The 5 Most Important Things I've Learned About Faith, Attachment, & The Inner Life
Episode Notes
Episode Shownotes
How do you actually heal and change—not just cope or try harder?
In this solo episode, Dr. Alison reflects on five core insights about faith, attachment, and the inner life—not as a plan for self-improvement, but as wisdom for formation.
January often comes with pressure to reset, optimize, and fix ourselves. But many of us begin the year already tired — weary of striving, and hungry for something deeper.
This episode offers a different invitation.
Rather than asking what to change, Dr. Alison invites us to notice how we are already being formed — especially in moments of stress, fear, and uncertainty.
In this conversation, Dr. Alison explores:
- Why faith is not just what we believe
- The hidden way your nervous system influences your spiritual life
- What many “spiritual struggles” are really pointing to
- The missing ingredient most change efforts overlook
- Why striving for perfection keeps so many people stuck
Growth isn’t about eliminating fear or complexity. It’s learning where to return when fear inevitably shows up.
More Resources:
📥 Grab your 3 free Soul Mending resources here
If you liked this episode, then you’ll love the following:
Episode 122: Navigating Anxiety, Therapy, and Spiritual Formation—Balancing Mental, Emotional, & Spiritual Health with John Mark Comer
Episode 113: A New Vision of Human Flourishing—A Christian Approach to Mental Health with Duke University Psychiatrist & Theologian Warren Kinghorn
💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.
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TRANSCRIPT
How do we become the kind of people who can live with steadiness, courage, and
love, especially in complex times? I want to reflect with you on five of the most
important things I've learned over the years about faith, attachment, and the inner
life, not as a to -do list, but as wisdom for us to live into.
Mature faith doesn't eliminate complexity. It learns how to hold it. Wholeness isn't
about never feeling afraid. It's about knowing where to return when fear inevitably
shows up.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. If
you're new here, I'm so glad you've found us. This is a space for anyone who's
longing for a wiser way of being human, a place where we honor the complexity of
our real lives. We ground ourselves in modern science and in ancient wisdom and
where we're always asking a deeper question. What actually helps us live wisely from
the inside out? January is such a charged month. Everywhere you turn,
there's a sense that it's time to reset, to optimize, to finally become the version
of yourself you were meant to be new goals, new habits, new resolve. Meanwhile,
there's so much going on in the world around us. And if you're honest, you may be
starting this year already feeling tired or behind. Tired of self -improvement,
tired of trying to fix things, maybe tired of carrying that sense that you just
can't catch up. Or maybe you feel a different kind of weariness, not with goals,
but with spiritual answers that sound okay on the surface, but don't actually meet
you in your lived experience. You believe, you care for others. Your faith is real
and still your nervous system. It's on edge. Your inner life feels crowded or
disconnected. Your prayers sometimes feel more like effort than rest. Underneath all
of this, I hear a hunger in so many conversations. How do I live more fruitfully
from the inside out? How do I become steady, more anchored? Not by trying harder,
but by becoming more rooted. That's the question I want to sit with today.
This episode isn't about advice. It's not about how we fix ourselves. It's not about
setting the right intentions for the new year. It's about how we orient our inner
lives. Because before we ask what we're doing this new year we need to ask
today nothing to try to get right just notice what resonates notice what softens
inside notice what feels like an exhale because formation doesn't happen through
pressure it happens through presence before we get started I want to take a moment
to reintroduce myself especially if you're new here or maybe you've been listening
for a while and just want to know more about my background why I do this I'm a
therapist, but more technically I'm a psychologist of religion. And what that means
is that I study the psychology of how we are formed, not just emotionally and
mentally, but spiritually. I'm interested in how our inner lives take shape over
time, how our early relationships shape the way we experience ourselves, others,
and God, and how faith lives not just in what we say we believe, but in how safe
and secure we feel when life gets hard. My work lives at the intersection of three
things. Attachment, how we learn closeness and safety and trust, the inner life,
the parts of us that hold fear, longing, wisdom, and protection, and faith,
not as performance, but as relationship and meaning making. I'm less interested in
behavior modification and
quietly beneath the surface. And over the years, I've noticed that many people bounce
between a few familiar options when they're struggling. None of these are bad, but
sometimes we turn to therapy that focuses primarily on symptom management.
How do I get rid of the anxiety? How do I find a script, right, to set boundaries
in this relationship? Sometimes it's devotional content that inspires us,
but doesn't always help us integrate what we're feeling or the inspiration with our
bodies and our relationships and our real lives. And sometimes we turn to willpower.
We try harder. We try to be more disciplined. We try to fix ourselves through sheer
determination. Each of those has a place. I believe firmly in all of them on some
level. Don't get me wrong, but none of them on their own really get at this deeper
question. How do we become?
white knuckling growth. It's a wiser way of becoming even more human.
This means we pay attention to the nervous system, our attachment patterns, to the
inner parts of us that learned how to survive long before we had words for faith
or relationship or psychology or theology, right? These inner movements of our souls.
Your thoughts, your emotions, the movements of your nervous system, your inner world.
One of the things I've learned is that people don't usually struggle because we
don't care enough, believe enough, or try hard enough. We struggle because we haven't
been taught how to return, how to come back again and again to safety,
to love, to God when fear takes over. And that's...
to them by what we believe. Most of us assume that our beliefs are what shape us,
and there's some truth in that. Our thoughts and beliefs do matter. But when I
really started to pay attention to myself and to what I saw happening in others, I
realize there's so often a disconnect between our heads and our hearts, between what
we think or believe to be true and how we actually live. Something else was doing
the heavier lifting. What actually forms us is what we returned
or urgency or self -criticism or striving. I need to do better,
be better, try harder. And here's the thing. Your nervous system doesn't distinguish
between what you believe in theory and what you practice in moments of threat. So
even if you believe God is loving, in that moment of stress, if you return again
and again to pressure, criticism, performance, or panic, those returns are what are
becoming your functional theology. Faith I've learned isn't just belief.
It's a pattern of return. We are forming ourselves every single day.
So the question for our purposes here isn't what do you believe. It's where do you
go when things get hard? That realization alone can change everything.
Number two, Our deepest spiritual struggles are often rooted in attachment wounds,
not failures of faith. For years, I watched people label their spiritual pain in
harsh ways. I did it to myself. We call it rebellion. We call it weakness. We call
it doubt or fear that needs correcting. But when we slow down, when we listen more
carefully, what emerges isn't defiance. It's longing. longing for safety,
for closeness, for...
felt fragile, if love once felt conditional, if attention had to be earned,
those patterns don't just disappear over time, over the process of becoming an adult,
right? They follow us deeply within our souls, which means healing doesn't come from
trying harder to believe the right things or using willpower to muscle through.
Healing comes through restored connection, through restored attachment, learning slowly
what it feels like to be met in our pain and in our fear rather than managed.
This brings me to something many people resist at first. Number three,
your inner world isn't a problem to solve. It's a sacred place to tend.
Your inner world, the emotions, reactions, protectors, and the longings inside you,
these aren't obstacles to your growth. This is the very place where formation
happens. So many people treat their inner life, like a house with rooms, they don't
want to enter. There's rooms labeled anger, envy, grief, fear, need.
These are blocked off and locked up tight, right? We don't want to look into them.
But nothing inside you is there by accident. Every reaction carries information.
Every protective pattern once served a purpose. Every longing points towards something
sacred or beautiful. When we approach these rooms of the soul with curiosity rather
than judgment, something incredible happens. What once felt like chaos becomes an
opportunity for communication and clarity. What once felt like shame becomes an
invitation. The goal isn't to eliminate these rooms in your soul. You might think of
them as parts of yourself. It's to connect to these places with a listening posture,
to seek understanding with compassion so they no longer have to shout so loud.
This kind of soul tending isn't self -absorption. It's stewardship, because tending our
inner life is one of the most important spiritual acts we can practice. Number four,
God heals us not primarily through correction, but through presence. One of the most
transformative shifts I've experienced and witnessed in others is this. Lasting change
doesn't happen when people finally get the logic right. It happens when they
fears fear. Think about it. When you're overwhelmed, what actually helps you?
Is it being told to calm down? You get the logic of that. Or is it being met by
someone who stays with you? Spiritual growth accelerates when God is experienced not
as a constant evaluator, but as a secure base, someone you can return to,
someone who holds you steady while you find your footing again. Correction, of
course, has its place, but presence is what makes correction bearable and healing
possible. And finally, this may be the most important thing I've learned.
Number five, wholeness, not perfection, is the goal of a mature spiritual life.
Mature fate doesn't eliminate complexity. It learns how to hold it. Wholeness isn't
about never feeling afraid. It's about knowing where to return when fear inevitably
shows up. A whole person will feel anxiety and still choose love.
They'll set boundaries with others without losing compassion. They'll live with
questions without losing strong, solid ground. This is what it means to live from a
secure inner center, not a life without struggle, but a life anchored enough to move
through struggle with integrity. This kind of soul knows deep down where home is.
And that kind of life isn't achieved through fixing yourself. It's formed through
faithful returns each and every day. So as we move into this new year,
I want to offer a different way of orienting ourselves, not a set of goals, but a
way of walking together. If you've resonated with anything in this episode, it's
probably because something in you already knows that growth doesn't happen through
pressure. It happens through practice. Small returns, repeated over time.
That's the spirit of what we're building here. This year we'll be exploring themes
like inner formation, how change actually takes root beneath the surface, secure
attachment, learning what safety and love and trust feel like in real time.
We'll talk about boundaries, not as walls, but a sacred ground from which to thrive
and how to live wisely and faithfully in a complicated, often anxious world.
And that's why I'm so excited about this new rhythm. We're already already practicing
together the daily podcast that we just started this year. It's about daily practice,
daily returns. Short reflections, anchored in scripture, a pause to anchor us each
day. This isn't a place to go deep into self -help, but to help us return to what
steadies us each day again and again. And then the Thursday episodes Like this one
are where we go deeper. We slow down and we explore one idea more fully.
We connect the dots between psychology, faith, and lived experience. We'll have
experts come on in their respective fields to help guide us through different
processes of healing and growth and transformation. These episodes are meant to be
companions, not content to keep up with, but places to come back to because this
isn't a program to complete. This isn't a challenge to conquer, right? This is a
way of how we can live and grow together. So as this year begins,
I hope you'll release the urgency to reinvent yourself, to improve,
and to instead notice where you're already forming, where you're already returning.
What is already steadying you, what has already started to deplete you,
and what always, without fail, invites you home back to safety,
back to love, back to security deep within. That awareness alone is a powerful place
to start. As we close, I want to leave you with something simple. The reality is
formation takes time. Love grows slowly and the parts of you that learn to survive
don't need to be rushed into healing. It's actually counterproductive. And we have
this quote in boundaries for your soul that I love, especially when I'm talking to
people who are in a hurry. It's like I want to feel better. I want to get there
faster. And the reality is this process, this way that we've been talking about.
This is a slower way to get to where you want to be faster, right? You're not
working against yourself. You're working with yourself when you slow down enough to
listen to your inner life. If all you do in the coming weeks is begin to notice
where you return when you're stressed, what steadies you when you feel afraid,
what voice you trust when you feel unsure, whether it's inside of you or from
someone else, That's more than enough. You don't need to fix yourself before you're
worthy of rest, and you don't need to resolve every question before you're allowed
to take a breath. Just stay curious. Stay attuned to the movements within your soul.
And when things feel heavy, as they will, take a deep breath and let God's presence
do the quiet work. It already knows how to do. I'm so grateful that you're here,
and I can't wait to walk through this year together. Thank you for joining.
day for the best of you every day, a brief daily reflection to help you start your
mornings with a steady dose of wisdom. 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.