred connection with God.

She's also the creator of the Spiritual Abuse & Healing Online Course . This is a compassionate, self-paced resource for anyone navigating the confusing and [00:03:00] often hidden harm that comes through spiritual abuse. This is an extraordinary course. It's deep, it's rich, and it's packed with practical tools and.

You can find the course at www.theallendercenter.org and Rachel has generously extended a 20% discount for you, my podcast listeners. You just use the code COOK 20 at checkout, or head to the link in the show notes to have the discount applied automatically. And because spiritual abuse can be so hard to name, especially when it's been in the water we've been swimming in.

Rachel and the team at the Allender Center have also created a free spiritual abuse checklist to help you begin to name what you may have experienced. It's a powerful tool for self-reflection—you can download it at www.theallendercenter.org/spiritual-abuse-checklist

This conversation is just an incredibly moving and real story about a woman working to claim her [00:04:00] God-given voice. Rachel's words are for anyone who's felt confused, dismissed, or harmed in a spiritual setting. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Rachel Clinton Chen.

INTERVIEW

Alison Well, I'm just so thrilled to have this conversation with you. We've known of each other's work. I've been on your podcast, which has been really amazing. I've known of your work, but just this chance, honestly, selfishly, I love this opportunity to get to connect with people I admire and learn more about your story. So I would love to start there, Rachel, if that's okay with you? 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah. That's great. 

Alison I did a little internet sleuthing and I found this quote. Someone asked you in an interview what you would say to your younger self. And this is what you wrote. So I'm gonna start us with this. 'cause I would love to know a little more about the story of this younger you you wrote, darling girl, you burn bright and beautiful and your gifts are not an [00:05:00] abomination, disgusting, or too much. So sing the songs of God that shake you. That is. Such a powerful reflection. Can you tell us a little more about this younger version of you who needed to hear those words and how her story has led you to this work?

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, absolutely. You know, so part of, I mean. Huge part of my story is I was raised in a Southern Baptist tradition and I could honestly say there are some really beautiful good things that came from that. And being a little girl who had I. Speaking gifts. You know, my parents will tell these stories and that's also like an anomaly.

Like my parents were very supportive of my call to ministry even though they were also in this system. So like these [00:06:00] kind of places that just didn't make sense. But I. I started preaching from the time I was like a little girl, and some of those didn't go so well, like quoting scripture at friends when they were having like a fit, you know, like children obey your parents or how I started quoting scripture at them, like when they would give that one to me.

And then I would say, what the second verse is, fathers do not exasperate your children. You know, and I mean, in high school I was nominated and most likely to become a motivational speaker. You know, I sang special music at church. Now I'm just a curious okia aficionado, but if you come from a tradition where there was like special music during the offering, I was one of those people.

But I would always set it up like this song, you know, is really talking about this character of God and this scripture. Again, no part of me at that time would've been like, I think I'm called to pastor, or I think I'm called to preach. That would've felt so incredibly. Threatening and honestly disgusting.

Like I already knew. Deep in my [00:07:00] bones, girls are not allowed to do that. This came to a head for me when I was 12. I had a call to ministry at church camp. I got a summer camp, and it was very real for me because by that point I had already decided, you know, I'm gonna be a doctor. I don't wanna struggle with money.

I don't want poverty to be a thing I have to deal with. So like I'm gonna make good money. I have a plan and I'm in this service that, you know, they're doing all the music things and sure, I can like look at all the ways, like some of those, like alter calls could be really manipulative. But there was this one little like extra added invitation.

You know, you could get saved, you could rededicate your life, you could get baptized, and then it was like. You could say yes to a call to ministry. And I was like, no, no way. No. And there was something of this wrestling I did with God. I, I don't know how else to talk about it, that it just felt like my life flashed before my eyes.

And [00:08:00] it wasn't like, oh, if you become a doctor, you're not serving God. It was just very much like, Rachel, I've made you this way and. I want you to trust me. So I, after like me in 10 minutes of like gripping onto that wooden pew, like I'm not going down there. I went running like, okay, you're right. I wanna tease life, like I wanna live.

But when I got down there, I was met by a man, he had a little card, I still have this card. And he was like, you know what? What's your decision today? And I said, I'm called to ministry, thinking he was gonna be so excited. And the look on his face was such. A disappointment, like I don't know how else to say it, or concern, you know?

And so I'm like, okay. So they pulled us into this little side room to have more conversation. And you know, you basically said, well, I just wanna make sure you know that your options for ministry are, you can work with children, you can marry a pastor, or you can go to the mission field. Now, no offense against any of those things, but just for [00:09:00] me, I felt so duped by God.

Like, you know, my genuine response was kinda like, what the hell? This is not what I was imagining in this montage of my life. And I felt such despair, almost like I was such a loyal little person because of my developmental trauma. It was like I said yes to you, so I guess I said yes to you. I went back to my bunk.

I. I sat down on the bunk bed and I did that thing, you know that they say you're not supposed to do. Where I did like roulette with the Bible, like, yeah, yeah. I just need to hear from you. Yeah. Like, I need something. And by whatever grace of God or coincidence, Isaiah 61 popped up and there was something I've just hearing the spirit say, like, I'm the one who anoints and.

This is what I've called you to and I had, I was just an existential kid. Like I had that sense in my bones, like this is gonna be a journey, but I need to remember, I. Whatever it is I'm doing, this is what I'm called to. So, I mean, there were many, [00:10:00] I got kicked out of youth leadership because I was student council president and that was like too secular.

I mean, that was, there's just so many stories. I went to undergrad, started out in nursing 'cause I was like, well I could go to the mission field as a nurse. You know, like I was just trying to find the ways I could bring my gifts. Turns out not supposed to work with bodies at all, like couldn't handle blood.

It was like very like, what are you doing? Switch to biblical studies and sociology at every turn had people saying, keep going, but also like, don't go here 'cause you won't get the same education. So I just think that little girl had so many beautiful gifts that it wasn't until I was 27 and in seminary at the Seattle school that like the first person called me a pastor.

And I just think so much of what she felt was almost like, what's wrong with me? Like, why am I like this? Why do I keep talking when people are like, stop talking. Why do I keep caring so much [00:11:00] about the church or the way people are supposed to be loved, or how the Bible's supposed to be engaged and interpreted so.

Alison Why did God make me this way and give me these gifts and this longing and this desire if I'm not supposed to do it? What a dissonance, you know, for a young body to absorb. Even when you said, you know, I kind of felt my body like a maze where you're like, well, I try to go and then I'd hit a wall. You know, you can't do that, and I wonder as your.

Surfing that dissonance of what you loved. I, I see. Even before we started recording, you said, I'm a pastor at heart and I just, I gotta tell you. Just so you know, I got tears in my eyes 'cause I was at a fork in the road at a point in my life actually. JS Park, I don't know if you're familiar with his work. He's a chaplain and he told me he thinks of himself as a the priest. And I was like, that's it. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, that's it.

Alison I feel like I straddle that line of wanting to pastor people. 'cause I believe in community, I believe in [00:12:00] the body. I believe in systems, but my gifts are a little more in the one-on-one. Space, but I don't think the two are divorced.

And so when you said I'm a pastor at heart, you know, I was just like, oh, everything in me just lit up. Like, oh, how beautiful that you know that. And so I'm curious, what were your breakthrough moments where people came alongside of you and helped you? I could imagine someone never leaning into that with some of the roadblocks that you had.

So someone or some things had to come in into your path that helped unlock that and give you the freedom to just lean into it. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, I mean, I went to Oklahoma Baptist University, which is a Southern Baptist liberal arts school, and I had incredible professors who, you know, the female contingency in the School of religion was very small.

We were very, very small. And they just celebrated our wisdom, like invited us to dream. You know, it was one of my [00:13:00] professors that said, you need to go to seminary, like you're in the right field. But don't go to a Southern Baptist Seminary because you won't get the same education. You will face a lot of obstacles to your gifting, but there are a lot of other places out there.

That will welcome you and say Yes again. There will be obstacles because of the world we live in, but there are better options. I mean, at the time I was like, I'm not going to seminary. I'm so tired of thinking about God academically, but I appreciated someone believing in me and yes, yes, yes. 

Alison From inside a culture that didn't necessarily, yes, sanction your gift.

Rachael Clinton Chen That had very explicitly said you cannot, and it would be an abomination for you to do so. Like literally those words, right? Abomination. Kind of imagine you're gonna get like struck by sliding or something. And yeah, so I had professors, not only were they saying those things explicitly, but they were giving us critical thinking skills and opening windows and doors is kind of the way I would think about it.

And I did have like mentors along the way [00:14:00] again. Never a full out saying you need to do these things, but at least affirming we see these really good gifts in you. Like, you know, things got tricky there for a while. 'cause part of how I got to going Baptist University is I was set up in a very abusive relationship with one of my youth leaders who actually was graduating from there.

So it was kind of like, well, I'm gonna go there because he's there. So these weird places that really, I think came out of awful circumstances for me also opened the door. To keep going. And you know, it's funny, I was actually in Rwanda kind of pursuing my mission filled like, well I tried the Parachurch ministry route.

'cause I was like, well they kind have women, but you have to be married to a man in a lot of those contexts. And that didn't work out for me. That's a whole story. So I was in Rwanda kinda doing mission work with the youth group I was working with, and I met this group of Christians from Portland, Oregon, and they were just.

Really normal Christians. I don't [00:15:00] know how to say it other than like they all went to therapy. I had never heard of Christians that went to therapy. They were very affirming of my gifts. They were kind of like, you know, there's some great seminaries in the Pacific Northwest. When I went to the Seattle school, I really considered, I mean that, I think that wrestle for so many people around, like when you have healing tendencies like.

Should I go the therapeutic route? Like I'm really good at this. And I was considering switching to the counseling program and one of my mentors at the school was like, what are your favorite classes? And I was like, hermeneutics Greek and this class on the epistles. And he was like, okay, well I think you need to pay attention to that because most people sitting in a Herman news class aren't like, I love this.

This is amazing. So I did have. These kind of people along the way saying like, keep going. We see these things in you. You're not crazy. You're not grasping for something that's irrational or, 'cause I think there was a [00:16:00] lot of like, oh, you're grasping for power, and it's just like, I don't want. Power. Believe me, I don't want power.

Alison And again, I hear in you just sort of that dissonance between this is how I experienced myself and God, and yet for whatever reason, these people outside of me, I. Have to interpret that in a different way because it, it can't be, and I think of so many, you know, I think of my listeners who maybe didn't have that same calling, but felt like they couldn't lean into the fullness of who God made them to be and, and how painful that is and how that can, in your case, thankfully enough, kind of came in that helped you stay true, but also the pain of how long that took. How easily that could have prompted you to exile those parts of you. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Oh my gosh. And in some ways I did at different seasons, but I know so many people, so many women especially, who like will say to me, man, [00:17:00] I felt that similar calling too. Or I felt like I had similar gifts too, but I just. It was too painful.

Like they didn't have the resources, they didn't have the support, or they experienced enough harm in those contexts that it was like, why would I ever wanna have anything to do with these people or this god? 

Alison That's even more to the point. Just leave all together. This is a little bit of a side note, and everybody probably asks you this, but did you read Beth Moore's memoir?

Rachael Clinton Chen I did because let me tell you, Beth Moore was one of my, I, you know, she was someone I was watching, do what I felt called to do, and also like content. Finding a way to do that within the system that like honored all the rules. And so I was watching going, could I do that? And so then to see just her heartbreak and you know, her prophetic voice to say.

What is happening here? Like is this [00:18:00] who you really are? And then to hear her story…

Alison I think that's why it spoke to so many of us. All of what she was able to do didn't come without a cost to her. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Exactly. And it didn't return The honor that she bestowed was not returned to her.

AD BREAK 1

Alison You share Rachel and part of your own ministry as a pastor is that you encourage people who've been through trauma, you're at the Islander Center, you're working with folks in the trenches. You say you know you will find the healing community that will help you make sense. Of the pain and the trauma you bear, how have you begun to find that community in your own life and not necessarily denominationally, although I'm sure you can share that if you want, but you know, what has it felt like for you?

To reclaim a sense of community, not as a [00:19:00] cutoff from all the pain of the past, but as an integration of, oh, this, this is where I belong, and this is where I feel seen and known and received. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, I think it starts kind of with those people from Portland that I met in Rwanda. I don't know how to explain it other than I was like, I think I need to be in the midst of people who.

I like this. And it started me looking at seminaries in the Pacific Northwest. 'cause as a 23-year-old or 24-year-old, the only way I could imagine leaving Oklahoma with any kind of resourcing was like, well, I guess I gotta go to school. I was looking at fuller extensions, but there wasn't one in Portland, but there was one in Seattle.

And then at the time it was called Marsal Graduate School. And I was such in a place of my trauma kind of reaching its threshold, like my developmental trauma. I still didn't know at the time. I was a traumatized person, like I was very high functioning. I would've said, I'm a really anxious person. I'm a really [00:20:00] fearful person.

I can get a little crazy sometimes, you know, like I. The way that trauma would manifest. You know, I was also reaching the ultimate glass ceiling for me, you know, in my vocation. Like I wasn't being invited to come on staff with this Southern Baptist church I was at because they were looking for men and the mission field.

I was like, no. And so, yeah, I thought I'm gonna go to this school. Because they seem to be able to help people with relationships. And there was something in me that was like, I want vulnerability. I want authenticity. But I still was going because I was going to help people. Like it was still like, of course I'm gonna go get these skills Exactly so I can help other people. Same. And I really just think, yeah.

Alison Same. And then, and then almost toward the end of my program, having my own personal breakdown. It's very unfortunately kind of cliche, but true for many of us.

Rachael Clinton Chen It's so textbook, right? I know. So I went to this counseling psychology school that had an MD program. 'cause I was like, I'm gonna go to them D [00:21:00] program at the counseling psychology school.

You know, like I'll get some really good tools. In my tool belt. And there was something about not just the school, which certainly felt like really fertile soil for me to begin to understand how much healing I needed, but it was also the culture of Seattle. I think when you grow up in the Bible belt to live somewhere, that's like, what?

What's the Bible belt? Or like, what's that like? You know? It's just a very almost post-Christian context. A lot of spiritual but not religious people. And there was something very healing for me, being in a context that just didn't require me. To try to figure out what's real or what's not real. Like if people were going to church on Sunday in Seattle, it wasn't like just culturally Christian.

It was like they went because it was a value to them and they really wanted to go. 

Alison I had the same experience in Boston because the reality for folks who come out of more Christian culture, like the Bible Belt that I came out of a small rural town, but. It's exactly [00:22:00] what you say. For some of us it's just like, oh, well.

And also because there are so many fewer Christians and because there is more of an authenticity, it has to be very real. People are less picky about the details about, about the miners of what you believe. They're just so happy that you have faith, you know? So there's so much more tolerance around some of the, well, and it's just like so refreshing.

Rachael Clinton Chen It was, there was just something. Also, it's beautiful. Seattle's beautiful. The nature and the water and the mountains, everything felt so big. It's almost like whatever mess I had or whatever chaos I was dealing with internally, it just felt like this was a spacious place and very quickly into my program, it was kind of like.

I had sociology, I had theology and biblical studies and philosophy, and I had all these frameworks. Anthropology have been so helpful for me, making sense of like my experience and the human experience, but I did not have psychology, and it was like the missing piece of the frame that then [00:23:00] all of a sudden rapid.

Healing opportunities. Someone invited me to think about the past as a helpful interpretive frame. It was like they were using my language like this could be you. There's some hermeneutic shifts you need to make, right? Yeah, totally. Like there's ways you're making meaning. 'cause that's what hermeneutics means, like how we interpret the art of reading, the art of meaning making.

And so it was like there are ways that you understood yourself. Are actually cut off from your context and that context will help you understand how these things came to be. And yeah, so not only did I get to pursue pretty rapid healing, that was not just therapeutic. It was like I talk about this on the Allen Center podcast, like things I didn't expect when healing from trauma.

And it was just kind of all these funny stories of like. All the body care, I had to tend to my gut sleep and you know, 'cause Seattle's one of those contexts where it's like, [00:24:00] oh, who's your acupuncturist? Not like, do you go to acupuncture? You know, it's like, who's your naturopath? Like, it was kind of just like very normal to have this very holistic care, which when you're healing from trauma and you've been in a more hyper religious context that says all those things.

You don't meet and if you do need them, you're not faithful or like they could be dangerous. It was just such a kind context. But I also think getting more tools, like I said, with the different education I had gotten to actually understand God to come back to the text, to imagine like what is a community of people?

Trying to follow in the way of Jesus. What could it look like? What's it meant to look like? Like being in an MIP program that said you have to take trauma seriously. We have to take the human experience seriously. We have to take our context seriously. Was also like deeply healing and restorative to [00:25:00] me to get to play in not just deconstruction, which I did, but to also be invited to imagine.

A way forward that didn't have to just be reactionary. 

Alison I love the word imagination, right? That imagining a whole different way of being with God and really in my mind is more biblical, more rooted in good theology, which is all. Who I am is invited into this process of wholeness. Right? I always talk about this, but I love the idea that soso, the word that we think of as salvation, that so gets so myopically, interpreted as sort of a one and done is actually more readily translated as healing. The work of healing. It's holistic, right? It's the moment at which we begin the healing journey. 

Rachael Clinton Chen And it has like a quantum reality to it, right? Like it's happening. It's is. It will continue to happen. 

Alison Yes, yes. Yeah. I love that. All of [00:26:00] this leads to Rachel, your work now, and thank you for kind of giving us that context, right?

Because I do think our work. Develops out of our contexts. To your point, this term spiritual abuse that we, I think more people are becoming familiar with. It's more talked about, but also many people maybe don't really understand what it means. And isn't that really a part of my journey? Isn't that for those extreme cases.

Of, you know, severe abuse or violence in the church. Kind of a very one dimensional view of what that means. How do you think about it? What are some common ways it shows up in churches, in faith communities? Help us segue a little bit about how you view spiritual abuse. 

Rachael Clinton Chen It's a great question, and I'm actually gonna start with one of your quotes because you recently posted something on Instagram that I think [00:27:00] actually captures the core of what spiritual abuse is.

You said all trauma causes you to question your worth, but spiritual trauma adds the terrorizing layer that God might question your worth too. I think at its core, spiritual abuse is such an attachment wound. It's a faith wound, it's a trust wound. I think the most simple way to think about spiritual abuse is this misuse or abuse of spiritual authority or power to harm, to control, to manipulate, to exploit, and like doing it in God's name.

So I often say like. Spiritual abuse can really, I mean, there's a bunch of people who say this, the Reclamation Collective, the Religious Trauma Institute, but this sense of like spiritual abuse can happen in any kind of relationship where there's a power differential and trust is being exploited. Where there's this sense of.

I have some spiritual authority. It can happen in a [00:28:00] family system. We see this a lot with the Bill Goard methodology of shining happy people like that was playing out a lot in family systems. Like the whole point was like the family system is like God's house is the church. It can happen in school settings, it can happen in nonprofit settings.

It could certainly obviously happen in churches. It really can range from the subtle to the extreme. So for the most part, yeah, when we think about spiritual abuse, we'll be like, oh, well someone escaped a cult Like that was clearly religious trauma. But it can also happen in like maybe you, I. We're a part of the nineties and the eighties and the two thousands purity culture movement, where you took in a certain ideology about your body, about your sexuality, that the more research that's coming out is showing that actually had very spiritually abusive harm because it tied a certain sense of morality and sexuality with salvation and worthiness of God.

Right? Like this question of like, does God. [00:29:00] Question my worthiness, like, am I beloved in God's eyes? 

Alison I think that's a really helpful framing, and I wanna just speak to the listener. I think sometimes one of the reasons when we're naming something, when we name something like spiritual abuse, we are not necessarily imputing abuser to the person.

Who, the context in which that happened. The reason I wanna say it, sometimes it is, sometimes there are context in which, and I, I think it's important, I'm gonna try to distinguish this because there's an important naming of, oh, this was an abusive environment. Maybe the people involved in this environment, if we separate out the really extreme cases, kind of believe some bad theology, and I know this in my own case, like.

I think there were good people who believed some bad theology, just like I did have at certain points in my life. And that doesn't take away from [00:30:00] that toxicity to my own inner system. And when we're talking about naming things, sometimes we can shy away from these words like abuse or trauma. Because it's like, well, that means I have to sort of throw out the baby with the bath water.

And I think that happens. I think people do do that. They start calling everything abuse or trauma, when in fact, what we're trying to do is name a reality. That's why I love how you talk about it. This is something that harmed my sense of God made worth in the name of God. That is inherently abusive regardless of the intentions.

I'm trying to find this nuance from the social media world.

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, it's hard. The social media world is really hard. One of my colleagues, Rebecca Vickery, she's a therapist, she's a part of the Purity Culture Research Collaborative. She's brought these frames to us in our work at the Allender Center, and I just think it's been so helpful and actually like exactly what we were speaking [00:31:00] to.

She brought these categories of abuse. They're like types of abuse, and so she talks about narcissistic abuse. Obviously we can look at that and go, there's some intentionality to that sadistic abuse. We know we're in the category of very explicit abuse and reenactment abuse. So she's talking about like, there may not actually be an intentionality to the abuse, like the intentionality might be really good.

It's where people are actually reenacting their own trauma. So where you have someone who comes from a very traumatic environment, a lot of chaos, they're gonna be really drawn to high dogma. Fight control context because it promises a lot of certainty. It promises clear boundaries. It promises belonging and goodness if you abide by the rules.

And so a lot of people have experienced spiritual abuse. Maybe their parents found themselves in a certain system because they really wanted something different for their children than what they had. They wanted something different for themselves, [00:32:00] and it's like. Spiritual abusive systems use a lot of grooming, use a lot of gaslighting.

So you get so far into this belonging before you realize, oh, maybe there's some things happening here that aren't that great, or maybe this system is actually perpetuating other forms of abuse because hierarchical structures might invite a narcissistic abuser. Or a sadistic abuser into the midst. So I think absolutely you're right.

It can get so tricky. It's that sense of like exactly what you said. It's not always about intention, it's about the impact. And so how do we reckon with the impact and honor our experience in our bodies and like. The trauma that needs to be tended to that might not always need to like point to a narcissistic abuser or a sadistic abuser in order to feel like our experience is valid or worthy of good care.

And that could be really confusing. And I do think we have a very kind of [00:33:00] reactionary social media culture that is, is actually moves more towards splitting, you know, as like a therapeutic frame than actually. Reclamation and recovery and a maybe more restorative justice that has imagination. And that has nuance and that has, it's not just a quick label, it's a, oh my goodness.

What I experienced was, regardless of context, I would say naming starts with yourself. All this, this was damaging to my soul and to my lived experience of myself as an image bearer. And then part of that reclaiming and that recovery process is also part two. Oh my gosh. That was a narcissistic culture, or oh my gosh, that was a sadistic culture.

Or oh my gosh, those were people that were caught up in something that they didn't even know they were caught up in. Right. There's, there's different ways to frame it and also, and [00:34:00] most of us who have experienced spiritual abuse also perpetrated, like spiritually abusive harm. Right? Because you're part of the system.

Like one of my colleagues talks about this with regard to purity culture, how she in her fear towards a friend who came out to her just. Pushed away and exiled. And how many of us hold stories where in order to stay in the belonging, we were harmful to other people, we, we might be a part of their stories.

And so how do we step into this place where the part of the healing is not just individual, it does move toward more of a collective, you know, restoration and repair. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I love how you're just. In this very real conversation speaking to that 'cause I also think that's where backlash can happen when we see people online who we know like, great thing you're calling all this out now, but I remember when you were the one doing all of this.

Right? And that can sort of do damage to some of this very important work of [00:35:00] naming. So yeah, I just appreciate how you are describing it even out of your own experience. Something happened here that did harm. And maybe some of those people didn't mean to hurt me. Maybe some of them did. It doesn't matter.

What's true is this was harmful. Yeah. And I mean for me, I think in 2018, Dan was like, would you wanna do a, a podcast with me on spiritual abuse? And I was like, that's a really weird term. Sure. We had done some stuff on like. Spiritual warfare, which I was like, that's crazy. But yeah, let's talk about it because that's been weaponized for people.

And also there's a place and a power in like contending with spiritual energy in the metaphysical world. So spiritual abuse to me was like, I kind of understand what you're talking about, but let's talk about it. And it was in the middle of this podcast where I was sharing about this. Experience being set up in a relationship with this youth leader.

I was sharing about this particular church we were at, which was so much more [00:36:00] fundamentalist than any other church we had been a part of, and how quickly the secure attachment I had with God that had always sustained me, even in the midst of so much developmental trauma, had always been this safe sanctuary started.

To get twisted and distorted and became so much more anxious and you know, like I couldn't fail. Failure became so much more, not an option with God. Whereas before that felt like the boundary lines were so much more expansive and it was like in the business conversation that all of a sudden I was like passionate about people.

Who have been harmed by the church or who have been harmed by religious authorities getting to have access back to God. That's how I would've talked about, like my sense of what drives me in this work with the Lander Center, and I'm in the midst of this conversation and all of a sudden I'm having that realization that's like, oh my gosh, like I'm passionate about it because it's my story.

[00:37:00] I want people to have liberation and reconnection and healing. Because that's what I needed in order to recover and reclaim this kind of sacred birthright, which is like this connection to the divine or to God that gets to exist in our bodies, in our mind, in our soul, and so. I think for me it was kind of like this is a new level of understanding, because I could have said, I've experienced clergy abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, these different things, but I had not seen the spiritually abusive elements at play that made the setup even more profound, that the impact got intensified and began to contaminate your attachment with God.

Alison Which is to use how you and Dan talk about spiritual warfare, which I love in the realm of evil.[00:38:00] 

AD BREAK 2

Rachel, for someone listening who maybe like you is kind of sensing something's off, but doesn't know how to give language to it in their spiritual environment. What are some internal cues or even some external red flags you encourage people to look for?

Rachael Clinton Chen Well, I will just name that we did create a very simple, it's not exhaustive resource at the Allender Center because of this, right?

Because in many ways, like spiritual abuse is, is hard to recognize 'cause it's the water we're swimming in. And also I would just say there are people. We're probably even more activated right now because I actually think we're seeing spiritually abusive power really amplified right now on a national stage, this fusion of religion with like political power that's actually very dehumanizing in many ways, and that's very confusing, right?

Because it's [00:39:00] supposed to be good things. You know, we're hearing this conversation like empathy is a sin, right? Like there's. Very confusing things at play from a national stage that are incorporating Christian religion and spirituality, Christian language, Christian symbols. So I, I say that more like if people are feeling like an extra activation right now and trying to make sense of why I.

Maybe there could be some grace and mercy to your body because it's pretty pervasive right now and very like in our face. But we created a self-guided checklist that is really just kind of to help you identify some science of the impact of spiritual abuse, maybe on your life or other people's life.

And you can download it at the Allender Center. I think you'll have the link in the show notes if something people want to check out, but it's kind of just taking you through. Different ways that maybe you might be experiencing spiritual abuse. And for me, one of the top signs that I'm always looking for is, do I feel safe when I'm thinking about talking to [00:40:00] God?

Do I feel permission to bring my full, authentic self? Or am I having to hide parts of myself? Now that gets tricky 'cause some of that's just in the realm of like bad theology, right? And would we say, oh, like that was intentional spiritual. I just think it's spiritually abusive to encounter bad theology.

It's assaulting the core of who you are and your relationship with God. Fair enough? Right? So I don't know if we have to make it as big of a thing, but, but notice. I remember for me vividly even recently, just being in a space where I was like, I need a code switch. It's not safe. I don't know what was happening, but I felt it.

It's different. In my mind that is a little different from being in a space where I'm like, I don't agree with everything that's being said here, but I'm connected to myself. I'm connected to God. I can hold on to myself. We can disagree about some of these things. Zen. It's not safe here. It is not safe here for me to be a woman with doctor in front of my name, or it is not safe here [00:41:00] for me to mention that I like this author.

You know, whatever the thing might be. And that's exactly what you're talking about, right? Like for you, you have more resourcing so you can code switch. But that sense of like, yeah, you are gonna be. Facing threats or coercion or you know, you might be cut off or scapegoated if you don't fit within these rigid boundary lines, or if you attempt to leave or you bring questions or doubts, right?

So where is fear and shame being exploited in ways that actually feel abusive, where you can't ask questions, you can't have doubts. If you aren't loyal to someone, then you're evil, right? Where there's just this kind of. Switch. Can you trust your gut? Do you have permission to have an internal wisdom or do you have to seek an authoritative.

Voice to make decisions like you may be in the midst of a spiritually abusive relationship or environment. Are you being subjected to other [00:42:00] forms of abuse but being told it's okay because the person in authority is good and they're really twisting their access to your care, right? So this kind of exploitation of care that's really grooming, right?

Grooming is ultimately attuning really well. To you and your needs, but without honor as a way to manipulate or exploit or get access to build trust, but then that gaslighting comes in, right? That kind of twists the truth or makes you question your own sense of reality. So for me, when I'm thinking about how we're trying to make sense of like, have I been experiencing spiritual abuse, is when I'm questioning my sense of reality, I'm struggling to trust my own body.

Other people trusting God. Certainly if you feel like you can't trust religious authority, you may have experienced some harm in a religious context. That's like a very good reason why you don't trust religious authority if decision making is really hard, because you [00:43:00] haven't really been given permission to have an internal compass or autonomy or a sense of agency.

So I think a lot of it has to do with a sense of personhood and trust. Yeah.

Alison Yeah. We'll link in the show notes to this free resource you guys have created, but it's, I'm listening to you going, that's what's so hard about it, is it's intentionally designed to be disorienting and so it's hard. The cues can't even be tricky and subtle to notice.

Rachael Clinton Chen It is, and that's part of why. It's really important to get closer to your own story and the particularities of what happened to you because you and I could have very similar experiences of like, let's say a theological system, you know, or a denominational theology, but we were in a relationship with different people.

We had different. Families and different nervous systems.

Alison And one [00:44:00] person based on their family experience, their nervous system just says, Ew, I'm outta here. Yeah. And another person, I have signs for red flags, like, yeah. And then another person's nervous system recognizes harm as, oh, this is very familiar to me.

This is what I'm used to. Even though it's not healthy for me, I do believe the soul has a bent toward healing. God designed it, and so there will be that dissonance. There will be that. Just that everything in me is saying, I know, even though my mind can't compute that, even just that dissonance that something doesn't add up is something in your soul that's a cue to notice and talk to somebody. Outside of the system about,

Rachael Clinton Chen yeah. And again, like what can be so painful is that this plays out not for everybody. Sometimes it plays out in a relationship with a clergy member or a family member, but [00:45:00] usually within a system that you have found some sense of belonging. And so that dissonance is gonna feel really threatening to the belonging if you are in a spiritually abusive system because you've seen other people act on their dissonance.

It has not gone well for them, right? They've either been scapegoated as problematic or bad, or they've been completely cut off or exiled, or they left because it got so painful, but you kind of feel like you can't be in a relationship with them because you know there might be something bad about them, why they leave the system.

So I just, there has to be a lot of grace and mercy to what we don't see when we're not ready to see it, because it maybe feels too threatening to. Some sense of goodness or belonging that we found. And so what happens for a lot of people that dissonance comes because either A, the dissonance gets loud enough or their sense of justice on behalf of another person starts to rise up.

Their children, a [00:46:00] friend, someone in the community actually facing abuse, that that comes to light or the system stops benefiting. It starts becoming more punitive, and then all of a sudden that sense of belonging you had. It's not enough to, you know, sustain you when you actually feel like you can't do anything, right?

Alison The rear view mirror -- I just want the listener to hear -- when you start to taste, you start to move toward goodness, and you start to move toward belonging where your differences are honored and where there's freedom, you just see it so much more clearly. In the rear view mirror. And so again, thinking of the listener who's maybe in that messy middle, right, of still trying to piece it together and still like, you know, I kind of like these people.

They know my kids and, and yet I don't feel like I can connect to God and I do feel this just isn't right. Some of what's happening or I do feel like I'm have to hide. Certain things.

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah. I mean I do [00:47:00] actually think that there's something about in an environment where your sense of like human right-sizeness, right?

So whether that's being a person with a full range of emotions or being a person who in the midst of your faith, that's great. Honoring questions of God's character. You know, by the way, theologians from the beginning of time have been wrestling with great, deep questions that are worthy of wrestling with.

That's a very good thing, right? As parents, when we don't have all the answers, we don't just tell our kids like, well just stop asking questions. Like we get in it with them and what's the question bringing up and what's it connected to? So it's, I just think when I use the language of human size, for me that was a way to make sense of my complexity as a human, because so much of the spiritual abuse I experienced was my trauma that was manifesting only being seen and interpreted as sin.

So my anxiety being named a failure of faith, right? [00:48:00] Like you're just fearful and you know, the number one spoken. Phrase in the Bible is, do not be afraid. What I actually needed was merciful care to my body. I was getting, again, often from well-intentioned people, things being weaponized against me. So human sizeism for me is just a way to honor like we're humans and if we're in a A system where we're starting to see, this may not be a place I wanna be, but there's a lot of life connected there, I think.

There's no demand to move one way or the other as long as you are reclaiming a sense of your agency, not dismissing the truths that you see. So not deceiving yourself, because sometimes when we've been in a really fundamentalist environment. We can move out of that environment into a different kind of fundamentalism.

Right? We see that a lot. That's part of what you're speaking to on social media. We're seeing like a different brand of fundamentalism [00:49:00] that feels comfortable because you, here's who's in and who's out. I just, I do think for anyone listening who is starting to question their sense of like what they've been experiencing, starting to see more clearly, some things make connections.

If you're not under threat, you know, there's no shame in. Really trying to discern what kind of belonging you want to give up or not, right? Like I'm just a huge fan of like, there will come times where we have to make really courageous decisions. That might mean leaving a certain environment, or it might mean cutting off relationship with certain people who aren't willing to repair in a way that like they're still doing harm and we need to set some boundaries.

Or we have to step into more mystery than we've actually been spiritually formed to be able to tolerate like. There's no demand that we have to jump into these things until something necessitates that. So in the meantime, how do we [00:50:00] get to practice building muscles? So maybe you wanna stay in the community, but you wanna start bringing your critical thinking skills to what you're learning.

And maybe you're not ready to start like directly asking questions of the leadership, but you're making note of your dissonance in a way that's not dismissing it or silencing it. Those are like. Faithful acts in the small that have a huge dividend like Brene Brown's Trust. Trust Jar is kind of one of those, like it's a way that you're restoring trust within yourself, reclaiming parts of your mind that just.

Has a huge impact when we might be faced with decisions that feel so much more costly. That's so good. It's sort of cumulative. I love how you're describing that. You're sort of practicing the muscle of, I'm just gonna try small ways of honoring my own humanity. I think there's real wisdom in that, just noticing in that awareness and that attunement.

Alison I do think healing often comes in those micro. Movements that eventually might [00:51:00] lead to a major breakthrough or a major leave or a major. But it's starting right where you are. Just honoring even just inside of yourself or to one other safe person. I recently was with a handful of all Christians, new people.

I didn't know them. And one of the things that surprised me outta my own journey in this is what felt healthy to me. It is still a little bit like, wow, this is so healthy that I have to recalibrate it. But in my body, what feels like health is. Gosh, there was differences. People weren't self-censoring.

Different people, I could tell were coming from different denominations, different church backgrounds had different ideas about what's happening. Nobody was defaulting to easy labels. Everything was really nuanced and it was so interesting 'cause we had so much fun. We were laughing. I found myself being myself.

Maybe not unlike that group of people you encountered in Rwanda where you're just like. Gosh, what a delightful group of people. And then later going, I don't know where any of these people stand on any of these things. I just know, right? [00:52:00]  that everybody was being real and I felt safe, and we could say things and we could have real conversation and we could dig in.

And so you can kind of back your way into health and be like, wow, that I think is what health is. Because I think sometimes when we know what we're. Aiming for it can help us find it. What gives you hope today and how do you conceptualize a healthy spiritual system?

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, I mean, at the core, I imagine health as like you knowing and the depth of your being that you are beloved to God and that you can rest in that promise, that there's literally nothing you could do.

No power. That could separate you from that. Love that there's just some sense of like that is the truth. And yeah, I mean, a healthy spirituality to me really just feels mature when I think about development. It feels like there's [00:53:00] enough secure attachment for people in their relationship with God.

There's enough sense of feeling at home in your body, in yourself, that again, it's not the absence of activation or triggering, right? Like we know that healing from trauma is not, oh, we exile these parts of us, that they go away. It's like we radically welcome them in to where we just have a lot more choice when we get activated.

We have resources to tend, we have a capacity to come back. Into our prefrontal cortex and make decisions to have choice to have agency that we could listen to someone. We could say, oh, there's a lot of wisdom here. I'm gonna take this in. But if they bring things that we don't align with or agree with, we can say, Hmm, I'm gonna hold that.

I don't have to like throw it out, but I don't have to also like take everything in as like straight from the voice of God. So again, like a. A restoration of, or maybe even a development for the first time, right. A [00:54:00] capacity to critically think and to discern what your meant. You know, Aundi Kolber, I love how she says, take what you need because implied in that is like, and leave what you don't.

And I think some sense of being able to do that in spiritual environments and religious environments. For me is a part of what health and what we're meant for.

Alison Yeah, and back to your point about practicing, that's where if you're in a new environment, practice, put out a little breadcrumb to see what happens before you've dove into commitment.

You know, what happens if you say, I'm not sure about that, or I think about it a little differently. And again, that takes some core strength, but to see how that is responded to. Is that kind of way of showing up honored in that setting?

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah. And how are power structures negotiated? Is there a transparency?

Is there a commitment to transformation and healing? Are there processes for repair when things don't go well? Because we are human and they won't always go perfectly are questions [00:55:00] welcome? You know, for me, Micah six, eight will forever be a rubric. Like, are we doing justice? Are we loving mercy? And is there a sense of humility?

And that's a more high level kind of philosophical frame, but I think for me, ultimately that is a measure of like, is this a healthy enough spiritual environment, theology or relationship?

Alison That's beautifully stated, Rachel, toward that end, boy, I just feel like you and I swim in so many of the same waters.

I feel like I could just have this conversation with you forever. You've got some really neat, really cool, and we talked about it at the top of the episode, but just tell people how to find more about what you guys are doing in this area for folks to help resource folks.

Rachael Clinton Chen We are, you know, you could find us theallendercenter.org, but we've really been trying to build out some spiritual abuse resources.

So we have some webinars that you can access. We have an online course that really was my love letter to like, how can I get a team of seasoned people who are also survivors to [00:56:00] together to provide a bunch of resources for people who wanna move at their own pace, in their own time? With reflection questions, with a robust resource guide, which you are a part of.

There are so many people committed to creating healing context, and so just wanting people to feel less alone. We have some workshops where you can come do some story work in person. There's also trainings if you're kind of finding like, oh, I wanna actually be more trauma informed. Obviously we have our own podcasts.

We've done some episodes, so you can find all of that . But mostly I'm just grateful to be a part of a larger community, committed to this work for various forms of harm. And what I find with healing is that healing from abuse is healing from abuse. Healing from trauma is healing from trauma, and we can pull and borrow from resources tending to really nuance particular things.

Alison So, so grateful for you and your work, and it's been such a. [00:57:00] Delights to talk with you. You're just a delight. It's about a really hard topic. I know, and that's what I love about what you're saying. There's so much joy in your presence and I love just that I'm a pastor at heart. You just Right. That was one of the first thing, and I feel that delight coming out of you and.

I'm just so grateful that you stayed true to how God made you, and now look at you creating all of these resources for people. I love what you guys are doing over there, and thank you for giving us so much of your time today. Rachel.

OUTRO

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.

What happens when repair in your family isn’t possible—at least not yet?

‍

In this powerful follow-up to last week’s conversation on family pain, psychologist and author Dr. Joshua Coleman sits with me as we explore the heartbreak and complexity of family estrangement—from both sides of the story.

‍

With deep compassion and personal insight, Dr. Coleman shares what he’s learned through decades of research—and from his own journey as a parent who experienced estrangement from his adult daughter. Whether you're the one who stepped away from a parent or you're a parent who’s been cut off by a child, this conversation offers a rare, balanced look at a path to healing.

‍

Dr. Coleman shares:

• Why estrangement is rising—and what’s really behind it
• When a temporary break might be helpful
• What to do if your parent won’t take responsibility—or if your child won’t re-engage
• How humility (not humiliation) opens the door to healing
• Practical guidance for both adult children and estranged parents

‍

If you’ve ever wrestled with how to honor a parent who hurt you—or how to rebuild with a child who’s walked away—this episode is full of wisdom, hope, and next steps.

🖥 Learn more about Dr. Coleman’s work ⁠here⁠.

📚 Grab a copy of his book Rules of Estrangement ⁠here⁠.

If you liked this episode, you’ll also love:

• ⁠⁠Episode 161⁠⁠ — Finding Yourself without losing Yourself: Healing From Dysfunctional Family Patterns with Jerry Wise
• ⁠Episode 127⁠ — Healing Childhood Wounds: The Enmeshed Family & 5 Toxic Patterns that Affect Your Ability to Thrive in Adult Relationships
• ⁠Episode 85⁠⁠ — The Goal of a Healthy Family & 6 Roles We Take On In Dysfunction

📖 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 ⁠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.
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Connect further with Dr. Alison Cook:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/dralisoncook/

‍

Editing by Giulia Hjort

Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik

Music by Andy Luiten

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

© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.

‍

Transcript:

Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. I'm so glad you're here with me this week.

This is a conversation I've been wanting to bring to the podcast for a long time because I see this tension showing up again and again in the lives of people all around me, in friends, in people I work with, and in many of you who write to me.

Family can be a source of both incredible support and also of deep pain.

In fact, today's episode builds directly on last week's conversation with Jerry Wise, where we talked about self differentiation, which is just the essential process that we all have to go through of learning to stand in our own sense of self, , even as we remain connected to the people we love around us. And that process of self differentiation is something we [00:01:00] all have to navigate, but it's particularly challenging in the context of a family, that doesn't support you, that doesn't do their own work, that doesn't want to go down the path of growth with you.

And so today we're gonna zoom in on one of the most painful and complex phenomena we're seeing in our culture today. Its estrangement within families.

Over the holiday weekend, I was traveling and I downloaded some episodes of the television series, parenthood to watch on the plane, and I love that show. I think there's just a lot of profound moments in the series, but rewatching it, I was struck by how often family relationships include moments of rupture.

Even the best parents who are trying so hard to stay attuned to their children. Overreach, overextend, cross boundaries, make mistakes, misinterpret, misunderstand. There [00:02:00] are so many moments of rupture, even within the best families, and that show does a beautiful job of portraying both the many ways that we hurt each other in families and the power of those moments of repair when they happen.

Just those simple moments of repair. When a parent says to a child, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I messed up. I didn't see you. Or when a child says to a parent, I'm sorry. I messed up. I made a mistake. Will you forgive me? Those moments of repair are just so powerful in a family because healthy parenting and healthy relationships aren't about never messing up.

They're about the willingness to repair.

But what happens when repair isn't possible? [00:03:00] What if a parent won't or can't for whatever reason own the harm they've caused? And what if you are a parent who's been cut off by an adult child and you've never been given a chance?

I. To repair. Is estrangement the only way forward or is there another path? As I've worked at the intersection of psychology and religion these past few decades, I've noticed that people of faith in particular, often go to two different extremes when thinking about these questions.

We often assume you just simply have to honor the commandment to honor your father and mother, but on the other extreme. Especially in our broader culture today, we're seeing a rising number of adult children cutting ties with their parents altogether for reasons that aren't always clear, or at times that may not warrant such a permanent decision, and

it can start to feel like these are the only two [00:04:00] options to remain enmeshed and hurt. Or to walk away entirely. And that's why I wanted to talk with today's guest, Dr.

Joshua. Coleman Josh is a psychologist, and one of the leading voices in the country on the topic of family estrangement. He brings such a rare depth of insight, not only from his work with families, but also from his own experience as a father who went through a season of a estrangement with his adult daughter.

His books When Parents Hurt and Rules of Estrangement offer a compassionate, deeply nuanced look at how these rifts occur and what it might take when both parties are willing to begin the long work of repair.

Whether you've ever wondered what it really means practically to honor a parent who's hurt you, or you're someone who's been cut off from your child and aching. To understand why and what [00:05:00] you can do about it, or if you're just trying to navigate the complexities of family without swinging to either of these reductive and overly simplified extremes.

This episode is for you. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Joshua Coleman.

INTERVIEW

[00:05:19] Alison Cook: One of the reasons, Josh, that I, I just really wanted to have you on today is you speak with such nuance to this topic of family estrangement. A lot of my audience, by way of introduction, comes from faith backgrounds. They've grown up in churches, many of my listeners belong to churches. So one of the things I wanna kind of flush out with you today on the podcast is what I see as sort of these extremes. 

In my work as I have been working as a clinician in some of this area, in my own degrees in psychology and religion, sometimes in religious communities there can be a sort of honor thy father and mother [00:06:00] almost, right? You, you have to stay loyal to the family system even when the system is hurting you.

[00:06:06] Joshua Coleman: Yep. 

[00:06:09] Alison Cook: And a big part of my work is reframing that. What does it really mean to honor a father and mother, especially when there's been harm? What does that really mean? Right? When we need

[00:06:21] Joshua Coleman: Yeah.

[00:06:22] Alison Cook: to differentiate and disentangle from that. On the other side of that, we're seeing, and I'd love for you to speak to this, in the broader culture, especially in the younger generation, just an incredible number of people kind of divorcing their families, for lack of a better word, for maybe not-necessary reasons. And there's this sort of alienation and isolation and we're going too far to sort of leaving some of these institutions and systems that we do need some tether to. So that's kind of how I came to you.[00:07:00] 

I thought, gosh, who's speaking to this in a way that honors that? Sometimes we do need to address what's hard in families of origin and also we don't wanna kind of throw out the baby with the bath water. So with that long preface, I'd love to hear from you, what are you seeing in the culture at large? How did this topic become of interest to you?

[00:07:18] Joshua Coleman: Yeah. Well, we'll start with how the topic became of interest. You know, I, it was through a personal experience. I was married and divorced in my twenties, and I have a, adult daughter who I'm very. Close to, uh, but there was a period of time in her early twenties where she cut off contact with me for a couple years and large part owing to my becoming remarried, having children in my second marriage and her feeling in many ways, displaced.

And you know, when she wanted to talk to me about it, to kind of complain about what that was like for her, I wasn't really well equipped to listen as empathically and as responsibly as I should have. And so she became more and more distant until she stopped talking to me. And it wasn't until I really.

Realize I needed to [00:08:00] radically change how I was approaching her, uh, that she began to turn back towards me and we were able to, to heal the distance. Um, but at the time there was nothing written to help me and I wasn't therapy with, you know, very successful psychoanalyst who gave me terrible advice as so many therapists do in this space.

Because if you haven't been through it, you kind of just don't know. So I realized that there was a need for a book on the topic. So I wrote my first book on the topic in 2007 when parents hurt Compassionate Strategies when you and your grown child don't get along. And as a result of that, got a wide following of parents here who were estranged in other countries.

And as a result of that, started doing a free Q and a every, other Monday. 'cause I just couldn't handle the volume of emails I was getting. Then I started doing a webinar series, which I. Continue to, to this day, every Tuesday night, four 30 Pacific. and I have a newsletter which is also free 'cause there's just so much information parents need and I don't wanna limit it just to people who can, you know, afford my private therapy rate.

 so on the [00:09:00] basis of that. All of that data. I did a survey of 1600 estranged parents, which I published in several peer reviewed articles and wrote my more recent book, rules of Estrangement, why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict. And so now I'm, all I'm doing is seeing estranged parents mostly, um, and adult children who, who are interested in reconciling and, and that kind of thing.

 but to back out to your, your second question. What am I seeing? Yeah, I think that that there's been an enormous cultural shift in the past half century where, you know, honored thy mother and thy father, respect thy elders families forever, has given way much more to this emphasis on personal happiness, personal growth, identity, protecting my mental health, establishment of boundaries.

And so often the generations are talking past each other. You know, older generations are saying, well, what about Ony mother and my father and everything that I did for you and respect your elders And younger generations are saying, no, that ship has, has sailed. It's really like, you know, [00:10:00] you can't have a relationship with me that's in line with my ideals for happiness and mental health.

Not only don't I want it, but I, it's would be ridiculous of me to have it. So a lot of my work is helping parents learn how to speak that language. 'cause so many of them haven't been raised with that, that language. And so many of them say, you know, my kids saying that they were emotionally abused.

I can show them when an emotional, abusive household looks like I grew up in that. What I, what they got was a walk in the park, which, you know, doesn't really advance their cause, but

[00:10:30] Alison Cook: which might be true on one hand and is not helpful toward the ends of reconciliation. So, I want the listener to hear you've got some fantastic resources for parents who have experienced estrangement where their kids, adult children have cut ties. Before we get there, I'd love to hear your take because you have such a nuanced approach.

When do you think estrangement is warranted? When do you think there is a time, whether it's a season, when do you think it is appropriate to, to cut ties?[00:11:00] 

[00:11:00] Joshua Coleman: Well, in the same way that I would tell parents that it is their duty to do due diligence on their children's complaints and, uh, you know, to find the colonel, if not the bush of truth, and to understand why their adult child is turning away from them and what they're trying to establish In doing that, I think adult children also need to do their due diligence with the parents.

It's not enough to go to therapy and have your therapists say, well, your mother's a narcissist, your dad's a narcissist, or they can't be helped, or It's hopeless. You know, you actually have to be willing for your therapist to contact the parent and see if they're willing to work on it or do family therapy or give your parents time to grow and change.

And not to approach them by saying, my therapist thinks you're a narcissist. I learned that you were emotionally abusive. I mean, it's fine to have all of those beliefs. You know, many parents are. Abusive, and it's not like those parents don't, don't exist 'cause they do. But it's not going to really motivate or allow the parent to give you what you want or may need from that parent in order to [00:12:00] be a better parent or even heal the hurt and the harm that they've caused.

It's really hard for any parent to hear the ways that they've failed. Their children. Uh, and defensiveness is a natural, it's an unproductive response, but it's a very natural response to hearing that. So if your goal is a better relationship with your parent, you really do need to spend some time, giving them time to change and to tell them what you don't like and to kind of let them know if they're not getting it.

Look, I just can't. Have a relationship with you. If you can't be more sensitive to me in this regard, whatever it is that they're being so insensitive about, and if, if, over the next few months you're not able to show more empathy or insight around this with me, then, then I need to take a serious break from our relationship Now when I counsel.

People to take a break. I don't really think anybody should take a permanent break. 'cause I think that sometimes parents don't get the message until there's been an estrangement. You know, it's kind of like some parents need to be sort of, you know, smacked upside the head to get, get [00:13:00] with the program, but then once they've actually been through it, they can kind of say, oh, okay, I, I get it.

I'm willing to do whatever. Right. Um, so I think, you know. Adult children should reach back out after, after a year. And, and part of the reason I say that is that, you know, there's so much in the media about abusive parents. There was an article yesterday or Sunday in the New York Times about another person who cut off their abusive mother and they're happy for it.

And there's that book by Jenny McCarty, I think called, I'm Glad My mother's Dead. And, there's so much in the media about. Kind of legitimizing, estrangement and you know, like we're saying there, there are cases for it, but there are so many estrangements that don't occur because of parental abuse.

And there's not enough information out there about how heartbroken these parents are and how heartbroken they are as grandparents. 'cause they're typically cut off from contact with the grandchildren as well.

[00:13:50] Alison Cook: Yeah, it's, it's really polarized. it's as if there's only two options— relationship or no relationship. when I talk about boundaries, I'm a big proponent of let's face reality. Let's name what's real, what can I do. You know, can I send a monthly email?

[00:14:08] Joshua Coleman: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:09] Alison Cook: Maybe that is the only way I can have a relationship, right?

But there's a lot of material in that middle ground between no contact ever and we have to spend every holiday together and talk on the phone every week. I think most people don't fall in either of those two extremes.

[00:14:28] Joshua Coleman: No, I totally, totally agree with you. And I think that because of cell phones, you know, every parent is just within a, you know, a click away from their children in ways that wasn't the case when you and I were growing up. I'm sure I, but quite a bit older than you. but you know, I mean, my parents, when I moved out here to California from Dayton, Ohio, I mean, you know, it took me.

Two weeks to drive out here with friends. And I wasn't like calling them every other day or sending them pic and I couldn't send them pictures. Um, you know, maybe after two weeks I called them, collect and spoke to them for 10 minutes, let 'em know I [00:15:00] arrived safely. But now parents can reach their kids from anywhere in the world within seconds.

And it really crowds the environment for so many adult children and so many kind of feel like they're getting too much so. the word that I see in every single letter from every single strange adult child is you need to respect my boundaries. And you know, part of it is just that parents are allowed and have been more in intrusive.

In some ways it comes from a loving, caring, anxious, guilt-ridden place. But you know, if you're on the other end of it's the adult child, it doesn't necessarily feel that way. It just feels like intrusion.

AD BREAK 1

[00:15:31] Alison Cook: There are lots of boundaries you can set that, like you're saying. I think that's really a good point in this modern era of don't follow me on social media. That is I, and I can enforce that. You don't get a say or you know, I won't do text related, you know, there are lots of these, so, so I just wanna put that out there for a listener.

 and again, there are cases, I have friends, I've had clients who have to go no contact for very good reasons. That does happen, and also there are many [00:16:00] situations. Where we can find a more nuanced approach. So a couple of things you've said that are really important for adult children who have a tough relationship with their parents or recognizing ways they've been hurt.

 I loved how you said this. You said a couple things. Don't just talk to one. Therapist who has only met you and only heard your story maybe in, see if that therapist would be willing to meet with your parents, maybe try family therapy. It might not work, but due diligence, kind of look at it from different angles.

It's a big deal, is what I'm hearing you say. It's a big deal

[00:16:31] Joshua Coleman: It's a really big deal.

[00:16:32] Alison Cook: cut off. and so I hear you saying, you know, give it some weight, give it some discernment, and then I heard you say very clearly do it for. A specific period of time. First, if you feel like, man, this is going nowhere.

They are not hearing me.

[00:16:48] Joshua Coleman: Give it a year. I heard you say even, you know, take a year and just say, I need this time, and then we'll revisit. Because there's some, you know, it's almost like a timeout. No, it is like a timeout. That's [00:17:00] well, well said. And it gives everybody a chance to calm down and it gives parents a chance, hopefully to, to realize that you mean business if you're the adult child doing it. And I think it's really helpful for parents to know that the adult child is gonna reach out within a certain time.

Because so many of the parents I work with, they're like, well, what if I never hear from my child again? You know, what if I never see my grandchildren? And what if I, how will they know that I've changed? I am changing, I'm doing therapy. You know, I, I now see. But how will they ever know that? And so, you know, I think giving the parent another chance is really critically important.

[00:17:31] Alison Cook: Yeah. If you don't mind my asking, how did that happen with your daughter? Was there a set period of time and then you decided to reengage?

[00:17:40] Joshua Coleman: Well, I was sort of trying to reengage, you know, all the way through. I just wasn't doing a very good job of it. So you know, it was, wasn't until I. Talked about the situation with the consultant to my practice. I mean, if your listeners may know that as therapists, we often have a consultant who we'd bring our difficult cases to, you know, every week to get [00:18:00] advice.

 and so one time I just said, look, I wanna talk about a really difficult I. Case, and that's me and I wanna get your advice. Uh, and she was really the first person to say, you need to shut the heck up and stop defending yourself and stop explaining and stop being defensive and stop getting mad, and just empathize and take responsibility 'cause you're not doing that.

So it just feels to her like you're really not hearing her. So, you know, it really wasn't until then that that things began to shift. And I think it's true for many parents, it's not necessarily true. It's not. , you know, for the parents who are out there, it isn't like any one thing I can advise is gonna work for every single parent.

Sometimes the adult child, it just isn't ready for a variety of reasons. Some 

but being willing to take responsibility, make amends, not be defensive, hear it from the child's perspective, those are really the key necessary steps. Even if they're not sufficient, I.

[00:18:50] Alison Cook: So let's talk about this. Part of what we're talking about here is power, right? a parent has power over a child as they grow up, which is why those [00:19:00] wounds can be so damaging because as children, right? There is a power differential. And what happens as we become young adults is, and suddenly like, oh, we have some power here.

Which isn't all bad, right? There's some, I have some power here to say I'm not okay with this. And so then the parent is scrambling to go, okay, now do I still have power? Do I use my old means? How do I change? And so I can imagine this is where parents whose kids are coming to them saying this isn't working. Really can get stuck to your own point of your own story. So let's start there. How would you coach a parent who is in that kind of rumble, they're wanting to defend, they don't like it. They feel disempowered. They're like, but how, how can I?

And so they're doing all the wrong things in a way to try to get some of that feeling of control. Solet's go there. What are some of the wrong things that we do? And then what are the things we can do?

[00:19:59] Joshua Coleman: Yeah. Well, I mean the, the most wrong thing you can do is to fail to realize that nothing compels your adult child to have a relationship with you beyond whether or not. They wanna have a relationship with you, so it's going to necessarily be on their terms. You're not gonna have the same kind of power that maybe your parents had over you.

Uh, or maybe you feel like you should, and if you were a better parent than your own parents were and you better generous and helped your child in all kinds of ways. You may feel entitled to a certain degree of power and influence over them, but, but your adult child gets, they get the final say on whether or not they're gonna be in relationship with you.

So, complaining about it probably isn't going to work. And being willing and able to shift into this newer model of family, which has more in line with romantic relationships than it does with prior parent adult child relationships. Meaning it has to be sensitive to the other person. It has to take place in a context of personal growth.

It has to be, identified with, that person's goals for happiness and their mental [00:21:00] health, et cetera. or you're, the adult child's gonna say, well, I'm not willing to play, by those rules, so see ya.

[00:21:07] Alison Cook: Okay, so, so first of all, understanding this is a new playbook of family. My young adult children are operating in many ways under different norms than I was, and

[00:21:20] Joshua Coleman: That's right.

[00:21:21] Alison Cook: so just accepting that radical acceptance, this is the reality.

[00:21:25] Joshua Coleman: This is reality. Yep,

[00:21:26] Alison Cook: Okay. And so to the parent who's hearing that going, but that feels like I'm giving up, know, it may feel like at first you're, you're sort of surrendering, but that would be part of the parent's work is then to go talk through what that stirs up in them with another therapist, with their own therapist.

[00:21:43] Joshua Coleman: Right. No, it's true. And, you know, not to overdo the parallel between romantic love, but, you know, and we fall in love with somebody and we marry them. I mean, part of what we have to do is accept the ways that we can't get them to change, and we have to accept their limitations, and we have to accept that they're not gonna be able to meet every need of ours.

And they probably [00:22:00] aren't, aren't necessarily gonna be able to, do all the things that we want them. To do, et cetera. And the same is true if we want a close relationship with our adult children, that may require a certain kind of grieving, that the relationship isn't gonna look like what you, wanted it to look like.

And if your kid has issues, if they have mental health issues, or if they're married to somebody who's troubled, or your divorced and your ex is poisoning them against you, or, uh, you know, the therapist has persuaded them that everything's your fault, you know you're gonna have even less power. So you have to really come to terms with that.

[00:22:31] Alison Cook: Yeah. And, coming to terms with that. I would say the first way to do that is not to try to get your young adult child to understand that unfortunately, that is not, you're gonna have to come to terms with that through processing the grief. I like how you used that word, grief. 

Just as in a marriage when you realize, oh, this person is not who I thought they were. You don't necessarily want to process that with them initially.

[00:22:55] Joshua Coleman: Exactly.

[00:22:55] Alison Cook: grieve that with someone else if you want to keep the relationship [00:23:00] intact.

[00:23:00] Joshua Coleman: Exactly. Yeah, they're very, very similar in that way. And we all have limitations. We as parents and our children as well in terms of what they can provide for us. And you know, I do think that because parents have largely done a better job and spent more time raising their children, probably spent more money.

Than prior generations. I think that they kind of come into the adulthood sort of hoping and assuming it's gonna be a really close relationship where there's gonna be a lot of gratitude and you know, it's just kind of luck of the cards. I mean, maybe you're gonna get that, maybe you're not, but if you're not, you can't insist on it 'cause it's just gonna turn your child away.

[00:23:33] Alison Cook: So what role does apology and accountability play for a parent? So we've accepted new terms, maybe done some work. What does the role of apology and accountability play in rebuilding an estranged relationship? I.

[00:23:49] Joshua Coleman: Yeah, I think it's huge. Um, you know, I always tell parents if they're estranged or. Start by writing a letter of amends where they take responsibility, where they find the kernel, if not the bush of truth in the children's complaints [00:24:00] where they don't try to explain, if they don't defend themselves, they don't blame other people.

Uh, it's just kind of a straightforward, yeah, I could see how this would be healthier for you to do, or why, why you have, based on these actions or behaviors. On my part, it's not an easy thing for parents to do, but that kind of courageous accountability can be much more compelling to an adult child than.

You know, that's something that's where you, the parent doesn't go there and just sort of insists that the adult child's being mean or unfair or not, you know, being appreciative of all the things the parent did for them. So, so accountability and, amends, which, you know, may not necessarily even be an apology per se.

I mean, some parents really don't know why the adult child has cut them off. And what I always tell parents is to say is something like, well, it's clear that I have significant blind spots. As a parent or as a person that I don't have a better understanding, but I would like to know more. And would you feel comfortable writing me or telling me I promise to listen or read purely to understand and not to defend myself?

 or if you wanna do family therapy, I would welcome that as well. [00:25:00] So, you know, just kind of like, it's a big sort of invitation to, to talk more and be close, but close in this new, much more kind of psychological way

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[00:25:09] Alison Cook: Yeah, and, and really meaning that part of the radical acceptance is you're not, dangling that as a hook. So that, then when they come, you're, you're gonna go ahead and do all the you, you've gotta be ready, you've gotta be ready. 'cause that does take some core strength to be able to set aside our own, ego and, and to really honor that.

 no matter how unfair I think this is there's definitely gonna be kernels of truth. And being really willing to own all that. there’s that fine line of having the dignity of your own personhood while still honoring the mistakes that you've made.

[00:25:49] Joshua Coleman: Yeah, I know what I tell parents is it's about humility, not humiliation. And you know, I'll sometimes see on some of the forums parents saying, well, I'm not gonna grovel. And Coleman expects me to just keep apologizing and [00:26:00] apologizing and, you know, I'm not apologizing for anything. I didn't, I was gave that kid an incredible, really good life.

And, you know, that's why I say it's about humility, not humiliation. Because humility basically says that we all do have blind spots. Um, so we may feel, like. We could even objectively look like we were a great parent and our kids could objectively feel like they wish we'd done something different. You know, been much more involved or much less involved, you know, or push them harder or push, didn't push them as much, whatever it is, and sort of just insisting that they're wrong.

And you're right. I mean, that doesn't persuade anybody. You know, like if we just go back to the couples model, I mean, it's all about. Empathy and understanding. It's not about who's right and who's wrong, so that's why I think it's useful for parents just to go look. I, I guess I have blind spots that I wasn't aware you felt that way, but I'm glad you told me.

I'm sorry that my behavior caused you to feel, so whatever it is, hurt, neglected, misunderstood, you know, et cetera.

[00:26:54] Alison Cook: Yeah.

[00:26:55] Joshua Coleman: But it is hard. It is hard for parents. Not all parents can can do it. because some parents will say, [00:27:00] well, I, what about my own integrity? If I'm apologizing for something I didn't do, and I'm,, I mean, if the things you did do, which if you're like every single parent in the world, there are things that you did do.

You should start there for starters. but if you don't really understand, you know, it's just basic humility to say that, there are clearly things that I got wrong 

[00:27:18] Alison Cook: And in any relationship, I think, you know, my, my kids are, entering into young adulthood and I try to make a regular practice of going to them and saying, I'm so sorry. I was kind of a jerk last night. it, you're modeling something at the very least. And I try not to do that, to get something from them.

I try to do that 'cause it's true. And it's good for me and regardless of whether they care. So half the time they're like, I didn't really care, or, you know And so I think also parents can look at it as a, this is good for me. It's good for me to embark on a journey of a really good, healthy practice of, I love that humility, not humiliation.

You know, this, this wasn't great and it's good for me to say that too.

[00:27:54] Joshua Coleman: no, you're right. It's not only good, good role modeling and good parenting, it actually feels. [00:28:00] Better. Ultimately, as hard as it is to write in a amends letter, as hard as it is to apologize or to try to repair or be accountable, ultimately, you know, it stays in the dark, grows in the dark. you know, most of us know the kind of mistakes that we made with our children, and particularly if it's with a child who's.

You know, turned away, it can be therapeutic to just call a spade. A spade go, yeah. Hell yes. I was, I was that way. You know, that's why in aa, I think it's the eighth step, they talk about make a fearless and searching moral inventory of your character flaws. And partly it's because in AA they know that all the things that you keep in the dark, stay in the dark and have this kind of corrosive effect on your self-esteem and resilience.

[00:28:37] Alison Cook: I love that reference to aa. I work in a lot of IFS and we talk about taking the U-turn. No matter what it is, no matter how painful it is, there's always an opportunity to look inside yourself along the lines. With aa, there's always that opportunity to go, what can I take a look at? You know, there's always something.

And that is actually for my good. Hopefully it will restore this [00:29:00] relationship. yeah, I love that. that step in AA is a great reference.

[00:29:03] Joshua Coleman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's so important that ability.

[00:29:07] Alison Cook: What would you say to parents who feel like they have done everything that they can and their child just isn't gonna engage, they're just gone. What would you say to those parents?

[00:29:20] Joshua Coleman: Well, I have a lot of those in my practice. 'cause not all adult children are able and willing to reconcile no matter how perfectly the parent has, reached out to them, including with my guidance sometimes. And I tell them, well, we have to help you to not have it be a blight on your life, which is harder for moms in particular.

Moms, you know, tend to feel like, well there must be something else I can do, you know, and if I can't solve this, this means I'm a Not only a terrible mother, but a terrible person. And I say, no, you have to, you have to reclaim your life. Your kid gets a vote, but you're the CEO of your life. They don't get to have, be the ultimate decider about who you are as a parent and as a person.

 and a lot of parents, moms in particular were also the sort of turn away from the form of [00:30:00] things that gave them value and meaning because they felt like, well, what right do I have to a happy life if I don't have my child or my grandchildren in it? It is gonna be a life with a certain degree of pain in a certain way.

You have to like, you know, again, it's radical acceptance. It's like having a chronic, back ache or something, or some other kind of a medical condition. Or maybe you're in a bad marriage, you can't leave or don't wanna leave. And so there's sort of a chronic feeling of unhappiness and dissatisfaction that's just a part of your life.

You just wanna make sure that it's not the only part of your life or that it doesn't define you and become the whole part of your life.

[00:30:31] Alison Cook: That's good. That's well stated. Yeah. And, and this is true for all of us who are parents. It is true for all of us. We do have identities separate from that role. It just takes it to another level. And there is again, that word grief, that ongoing grief. I would love to just end on a note of as we're kind of talking about some of what's hard.

Why is this relationship worth. Fighting for both for , you know, young adults [00:31:00] of parents and also for the parents. Why is this valuable and why is it that we're losing something a little bit when we move too far away? Again, I get that sort of the pendulum swings of culture. you know, there was a lot of enmeshment.

We weren't allowed to name things that were hard in families of origin years long before I was born. Right? Where, there was some of this. So then the pendulum is that, you know, now we're just gonna kind of blow up the system. why is this worth fighting for and why is it important?

[00:31:25] Joshua Coleman: Yeah, I don't never need to convince parents of that. 'cause they already know because there's so much pain. But for the adult child, well, there's several ways to think about it. I mean, one is the vast majority of adult children, when they cut off contact with a parent, they cut off access to the grandchildren as well.

You know, to the parent who's the grandparent and often they'll say, well, it's not good for me, it's not good for my kids. And you know, there's a lot of people who are really, really good grandparents who maybe weren't that great as a parent, but they can still bring enormous value to grandchildren.

 and some of these grandparents were very involved in grandchildren's lives before they were cut off. And [00:32:00] so, you know, they're actually hurting their own children by. cutting off access to a loving decent grandparent, A B, it also can allow the grandparent the ability to repair some of the ways that they might not have been as good as parents.

And that might be good for you to see that they can do that. Although some adult children say, well, It's sort of infuriating for me in a way to see how good they could be with my own kids. How come they couldn't be there, you know, for me in the same way. And it's kinda like, well, it's a different role being a grandparent, but also if you cut off access to your parents and their grandchildren, I mean that also, it 

 makes families more fragile. It means that your children probably aren't gonna have as much access to their cousins because typically estrangement is a cataclysmic event, meaning that, not only grandparents and grandchildren, often if the parents are still together, it can create a lot of tension in their marriage.

 cousins may get cut off from seeing other cousins, siblings typically become divided, some with the estranged child, sibling, others with the parents. So it's a pretty serious event, and I think it just makes people. That much more. I mean, some people say no [00:33:00] best thing I ever did, I feel much, so much happier and more resilient.

And if you go on the, some of the forums like Reddit, that's not an uncommon thing that you see now, whether that's gonna be true, you know, in 10 years or so, whether that's gonna be better for their children, I. I don't think we know. I mean, my general concern is that as a society we're becoming much too kind of defracted and atomized.

We have rising rates of mental illness. I think that's in part because there's this ongoing feeling of mistrust. We're very preoccupied with our own boundaries and not thinking as much about kind of the more independent nature that of identity and, So I think we're suffering as a society by this like, I mean, again, yes, there are places for legitimate places for estrangement, but I, I do feel like particularly people in our field these days, I feel like are a little too quick to recommended it or endorse it or not provide enough tools towards reconciliation.

[00:33:49] Alison Cook: Yeah, it's interesting listening to you, Josh. It's in some ways the same invitation for the parent is for the young adult who's grieving what they didn't get from a [00:34:00] parent. Is that sort of radical acceptance, is that sort of resilience of I may never get what I really wanted. Um, and then that, that process of, you know, kind of shedding. What I maybe even deserved from a parent and didn't get, and again, we're not talking about extreme situations here 'cause those do exist, but also the muscles and the internal core strength that comes from, again, that more nuance of boundaries that we kind of do with our friends sometimes where there's sort of that, you know.

You know, you kind of come up with a new category. This, this is a human that matters. I'm connected to this human. Um, maybe I let go of this idea of mother or father that they weren't, and that's just what's true. And I can kind of adopt this other way. Like there's some creativity, right? When we honor that there is something to those bonds that do matter and, and we all have to kind of go through that process of kind of that dance of our individuality, but our connectedness.

Both things are are [00:35:00] important.

[00:35:00] Joshua Coleman: No, I think it's super well said, and I like how you're, how you're framing it, that, you know, there's a lot of growth that can happen in, in learning how to be with a parent who, isn't your ideal, who didn't really raise you in the way that you wish that you had, and landing on a compassionate note.

With that, you know, kind of like they really did the best that they could based on their own traumas or deprivations or who they were married to, or their socioeconomic status or, you know, or who we were as children, you know, because children are not, they're not like neutral players in this. There are, you know, difficult children who bring their own temperaments to the equation.

 so it's an opportunity if, your goal is personal growth, and I think younger generations. That is their goal. Then this provides you with a really rich opportunity to learn how to be in the presence of your parent and not be so triggered and not have to be so rigid about your boundaries and your limits and all that.

[00:35:48] Alison Cook: Yeah, that's a good point. That's an invitation to growth, that's a pretty sophisticated skill of emotional intelligence, right? To be able to understand what's hard, to kind of, again, I think about the [00:36:00] parts model, like a part of me as really unhappy here. And also I can lead myself through it.

[00:36:05] Joshua Coleman: Right.

[00:36:05] Alison Cook: that's really a great feeling too. That's very liberating. 'cause there's a lot of difficult people in the world.

[00:36:09] Joshua Coleman: There are, right, and I think in some ways it makes us less resilient if we're just constantly setting back. It looks empowered, it looks virtuous. You know, I'm cutting off these toxic people. I'm only surrounding myself with people who let me. But I mean, you know, first of all, it's probably. It doesn't make you more resilient.

I mean, we know from cognitive behavioral research that the things that make you anxious or afraid, you're better off kind of going towards and learning how to tolerate those feelings rather than to just kind of never, you know, involve yourself with them. And I think the same is true with our family relationships.

[00:36:40] Alison Cook: Well, I so appreciate all these resources you're providing. Tell my listeners where they could find you if they wanna take advantage of, of some of these great things you're doing.

[00:36:48] Joshua Coleman: Sure, yeah. I'm probably the best place is my website, triple W dot dr joshua coleman.com. That's D-R-J-O-S-H-U-A-C-O-L-E-M-A-N.com. I just started a substack [00:37:00] recently called Family Troubles. I. So you can find me on Substack. but my newsletter, you can send it for my free newsletter on my website and that goes out, you know, four times a week and it's got lots of, free articles in there about estrangement and if there's other things that I'm doing or you know, podcasts, et cetera.

So that's probably the best place to find me.

[00:37:18] Alison Cook: That's great. We'll link to all that in the show notes. I, I am just so grateful to have come across your work and grateful for what you're doing.

[00:37:24] Joshua Coleman: Well thank you. It was really great to talk to you.

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What do you do when your family is the source of your deepest wounds? How do you hold onto your identity without cutting off the people who raised you?

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In this transformative conversation, therapist and relationship coach Jerry Wise discusses the concept of self-differentiation—a powerful framework for healing from family dysfunction without shame or blame.

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Whether you’re navigating complex family ties, considering going no contact, or simply longing to feel more like you, this episode offers a clear path forward rooted in wisdom, compassion, and courage.

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Jerry shares:

• His own journey from dysfunction to emotional clarity
• Why cutting ties doesn’t always lead to healing—and what might
• How to spot when you’re still emotionally enmeshed (even with distance)
• Practical steps to stop reacting and start reclaiming your sense of self

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If you’ve ever felt stuck in old family roles, overwhelmed by guilt, or confused about how to move forward with—or without—your family, this episode will meet you with both empathy and actionable insight.

‍

🖥 Learn more about Jerry’s work: ⁠Jerry Wise Relationship Systems⁠

📺 Watch his ⁠free training⁠ and explore his ⁠self-differentiation course⁠

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If you liked this episode, you'll love:

• ⁠Episode 147⁠ — The Hidden Trauma of Being the Chosen Child & a Path Toward Healing—Making Sense of Your Family Story
• ⁠Episode 127⁠ — Healing Childhood Wounds—The Enmeshed Family & 5 Toxic Patterns that Affect Your Ability to Thrive in Adult Relationships
• ⁠⁠Episode 85⁠⁠ — The Goal of a Healthy Family & 6 Roles We Take On In Dysfunction

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Thanks to our Sponsors!

• This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at ⁠betterhelp.com/BESTOFYOU⁠ and get on your way to being your best self.
• Go to ⁠AquaTru.com⁠ and enter code BESTOFYOU at checkout to get 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier!‍
• 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.

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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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Episode Transcript

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ALISON Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Best of You. Today I am introducing a special two part series on a topic that runs deep for so many of us family pain, how we navigate the wounds of our families of origin, and how we begin to heal. One of the things that sparked my interest in this series is a growing body of research pointing to a sharp rise in family estrangement, particularly among younger [00:01:00] generations.

Some studies show that nearly one in two adults in the US. Are estranged from a close family member with many citing emotional boundaries, political divisions, or personal growth as the reasons Gen Z in particular is leading the way in reevaluating and sometimes stepping away from family ties altogether.

It's a painful and complex trend that raises profound questions. When is it necessary to distance ourselves from family and are there other paths to healing even when full restoration or understanding isn't possible? I wanted to explore this spectrum of family pain through two different but equally thoughtful perspectives.

In part one, I'm joined by Jerry Wise, the therapist and relationship systems coach with over 45 years of experience helping individuals untangle [00:02:00] from dysfunctional family patterns and develop what's called self differentiation. If you read my book, the Best of You, I talk about this in terms of selfhood or true self.

It's a. Powerful concept that both honors the systems of which we are a part while simultaneously honoring our need to differentiate. Jerry's work is grounded in family systems theory and it offers a powerful framework for healing, one that helps people find freedom. Whether you are sitting at the table with your family or far, far away from them, it's about becoming your own person.

Even within the complexity of family ties in part two. Next week's episode, I'm joined by Dr. Joshua Coleman. Joshua is a psychologist and author who has written extensively on family estrangement, particularly between parents and adult children. His work comes out of his own experience of having his adult [00:03:00] child go no contact with him for a period of time.

He brings so much compassion and insight to the often silent grief of estranged parents, while also honoring the autonomy of adult children. He helps us understand why estrangement happens and what healing might look like realistically from both sides. These two conversations speak to different aspects of the same deep reality that.

Sometimes the people who are supposed to love us the best are also the ones who hurt us. The most, and that healing is rarely linear, simplistic, or easy. And that sometimes healing takes a different path for each person involved. I hope you find something in both of these conversations, whether it's language for what you are working through with your own family, validation for what you've been [00:04:00] feeling, or a glimmer of hope for what healing might look like.

Going forward. Let's get started with part one. My conversation with Jerry Wise. Jerry Wise is a family systems and self differentiation expert with over 45 years of experience as a marriage and family therapist, addictions therapist, pastoral counselor, organizational consultant, and certified life relationship coach.

His unique self differentiation. Approach addresses the deeply ingrained effects of being raised in narcissistic, dysfunctional, or emotionally immature families, and empowers you to break free from these patterns so they no longer control you, your life or your relationships. Throughout his career, Jerry has helped thousands of clients transform their lives by applying self differentiation to healing relationships and leadership.

Please enjoy my conversation with Jerry Wise.

ALISON [00:05:00] I'd actually love Jerry as we get started here, you've got 45 years of experience that actually started out as a pastor and then became a marriage and family therapist, and now you've got this huge coaching practice really. Specifically focused on helping people with what we're gonna talk about today, but when were some breakthrough moments in your journey when you began to see this as really crucial work to health and wholeness?

JERRY WISE In a brief, after I had tried everything else, I had a breakthrough moment in trying to heal my own trauma, my own wounds, my own identity problems. Who am I? All those kinds of things. And of course, you know, therapy, that's a pastoral. Word. I mean, that's actually a Christian notion when, when you talk about therapy and people don't always realize that, you know, the first therapists were the pastors and monks and you know, [00:06:00] different people who provided healing and spiritual guidance folks.

So that's kind of where the tradition began. So in trying to heal my own wounds, going through so many things all the way from. Cognitive behavioral therapy to exorcism. I did the whole gamut to try to change. Well, and then I use these three words, the three Rs, relationships, reactivity, and recycling. What I call continued relationship problems, continued recycling.

I would just keep going in circles, do better, then go back one step forward, one step back, or two steps forwards, three steps back. You know, it just kept recycling and then, uh, reactivity was a real problem. I just thought, how do you actually change? Because it wasn't for a lack of wanting to. Now maybe somebody would say, oh, well you [00:07:00] really didn't wanna change, you know, if you really wanted to change, you would've changed.

Well, that's kind of a shaming approach to healing. I mean, and I tell people all the time, you may not be ready to give up that guilt yet. But that's not a shame statement. That's a come to know yourself statement, but then others can make a more shaming statement. Well, if you really wanted to change, you would.

Well, good luck. I hope that works for your life. You know, I, I hope that approach. So I realized that I needed to explore more, and I ran into a professor in seminary, Dr. Stoneberg, who was. All of his lectures absolutely fascinated me. I couldn't understand why he was so different from all the other professors.

He was a Lutheran pastor, psychologist. I couldn't understand why he had such clarity. I couldn't understand why he was. Not reactive and very [00:08:00] mature. It just was like, who is this guy? Come to find out he was a student of family systems and Murray Bowen Natural Family Systems theory, and I began to explore that and learn that, and then I began to realize my sense of self and healing is not just an individualistic thing.

I'm always connected at all times. To my family of origin, to others, to relationships. And so if we work from a systems perspective, I found much more healing with that than just let me just fix something broke inside me. 

ALISON Yes. So that makes sense. So this really comes out of your personal journey. 

JERRY WISE And I even, I remember telling him, he explained the situation of what self differentiation might feel Like I said, there's no way in the world I would ever feel that way.

There's no way I could ever, 'cause I had tried this, tried that, and I can't tell you the miracle of, [00:09:00] I just feel so different than. All those years of pain and lack of clarity and, and I just never even thought that was possible. I mean, I would've just said, yeah, I'll probably get a little better, but not really change. Become who I should be at am. 

ALISON Yeah. This is such a powerful and beautiful testimony really, for lack of a better word, right? This is a testimony to change, and I'm thinking of my listeners, Jerry, who will relate to what you're saying. I've tried everything, you know, from therapy to exorcism, you know, to prayer to.

Reading the Bible to workshops, to to cognitive, you know, trying to replace thoughts and I can't change. So let's talk about it. Let's unpack a little bit, and as much as you're comfortable, I'd love for you to share from your own experience of applying this either personally or with your clients. But what do you mean by self? [00:10:00] Differentiation. What is this and how is it different? 

JERRY WISE And people will say, well, are you just talking about self-esteem? But self-esteem is an individualistic concept. Self differentiation means you are different from someone else and different from the system. So that's why as you grow in self differentiation.

You disconnect from the toxicity, the beliefs, the subjectivity, the system dynamics, the systems wifi, which is the emotional wifi that we were connected to with our family of origin. And people go, oh, well I don't see my family anymore. I say, well, you may not see them anymore. But they are in, you still… 

ALISON Slow down. That was just such a statement right there. Self differentiation doesn't necessarily mean just getting physical distance. Not at all from my family and I, I really wanna underscore that 

JERRY WISE [00:11:00] in some ways that could be the least effective because in a system's way of thinking, you think about interesting paradoxes.

Is water good for you? You would probably say, yes, we should drink more water. We should have water. Well, let's then drink five gallons in an hour. Well, what's wrong with that? Water's good for you, but not at five gallons an hour. Then you can actually have water poisoning. And so the same is true in relationships.

Closeness is important. Very important. Too much closeness is toxic. Distance is very important. Too much distance. Is toxic and problematic. So when you think about systems, that's one of the first things to think about, to consider those notions. And then when you say, well, differentiation, what's unique about that?

And that differentiation [00:12:00] is me having internal boundaries in which, you know, I hear what you're saying, but I really don't care. You know, it's not my business. Your feelings are not my business. Your thoughts are not my business. Now, I'm not saying that in an unloving, uncaring way. Certainly I had a neighbor just recently lost her husband.

I do care about her feelings, but her feelings are still not my business. But I can go and comfort her, care about her and express my condolences and give her a big hug, but her feelings are still not mine. That's part of internal boundaries. Now, external boundaries, of course, like don't call me 12 times a day, please call me once a week.

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ALISON It's almost like you're saying with this self differentiation, it almost is a paradox. The more you find yourself in your own internal boundaries, almost paradoxically, you might be able to stay connected. To the system more because you are not as if you've unplugged from the wifi to use your metaphor. I love that you've unplugged. It's not downloading on you. You have found you, which allows you to let other people be them. 

JERRY WISE Again, I'm not talking about we should just accept abuse or physical violence or you know, of course not. And Bowen's notion, Marie Bowen's notion was self differentiation is being yourself. While staying connected because you mature by being yourself and staying connected.

Now there's a lot more to that. And again, I'm not saying people stay [00:16:00] in bad, bad toxic situations physically, however, with self differentiation, when someone comes to me and they go, oh, I've got all these problems with my family. Oh, they're driving me crazy, you know, and they are, the family's driving 'em crazy, and they're also participating in the craziness too.

Because it's always a feedback loop. You know, we're always a part of what we're a part of. Whatever you're dealing with, you are a part of it. Now, I'm not blaming, it's not a blaming statement, it's just a fact about systems and that when they come to me and say, oh, what should I do with my family? I try to do an assessment.

Does this require greater self differentiation? Or does this require greater distance? And I wanna make sure we have that healthy balance. Now, I don't decide all that for them. I educate them and help them understand. Now given this, and this is how Natural Family [00:17:00] Systems works, because actually Natural Family Systems is based on the whole biology of the whole universe.

How viruses work, it's how bacteria work, it's how the planets work. It's how we work because we're all a part of this one big creation here, and the rules are very similar at whatever level you're on. We're interconnected. Yeah, they were interconnected. And just like with Pluto and Saturn, if they got too close, that would be a problem.

If they got too much distance, there'd be a problem in our universe. It doesn't matter whether it's planetary or relationships. So I try to help them understand, is this a self differentiation thing this needed, or do you need to go? No contact is that necessary, but let's try to use our heads and our hearts. Let's not use our immaturity as the reason for cutting off. 

ALISON So I think what I hear you saying is it may be that I can internally, just by way of background, my [00:18:00] background is in IFS. So the idea of internal boundaries is very familiar to me. Oh yes. Internal boundaries. Right, right. So what is it that I can do internally to change myself?

Such that I'm not saying that what's going on around me isn't toxic. What I am saying is, are there things I can do to shift inside to differentiate from the system while still engaging with it to some degree? And you're also holding space for the fact that sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes no matter how much work I can do, the best thing I can do for my own health is to depart. And that's what you're trying to help people discern. And sometimes it might be both 

JERRY WISE and it could be both. Or we need to find out, you know, we may need to do an experiment. And let's see, we can test the system with self differentiation. And if the system doesn't respond well, I. If you go through the say, three stages of resistance, because you'll always get resistance.

But if you can go through the three stages of resistance, the system [00:19:00] will sometimes, if not many times, adjust to accept the new you. They won't like it, but there's some give in the system. 

ALISON I'm gonna ask you a two part question. The first question I wanna ask is, who needs to do this work? Do we all need to do this work?

And part two is. What is a quote unquote dysfunctional family? You talk about getting your family out of you. Is this work for everybody or is this work for folks who have or are experiencing what you would describe as a dysfunctional system? 

JERRY WISE Actually, I think of self differentiation as the normal or normative growing up process. That was interfered with due to dysfunction and toxic families, you know, or parenting or whatever. Now, by the way, I don't just blame the parents. I figure what's happening to you when you're growing up is about five generations old. So it's not [00:20:00] just your parents who have made a bad choice. Parents can make bad choices.

I've made bad choices as a parent, so I understand parents are very imperfect, but. Many are very, very, very imperfect and can cause lots of problems, and that this differentiation process is I think for everyone. And in fact you can use it for everything. And I consult family businesses using family systems theory because it's all about relationships.

You know, it's, everything's about relationships. Many times we will focus on a symptomatic problem, but the underneath problem usually has to do with self differentiation. 

ALISON Can you gimme an example either from your own life or from someone you've worked with of what self differentiation looks like? 

JERRY WISE Sure. Self [00:21:00] differentiation. It is growing, healing, and moving towards. The self-awareness, self-regulation and self definition, and all of our healing. In all of our recovery. We need all of those. Now, I wouldn't say to the person who just came to me and just realized they had a dysfunctional family and were abused growing up, that the first thing I'm gonna do is, why aren't you self differentiated?

No, no. You need to talk through some of the trauma and the problems, but as you're going on, you'll get stuck. And I think where I learned some of this also was. I worked in addictions therapy for a number of years and worked in rehabilitation for alcoholics and addicts, and I was the family counselor at the inpatient center and would work with all the families and with the alcoholics as well.

And I was the only marriage and family therapist there who had that kind of training. And I realized that [00:22:00] alcoholics and addicts, and I think he had even talked about in the big book as well, they reach a point. They almost can't go further. They have gone as far as they can go and then just continue to go to meetings, which is good.

I'm four 12 step meetings. I'm sure anything that will help, if it is helping you, who am I to say no, no, that's not good. But it's beyond, can we go beyond recovery to self? I don't wanna just be a recovery self. I want to be, Jerry should have been Jerry A. Long time ago. 

ALISON What you're describing almost reminds me a little bit of Maslow's hierarchy, right? But as applied to trauma, where we gotta get the baseline needs met, we gotta get to safety, we gotta get food, we gotta get shelter, we gotta get sober, we gotta get these baseline some support, right, of some kind, support. Then we continue to build into belonging and then. What you're describing, I think about in terms of [00:23:00] selfhood, true self, self-actualization.

Like this is who I really am and it's not, I love how you're saying it, Jerry. It's not an individualistic thing. Differentiation implies this is who I am within a context. 

JERRY WISE And Bowen had this imaginary self differentiation scale, zero to 10. And he said, you know, most people are probably, uh, two or three or I don't know.

You can make some change from a three to a four. Also, it's if you ever wonder in terms of attraction, A seven is not going to find a two attractive in terms of self differentiation. They won't get together. They'll be a whole room and the two twos will get together. The two sevens will get together, but the sevens not gonna get together with the two because you, you're on different planets.

And so he said, you can move that dial of self differentiation. And for me, I felt, oh, maybe I was a. Three, [00:24:00] four. I'll just throw out a number since it's a kind of an imaginary scale, but it is tied to certain things you can read about how he was tying it to certain behaviors and thoughts and ways of thinking, but in moving from a three to a four made so much difference in my life. I can't even express it. 

ALISON So someone who isn't quite, and again, there's no shame, we're just naming here. I could even think of my own life. Let's say I was early on, kind of like you trying to find myself through studying books at seminar and in counseling programs. I was very undifferentiated. I had some head knowledge of things maybe in my family or around me that, well, at one, I wouldn't have had any knowledge of it.

Then you get to like a three or four and you kind of have. Some understanding of it, but you're still a part of it. You're still enmeshed in it. And then when you make that big step to Unen, meshing to differentiating, [00:25:00] so it sounds like that's kind of what you're saying. There's a progression from, I don't like this about my family, but I'm still part of it.

JERRY WISE They've done this to me, they've da, da, da. Okay. You can have that phase. But don't stay in the blaming phase because you'll miss, you 

ALISON say more 

JERRY WISE blaming in a systems understanding is negating self. It's not that you caused it, but you're other focused, stay self-focused. You're still giving them all the power.

You're giving them all the power, and you're not self differentiating. Well, I just want you to know my parents ruined my whole life and they have for the last 40 years, and they probably will for the next 40. Oh, well that's serious. You know, YI hope you find your way out of that. You really do, right? 

ALISON As opposed to, I see it now. What am I going to do with my life? 

JERRY WISE I understand it. I accept [00:26:00] it. They are them. I am me. I am not them. They are not me. There's no denial about what happened. How do I become me, which is self differentiation, is more of a self-focused work, and most people that come to me are, when I have a talk show and people ask questions, they will almost always use other focused questions and I go, can we turn that into a self-focused questions?

Because I don't know why they did that. I cared that they did something to you, but I don't care why they did it, because how is it gonna help you for us to analyze them? 

ALISON If I came to you, Jerry, and said, my mom is always doing this to me, my dad is always doing this to me, how would you reframe that? Because that's kind of what comes 

JERRY WISE Absolutely. And I would say, you're absolutely right. That's what they do. Now what do you need to do? [00:27:00] And I want you to stop blaming and stop focusing on them because you're still enmeshed when you're saying they always do and they're always do. That's just a measurement talk.

That's the part of the nonself differentiation. We want to get to a self differentiated. Now, by the way, I'm not saying that happens overnight just because I say that everything goes fine, and so I know it's a process. We're condensing this, so I don't want everybody to think, well, I can't do that in a day.

You know? Well, no, I didn't do it in a day, believe me. But I want to get to that point where I am going. Why am I still focusing on them? Because I'm missing me every time I focus on them. 

ALISON And that point of breakthrough when you can leave a family gathering and all the same stuff happened and you walk away and go, huh, I'm gonna go about my business is so freeing.

JERRY WISE Yeah. That's how my family is. That's how my [00:28:00] family is. They've been that way for years. They're not gonna change. I don't need to change them and I don't need to live in their roles that they have for me, and I don't need to live in their perceptions they have for me because all that, most of it is family wifi, which is nonsense, is what got started in the beginning.

If a parent calls their child stupid, that's like calling your child a Coca-Cola. And I use that analogy. Is it sensible to call a child a Coca-Cola? No, because it's nonsense. Stupid is nonsense too. Now, by the way, I know that children should not be called that, and I understand they can't fight back in the same way an adult Child can. 

ALISON So, and that's the trauma. 

JERRY WISE that's the trauma piece that has to be addressed. But now that you're 35 years old and mom says, oh, you've always been so stupid. [00:29:00] Why does that bother you? Do you believe that nonsense? Do you see how mom is not well? Why are you hurt by somebody who's not? Well. I learned that when I was in a psychiatric practice as a marriage and family therapist and worked in the psychiatric practice, went to lock units and schizophrenia, you know, and the schizophrenics would say, you know, well, you're not a member of the Royal German royal family like I am.

Would I get offended by that? No, because it's delusional. Why can't we apply that to delusional parents who are have their own selves are broken. They don't know how to communicate well, they've been traumatized. Why are we taking that so seriously? Because we don't know any other way. I mean, that's what we learned.

AD BREAK 2

ALISON So let's talk about, again, this is very condensed, but I wanna give the [00:30:00] listener a taste of what are some of, if someone is like, I'm ready for this. I've done the trauma work, I know what went wrong. I wanna take this next step. I wanna be self differentiated. I wanna learn. Sometimes I think about it like a bruise.

I wanna be able to push on that bruise and realize it doesn't hurt anymore. You know? What are the first steps someone could take in this process of self differentiation just today? Even if they're listening? 

JERRY WISE Well, there's lots of learning you can do by reading, of course, Harriet Lerner, Jenny Brown, Brene Brown.

They all come from this perspective, which is why they're so powerful in their message. And Harriet Lerner was one of the first ones. The dance of anger, the dance of intimacy, the dance of connection, the dance. And she says it's a dance because it's not just individualistic stuff, it's the dance and can you change the dance and I wanna help you change the [00:31:00] dance.

That will change you. Rather than, I just wanna help you change you, but the dance continues. I, I know I wanna help you with the dance and that will change you. Getting back to what can they do, certainly readings can be very helpful. Jenny Brown, growing yourself up is kind of a beginning kind of book.

She's an Australian therapist. And now if you actually wanna practice it, there are two things I might suggest just to begin. Because if you want to disconnect from the wifi, if you want to not take things personally, then you have to begin to work on calmness, because the more reactive you are, the more you're in the dance and it infiltrates you.

The more calm you are, the less impact it has on you. I try to help people remain [00:32:00] calm when they go to a family dinner because I'm going, well, why are you upset about that? Who cared? No, no, they can't hit you. They can't. No, no, no leave. But if they're doing their normal, well, I wish Allison would change how she wears her hair.

She just doesn't look that attractive with her hair like that Before, maybe Allison would've gone, oh, there you go again, talking about my hair. Why is that always a problem? Now I am reactive and the enmeshment remains Instead of me working to stay calm, even if it means staying quiet and I'm not accepting abuse, I'm staying quiet to not be reactive.

Then I can even learn to go, okay, what's for lunch? See, I'm non-reactive and I'm letting them think that way while I'm not being affected by it. Staying calm is number one. Secondly, you can become a researcher. Go to your family and [00:33:00] be a researcher. Don't be a participant. Watch what's going on. It's all there.

If you'll start to watch and observe, don't absorb. Go and practice that, and then they come back and going. I had a whole different experience in my family 'cause I was watching and I was working on just staying calm. I have a video called Calmness is Everything, and it's so critical because anxiety is what causes illness, stress, enmeshment, relationship problems. When that triggering goes up, you're kind of done. 

ALISON You're taking back your power when you can stay calm. It's a really subtle shift.

JERRY WISE but some would say, but you No, no, you're, you're disempowering me because I need to tell my mom how wrong she is and, and she's done this for years and she needs [00:34:00] to know I'm upset.

No, no. Doing all of that is just rehearsing. You're disempowering. You're staying in the old dance and mom's not gonna change because you said all this to her. I guarantee you.

ALISON you've gotta step out of the dance, which is your calmness. 

JERRY WISE You've got to step out of the dance. 

ALISON Yeah. The observer thing, if I think about that through the lens of parts, I think sometimes you can almost say, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna deploy.

I note taking part of me. At this family dinner, right? And I'm gonna just mentally, and it gives you something to do and then that can help you stay calm. Or I'm gonna deploy a journalist part of me, or a researcher part of me. 

JERRY WISE and these kinds of tools I've tried to put together for the last 45 years and give people tools to use so that they can actually experience it quickly.

I didn't say change and be absolutely a different person to Mark. I meant they can begin to experience that. I [00:35:00] think this is even powerful. Somebody comes to me and says, oh my, my dad's always critical of me. He doesn't like it that I decided I wanted to be a financial analyst rather than a doctor. And he's a doctor.

He thought I should be a doctor, and he just thinks, that's terrible what I've chosen. And I go, so what? I just changed his mental perception. Of what's going on. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't matter what's going on, but I'm saying you are doing this dance with dad right now and the so what is letting go of the tug of war rope? You go. So what? That can be as miserable as he wants about it. 

ALISON Let him do his own salsa over there. 

JERRY WISE Exactly. You don't have to join him. Exactly. Yeah. You don't have to join him and you have to wait till he goes. I'm so happy and love you and I'm proud of you as a financial analyst. Why are you [00:36:00] waiting on that? What's the point? 

ALISON It's good stuff. Jerry, as we close, I was gonna ask you, and you know, there is sort of this movement toward. Some researchers are saying sort of a spike in no contact family estrangement, and almost what I'm hearing from you is that becomes the worst case scenario sometimes. But it almost feels like what you're saying is there's a lot of other ways to go before you have to go to that extreme.

JERRY WISE Exactly. Because we don't want going no contact the best way to go. No contact is non actively. So it should be a mature decision that's made out of the sober self differentiation, not, oh, I just don't like this anymore. So, no, that's just enhancing your immaturity. That's not making a mature decision. And I advise people that way and certainly there are people, I think it is wise if they make that choice, but I even try to help [00:37:00] them make that choice from a an adult level.

It's not. Because my mom just hurts my feelings so much. We need to deal with that. But that's the whole nature of the problem, which is the reactivity. And even people can be reactive with psychological things, even healthy psychological things. They can be reactive with that. Even if it's CBT, even if it's emotionally based therapy, whatever, you can be reactive with almost how many people go home and say, I just learned that you are a narcissist.

You know, it may be helpful to know about narcissism, but now you've just become reactive and went home and were immature with your knowledge. 

ALISON All the knowledge in the world does not transformation make. And what we really care about is transformation right? 

JERRY WISE Exactly. Yeah. Of ourselves. Of ourselves. 

ALISON How would my [00:38:00] listeners who are interested in what you're doing, how do people find your work and what kinds of offerings do you have for folks who are interested in taking the next step in self differentiation?

JERRY WISE I appreciate you asking. I have a website, Jerry Wise relationship. Systems relationship is single. Systems is plural. It's too long of a name, but I've stuck with it now. So there is one-on-one coaching that's available, and I have a couple staff members who I've trained also, and for anybody on who's watching us today, they can go and do the free training that I offer.

All you have to do is go to the website, sign up for it. 84 minute trainings doesn't cost you anything. Then I have the Road to Self Program, which is a more in-depth program, several modules, do it at your own pace, and people have really been responding well to [00:39:00] that. And again, this is my life's work put into this program is it's 45 years of all the nuttiness I've been through.

And learning, and so people can take advantage of that as well. And then soon there will be a book that's, I'm looking forward to that. Also, we're going to also start offering small workshops on different topics that could be helpful. For example, like a 45 minute little workshop on remaining or staying calm, taking all the different aspects of self differentiation and doing a little.

Help with each of those. And again, what's nice about self differentiation, you don't have to do it a lot to notice a big change. And that was from my own experience. I wanted people to know about this and something that helped me. 

ALISON Thank you so much for just sharing your wisdom with us and with so many people. And I saw [00:40:00] how just the course seems to have helped so many people rave reviews. 

JERRY WISE I feel very blessed and grateful that people have found the help that I've found for myself, and maybe they can find it for them. 

ALISON Amen. I love it. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks for your time today. 

JERRY WISE Thank you so much, Allison. It's been a pleasure being here. You're wonderful person. 

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