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Every marriage goes through difficult seasons.
But what happens when you're the only one willing to do the work?
When every conversation ends in blame, defensiveness, or silence? When you're trying to repair the relationship, but your partner refuses to take responsibility?
In this week's episode, Dr. Alison sits down with licensed clinical social worker and relationship expert Leslie Vernick to explore the difference between a marriage that's simply hard and one that's become emotionally destructive.
Together, they unpack the patterns that quietly erode trust, why healthy relationships require repair, and how to begin reclaiming your own stability—even if your spouse never changes.
You'll learn:
- The difference between a difficult marriage and an emotionally destructive one
- Why repair—not perfection—is the mark of a healthy relationship
- The warning signs of blame, gaslighting, and chronic deflection
- How to stop centering your life around changing another person
- Why becoming a God-centered person changes the way you navigate unhealthy relationships
- Practical first steps you can take when you're the only one pursuing growth
Whether you're navigating a difficult marriage yourself or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers wisdom, compassion, and hope.
Because healing doesn't always begin when someone else changes.
Sometimes it begins when you discover what it looks like to stand on your own two feet while remaining deeply rooted in God.
Take Leslie’s free quiz “Are you in an emotionally destructive marriage?”
Make sure to read Leslie’s book “The Emotionally Destructive Relationship: Seeing it, Stopping It, Surviving It”
More Resources:
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 203: Staying Close When Connection Feels Hard—The Relationship Skills No One Taught You (with Relationship Expert Dr. James Cordova)
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
Don't forget to browse this week's sponsors, who make it possible for me to bring you these resources for free + provide you with additional discounts!
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*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.
TRANSCRIPT
No one gets all 52 cards in the deck. So do you know which cards are missing? Not everyone comes to
the marriage. Nobody comes to the marriage. Perfect. whole or halves everything together. So those
are the things that create disappointment. That pattern of deflection, blame, gaslighting, those
are your red flags. It keeps happening and there's no repair and it destroys trust.
If it goes on and on and on, it can destroy your own mental health and your own physical. Ask
yourself the question, have I been a husband centered or a marriage centered or a man centered
woman instead of a God centered woman? Have I put all my self-worth into him loving me well.
And when he fails, I'm devastated.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of The Best of You. As you know,
if you've been following the podcast over the last few years, I've had some incredible guests on
the podcast, experts who are talking about marriage and relationships and communication and skills
and how to show up as a healthier version of yourself with the people that you love. And almost
every time I air one of these episodes, I get some interesting emails.
I love getting these emails, by the way. So I love hearing from you. And often I hear, you know,
this was so helpful. This thing cracked a code in my own marriage or this naming really got us
unstuck. And almost always, I also get an email that essentially goes something like this.
Allison, you know, this is all great. But what do I do when I'm the only one in my relationship
that's willing? to do the work? And I get it. I hear this question.
It lives with me. Even when I'm having the conversations with maybe the marriage expert on the
podcast, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, what about the folks who are in a marriage where the
other person just not only isn't doing the work, but is actually maybe even sabotaging or
undermining or creating a toxic environment? And this is real. This happens.
And so I've been wanting to have my guest today on for a long time because I want to talk about
what I think she names so beautifully. My guest today is Leslie Vernick.
She is such a trusted voice in this space. She's biblically grounded and she has so much compassion
for women in these kinds of marriages, marriages she describes as emotionally destructive.
I've known Leslie for a number of years and I've come to really trust her voice in this space.
She's a licensed clinical social worker. She's a relationship coach. She's a speaker, and she's the
author of several books, including her book called The Emotionally Destructive Marriage and The
Emotionally Destructive Relationship. And she has spent decades in the trenches with women who
aren't just navigating a difficult season in marriage, but something more serious than that,
which again, she has come to call an emotionally destructive relationship. And what I love about
Leslie is the nuance she brings to this conversation. Leslie has been married for 50 years herself.
She believes deeply in what marriage can be. And perhaps because of that belief in what marriage
can be, she refuses to let women confuse a marriage that is hard or a marriage that is
disappointing with a marriage that has crossed a line into something that is destructive.
And she doesn't offer easy answers for what to do when that happens. She does help us name it,
and she comes to us with really practical skills and a practical starting place for where to start
if you think this is the kind of marriage or relationship that you're involved with. In today's
conversation, she talks about the difference between a difficult marriage or a hard season and a
destructive marriage. And I found this so clarifying. I think you will, too.
We talk about the role of the church, how to find wise, helpful friends to come along.
side of you and what you can do, not as the extremes, right? Sometimes we think we have two
options. We can leave or we can just suffer. She talks about this middle ground of different steps
you can take if this is the kind of relationship you're in. One of the things I love that Leslie
describes in today's episode is this idea of, yes, we are all sinners, for sure, as we come to
marriage, but that there are healthy sinners and unhealthy sinners. And I just really liked how she
named that. We're all imperfect, yes, but there are different degrees of how we're managing our
imperfections or how we're dealing with our sin, especially in the context of our closest
relationships. I'm so excited to bring you this conversation today, and I think there's a lot of
wisdom in it. Whether you're someone who thinks you might have what Leslie is calling an
emotionally destructive marriage, or whether you're someone who's walking beside a friend or has a
family member or someone you love who's in a marriage that seems to be beyond something that's just
hard, right? It's something that is not only not flourishing, but maybe causing damage to someone
you love. There's real wisdom in this conversation. And it also just helps us understand just the
normal seasons of marriage, of close. relationship. So I'm so excited to bring you Leslie's wisdom.
If you are listening, I wanted to mention this right at the top. In addition to Leslie's resources,
she has a ton of them and she'll talk about them throughout the episode. But if you find yourself
wondering, is this me? Is what she's describing my marriage? Leslie has a free quiz on our website
that you can take. It's at leslievernick.com and it will help give you clarity. And so I'd
recommend that to you if it's something you're wondering about. She's also got a supportive digital
community to come alongside women who are struggling in marriages where maybe they don't want to
leave or aren't ready to leave, but they do need support in a way that's wise and helpful and
healing to the soul. So again, that quiz is over at leslievernick.com. We'll link to that in
today's show notes. All of Leslie's resources are super helpful. I'm thrilled to bring you my
conversation with Leslie Vernick.
I'm thrilled to have you here, Leslie. You are just such a trusted voice as I've gotten to know you
for so many women. And I think I mentioned this to you when I reached out, but we've had a couple
of marriage experts, relationship experts on the podcast over the last year, and they have great
wisdom and great, you know, just nuggets of insight.
I almost always after those episodes, both in the back of my mind, but then I get the emails
saying, but what if your partner isn't doing the work? And what do I do in those situations?
And I kept thinking to myself, I've got to have. Leslie on to speak to so many women who are
willing to do, would love to be doing the work of couples counseling or each person learning those
skills, but their partner isn't willing to or able to or wanting to do that work.
I mean, I guess they're able to, but they're not willing. So thank you just for your years of hard
-earned wisdom in the trenches, helping women in what you've coined this term, emotionally
destructive relationships. Yeah, thanks, Alison. When I first started thinking about this in my
practice, when I was doing marriage counseling and I saw either the woman being mandated to do all
of the work, the heavy load of the marriage, like forgive 70 times seven and keep trying to trust
and keep forbearing and keep... and keep sacrificing or the other person just wasn't willing to do
the work. You know, it's what's the answer for this? And how does she live in a relationship where
she doesn't feel safe and she can't trust the person she's living with? And that's pretty darn
hard, whether it's a husband or a roommate or an elderly parent or whoever it might be.
Your body doesn't live very well. And so this was the break point when I had a woman. She was
seeing me for counseling and she was. drinking vodka and taking Xanax every night so that she was
able to have her conjugal duties with her husband. And she was just a mess emotionally,
physically. But this was her Christian duty. And I thought, certainly, God, you have better answers
for women than this. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. What a moment to go. There's got to be something else.
So let's dive in. here. When you talk about an emotionally destructive relationship,
what do you mean? How do you define it? How is it different from what we might think of as a
difficult marriage, right? Just a marriage that's hard, which is a lot of marriages or a
disappointing marriage, or maybe even a marriage going through a hard season. What is an
emotionally destructive marriage and how is it different than those other categories? Yeah. So let
me just say that I've been married 50 years to the same person. So that gives me some credibility
that I've been through difficult. I've been through disappointing. There's not a few destructive
moments, all right? And we're still together. So it doesn't mean that you are going to have a
horrible marriage if you go through those seasons. Those seasons are directed by God in some ways
to help you mature and help you grow and help you do the work that you're avoiding, that you've not
done before marriage. Because who gets totally mature when you're 23 or whenever you get married?
So marriage and family life, having children taught me a whole lot about maturity and how I have.
to learn to control my temper and how I had to learn to speak the truth in love and all the things
that maybe I didn't have to be so careful with, with another grownup. You do have to be so careful
with, with a little one. And so all of these opportunities to self-reflect and look at yourself
are part of the deal in family relationship. God cares about this. All of the 10 commandments have
to do with relationship building or relationship repair, or not to do something that will hurt a
relationship. So we know that God cares about relationships. And so every relationship has seasons
of difficulty. I would define those as outside pressures. You know, one person's in the military.
Somebody's chronically ill. You have a child with special needs. You have financial difficulties.
You're out of work. Pressure, stress. Every family goes through that. And this is part of learning
to. problem solve, learning how to manage your body when you're under stress.
How do you not let it deform you? And how do you let it create some formation in you? And all of
the things that we've learned spiritually and we're working on. So that's difficult. Everyone goes
through seasons of that. Disappointing is everyone, I think, goes through seasons of that a little
bit too, because the person that we marry usually isn't the person we completely thought they were.
And hopefully it's not a big disappointment. When I used to do premarital counseling, I used to say
to people, No one gets all 52 cards in the deck. So do you know which cards are missing? Right?
Because your husband might not be real handy. And that might be really important to you.
Or you might not be really good with managing a budget. Do you understand that ahead of time when
you're accepting that? Or maybe they have a porn issue and you don't know that.
And so not everyone comes to the marriage. Nobody comes to the marriage. Perfect.
Full. or has everything together. And so the more that you know someone well and see clearly,
the more you can make choices of, hey, he's a great guy, but he's so disorganized.
I don't think I could live with that. And to know that, but we don't. We get married young and we
don't know those things. So those are the things that create disappointment. In my book, I write
about a woman who grew up in a very chaotic family. This guy was a steady Eddie.
He was very responsible. He went to work every day. He paid his bills. He was a good guy. He was a
Christian. And oh, so boring.
She loved him. She married him and she thought, this is my safety net. And after a couple of years,
his responsible work ethic, steady Eddie kind of guy was rather boring for this woman who grew up
in this. Totally chaotic environment. And she was tempted to have an affair. And so she came to
counseling. And so this would be a disappointing marriage. She's disappointed that it's not
everything. There is no marriage that's everything. And so I think part of our maturity is coming
to accept and love the person we're married to.
Destructive marriages. Unless we handle it in a destructive way.
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that's so good. That's so helpful to just talk about what a destructive marriage isn't.
And there are different paths to working through those disappointments than when we get into this
category of destructive. It's not that it's not hard. It's not that it doesn't require something
else. And that's where it strikes me, Leslie, as you're talking some of the, what I feel like the
The biblical passages that get over or misconstrued in certain settings actually...
apply. In some ways, often they're used too simplistically,
but where this idea of we do want to work it out. We don't want to just check it in because of a
disappointment in that regard. So then tell me then what is different about a destructive marriage?
What are some of the signs that we've moved? Because I could imagine some of that. There's some
overlapping circles, but how do we know it's moved into the category of, no, this is destructive?
So I think that there's two big signs. First of all, I want to say that all of us are capable of
doing a horrible, destructive thing in a marriage or to your children. I mean,
who hasn't screamed horrible things to your child when you are dysregulated and tired?
And then you come back and you... own it and you apologize and you hopefully don't do it again.
It's a wake up for you to say, oh my gosh, I don't want to ever do that. I don't want to ever see
my kids scared of me again. Right? So any one of us could do something horrible. A husband can
cheat on a wife. A wife can call her husband horrible. It happens. It happens. We're sinners.
So one incident doesn't create a destructive marriage. It can destroy a marriage for sure.
One is, but it doesn't, I wouldn't call that it's destructive. pattern of relationship.
And so what incident, now we're going to look at something. So when something destructive happens,
he lies to you. He cheats. He doesn't tell you something that was important for you to know, like
he didn't pay the taxes, right? Or that he has a porn addiction before you got married, right?
And so there's some deceit or there's some mistrust going on or some safety issues,
right? That may happen in a marriage. He lies to you. So what happens next is really important.
Because what happens in Christian counseling is it gets levelized.
Well, we're all sinners. Who are you to judge? Right? We're all sinners. And that's true. We're all
sinners. And so what I say is, okay, what does a healthy sinner do when they have caused harm to a
person they say they love? When they have broken trust in a relationship, what does a healthy
sinner do? Well, most healthy sinners admit it. They apologize. They do do the work.
So that they don't repeat that again because they see how much it's harmed someone they say they
love. Whether you're a parent, whether you're a spouse, whether you're a grandma, whatever you are
in this relationship, a healthy sinner owns it, accepts responsibility for the consequences,
does the work to repair the relationship and does the work internally so they don't repeat that
behavior again. Yes. An unhealthy sinner denies,
I didn't do it, what are you talking about? You're imagining things they blame. It's your fault I
did it. Right. It's your fault I watch porn because you won't hang upside down and let me have sex
with you five times a day. Right. It's your fault that I acted this way. Or, you know,
it's really you. You're too picky. You're too sensitive. So it's completely gaslit,
deflected, not blame shifted. So that pattern, when someone does something wrong,
which every marriage is going to have. incidents of wrongdoing. That pattern of deflection,
blame, gaslighting, ignoring, minimizing, those are your red flags.
It keeps happening and there's no repair. There's no taking responsibility. There's no change.
And so that becomes the destructive pattern in a marriage. And it destroys trust. It destroys
safety. And if it goes on and on and on, it can destroy your confidence.
your sense of who you are, your own mental health, and your own physical health. And so that's why
it's so important that we talk about it. So good. I love how you just take that language of we're
all sinners and turn it on its head. Yes, we are all sinners. And also there are healthy sinners,
healthier sinners, and unhealthy sinners. That's such a wonderful way to flip that because I think
so many women have heard that. So, Leslie, before we... want to just pause here for a second.
So because I see this a lot and I get questions about this a lot. What about this category?
I love how you're describing the destructive patterns, the way we deal with when we do something
horrible becomes that differentiating factor between being destructive and not.
What about marriages where someone, maybe they're not watching porn,
having an affair. Maybe they're not even lying. But they're just not interested in looking under
the hood. They're just not. And there is some willfulness in it.
I don't even know what to call it, right? They're just not willing. And I want to say anecdotally,
I have found in my own work with women myself, if you're an Enneagram person, if you're not, that's
okay. But saying, you know, we don't all marry Enneagram twos. You know, and so there are types of
men and women, but we're mostly talking about men here that aren't going to have that emotional
awareness, that aren't going to be wanting to look at their feelings. And that could come in that
category of disappointment. But man, they are handy or man, they are great, you know, whatever. And
that's a thing you have to accept and agree. But there is this category that I see sometimes where
it isn't so much a personality thing, but just I don't want to look at my childhood trauma. I'm
doing good enough. I'm loyal. I'm bringing on the paycheck. I'm going to work. I'm here for the
kids. But there's a shutdownness. Does that make sense to you? What do we do with that situation?
Where does that land? So it can land in one of two places, depending on how the person who's living
with the shutdownness of the person handles it. Right. Yeah. So I think that I think someone is
shut down for a reason. Either it could be. It's too scary. It's too painful.
I don't want to go there. I don't go deep. Those are some phrases I've heard. Or I'm kind of lazy.
And, you know, laziness, Scott Pack from The Road Less Traveled said, that's one of the hugest
issues for people. It's one of those absolutely sins. And some of us are just kind of lazy. We want
all the perks without having to do the work. And so we, that sloth is,
you know. This is one of the seven deadly sins. And so I think it's important that we as a partner
of someone like that kind of be discerning. And if it's laziness where I expect all the perks of a
great life without having to put in the work, then that's a different kind of response to I'm so
afraid to go there. Yeah. So I think that the wise has to have some discernment about which.
category that is. But you talked about how do we sometimes enable sin.
And I think sometimes part of our job with our spouse, as well as our children, is to invite them
into that work. Now we can't force someone into their work. We can't even force our kids to do
their own homework. I mean, once they get to be, you know, past seven or eight years old, I mean,
you can sit them down and you can tell them to do their work, but you can't make them read. You
can't make them put it in their head and have it come out their hand and do math problems.
And so I think that it's really important that you invite someone to do their work by saying some
things of the impact it's having on you. Like, I would love to have a better relationship with you
sexually, but you don't feel close to you when we can't ever talk about anything that's bothering
me, that I seem to just be a body that you want to use when you're horny and not a person to get to
know as a woman. And that bothers me. That's so good because that can become destructive.
And I love how you're saying that laziness, that just like deception, just like coveting, just like
cheating can become a destructive pattern because it's a willful unwillingness to,
to your point, engage in this, in this intimacy, in this relationship. That's so helpful.
And I think, I think how a woman approaches that is because, you know,
we've all had the story and I'm sure you have to Allison too. You're much younger than I am, but I
grew up in an area, I got married in an era where we didn't have phones and GPSs and all that. So
we had to actually stop and use a map or ask for directions. And so when we would get lost, I would
say to my husband, you know, there's the gas station, let's just go stop. And he would be like
insulted, like, no, we're not stopping. Don't you think I'm capable of figuring this out? And so
there's this way that we approach someone about their... They don't know something.
And for males, they get very insulted if you criticize them or you somehow imply that you don't
respect something about them. Like you don't know where this is. Let's ask some other guy. Right.
And so if a man is lazy, I think how we approach it is important because if you just call him lazy,
it's probably not going to work. But to say, I'm concerned that you're not willing to put the work
in to grow. And that's what God. YouTube, then you're functioning as his, as are his biblical
helpmate. Yeah. And then it's in your office. Yeah. I love that. So this is, this is good.
So this is what I want to get into now is how do we, um, you know,
so we hear them, the marriage advice, like I said, at the beginning, some women are like, I'm
willing, I'm willing to put the work in, but they're not willing for whatever reason, for whatever,
all the reasons we've, maybe they don't want to, maybe they've developed a porn addiction and they
don't want to face it. They don't want to talk about it. They want to, you know, gaslight, maybe
they, they just are lazy. They, for whatever reason, they don't want to, whatever the reason is,
you're, you're kind of getting there. You're, you're, you're giving some good principles, but what
are some principles for women that what I see is it's, it's, there's these,
these two extremes, you know, one is sort of those, those simplistic church. messages, just love
him into change, which can become enabling and doesn't work. But then the other extreme is,
and I get it, is just like, I've had enough. I'm gone. I'm out. Right. I can't. And what I find is
there's a lot of middle ground there. Talk to us a little bit about how a woman who's,
who's in a marriage that feels destructive on some level. It's not just a discipline.
This isn't working. What are some steps she can take between, I just have to keep trying to kind of
create a climate where he doesn't hurt me, you know, over responsibility, to I've got to give him
an ultimatum. I'm out. What are some things she can do, you've touched on it,
to honor herself, honor her own dignity, and invite him into change without trying to sort of
pretend like things are fine. Yeah. And I think that's the right word, pretend. Yeah.
So I think that Christian teaching has sort of given this pressure for women to pretend all is well
when it's not. Yeah. And so I think there's two things. One, the phrase that we use in our ministry
is that we say that you have to begin to shift. So the woman is going to change. All right. So
instead of being, oh, I'm going to do everything and just love him into change, which doesn't work.
And, or I'm done. I've had it. Before she gets to that place,
she may still get to that place. But before she gets to that place, there's things for her to learn
in the middle ground that she will miss out on if she doesn't take that time. And so the first
thing that she needs to learn is to ask herself the question, have I been a husband centered or a
marriage centered or a man centered woman instead of a God centered woman? Have I put all my self
-worth, all my potential, all my wellness, all my life into him loving me well?
And when he fails, I'm devastated. I'm empty.
I'm bereft. Well, I think that God says that although marriage is supposed to be a wonderful
relationship, it's not your primary one. Our primary relationship, where we get our identity and
our sense of who we are is not from a husband who may say, I don't really want to invest much time
or energy in loving you because you're not that important. Cohen is much more important to me. He's
not going to say that, but that's how he's saying it, right? And so she's devastated in her self
-esteem because she's allowed him to define her as not worth much when she's been a husband
-centered woman instead of a God-centered woman. So that's the first shift that she's invited to
make in the hardship of this kind of icky marriage. So just to pause there,
that's powerful what you're saying, because two things can be true. She didn't cause whatever it is
that he's doing. It's not saying, oh, it must be my fault. I love how you said there's actually
growth for her. And again, not because she's carrying the weight of his actions,
is responding to the invitation of, okay, here's the reality. This is a destructive marriage.
This is a marriage that is not thriving. Before I make any big decisions,
what is the invitation for me? Again, I imagine abuse and domestic violence aside, that's a
separate category. Physically safe, yeah. As long as she's physically safe. Is there an invitation
here for me? Have I subtly... put so much energy into him and trying to get this marriage to where
I want it to be that I've lost sight of my true focus. And can I really, I think of that word
differentiation. Can I really find some kind of a re-centering in Christ?
And my marriage doesn't necessarily get better, but I actually find some, that's a really powerful,
profound step. Do you see women able to make that distinction?
Well, this is what I see, Allison. I see one of two things. If they don't make that distinction,
they will either live in bitterness and resentment.
Yep. Or they will end this marriage and look for another man. And we have women in our organization
who have been married three, four times to destructive men because they haven't done their own work
first. Right. And so we invite you a woman who's in a difficult time.
Yes. You're, you're probably perfectly diagnosing him. Maybe, maybe not. Mostly you are,
you're correct. He is a narcissist. You're correct. He is me. You are correct. He is lying to you.
And how is that impacting you? Yes. That's the question you need to do because you can't fix him.
Yeah. Right. But you can learn to set boundaries. You can learn to become a God-centered woman
instead of a husband-centered woman so that his words aren't as potent as they might be if you're
so focused on his words. Oh, that's good. And that is powerful. And that will change something.
He may not like it. I would, you know, initially at first, because I do think what I see in long
term marriages that kind of function are dysfunctional is it does shape you. It does shape one of
the partners. You do build yourself around that. And you are essentially saying it is very similar
to what we do in family systems. You're like, I'm going to break this cycle. Can't change them, but
I'm going to break this cycle by changing myself.
And the other thing I would say, Allison, is your kids, the little kiddos who's watching what's
happening in the marriage.
They need one help.
And so when you are unhealthy in your own way by saying, like Leah, please love me.
If only I have one more baby, he'll love me. Please, he'll love me. You know, the story of Leah and
Jacob. You know, she's thinking, if only I have one more baby, then he'll love me, then he'll love
me. And then finally she realized, wait a minute, he's probably never going to love me like I want
him to love me. And God loves me. I am a loved woman. I don't have to live with this empty.
anymore and it's not about him it's about me trusting God and that's a huge shift that a woman can
make because your children see what's happening even if you don't explain it with words they feel
the energy in the marriage they feel the lack of love in the family and so as you're handling your
side of the street not as a pretend faker but as a godly strong woman who is truthful hey daddy and
I don't have a great marriage you're right you observe correctly kids and You know what? It's not
going to destroy me.
It's so good. As someone, I married later. I didn't meet my husband until my late 30s.
I was single for a long time. I will say that was hard. There was a lot of pain in that. I will say
that is one of the things that I took from that time that has helped me so much is you have to,
you have no choice but to figure out how to be a whole person by yourself. And it's hard and it's
lonely. And it's not, I prayed for, I didn't, it's not what I wanted. And in marriage now,
16 years in, I'm like, actually, that's one of the things I'm most grateful for that skill.
So I know it's possible. I think it's hard within marriage, especially when you marry young and
you've kind of built your identity around this person. But it will help you in every,
in every way. So what? I know, Leslie, you have so many resources, and this is part of why I wanted
to bring you to my audience, not only for your wisdom, but to introduce them to your resources.
This is hard to do alone. And there are, I don't want to, I think the church can be an incredibly
helpful support network, and it can also be hard for women in these situations. So talk to us
about, I think knowledge is power. What might, for the woman listening is going,
this is me. What should she know about church messages that won't be helpful to her?
So she can kind of steer away from them or just not absorb them, just kind of go, that's not for
me. And what support does she need? Because I would imagine this is not something you want to do
alone as you take this step. I think it's much harder to do it alone. And again,
we crave community. We crave companionship. God is just wired as that. And so it's really important
that the Bible does tell us to pick our friends wisely because they will influence us. And so you
do want to have wise companions when you're going through tough times, because otherwise they may
drag you down into your anger, your resentment. We all have those things. And so depending on the
company you keep, one will help you to deal with it in one way and one will help you deal with it
another way. And so you get to pick who you hang out with. But I think in churches, at least my
experience in A lot of it's changing in some churches. So I'm very grateful for that. But I think
that this sanctity of marriage, we need to keep the marriage together. So don't talk about it.
Don't be honest. Don't be real. Don't don't bring your garbage here because we don't know how to
deal with it. They don't say it that way, but they kind of give you these platitudes like, well,
you know, you're not you're just a sinner like him and love covers a multitude of sins and love,
you know, believes all things and love always trust all the things that we get taught. You must die
to yourself. So thinking about yourself and your own feelings and your own lives is selfish and
setting boundaries is selfish. So there's a lot of spiritual bypassing and twisting of scripture.
God hates divorce. It never says that in Malachi, but we do get told that. It says God hates when a
man treats his wife treacherous. That's what God hates. He hates the way a man treats his wife, not
the institution of divorce. So I think. God loves the sanctity of marriage,
but not more than the safety and the sanity of the individuals in the marriage. So if a woman is
listening right now, God sees. God saw Abigail in her marriage with Nabal. And Abigail was a
strong, resourceful, beautiful woman in an empty marriage. And sometimes you may choose to do that
for the sake of... Your children or for the sake of finances that you are 65 years old and you've
tried to support him and his business and you haven't worked and you don't have a retirement
account. And so it's not financially wise for you to end this relationship. So how do you live in
this relationship as safely as you can with a person that you're not going to feel close to,
but you don't feel afraid of? That's good. That's really good. That's really good that.
And. Touching on the friend, the wise friend versus,
tell me a little bit about that. Both as a friend, I've noticed it's easy to, again,
friends can, they can join us in building resentment. They can offer quick fixes.
What does a wise friend look like? What are we looking for? Yeah.
So a wise friend, one, is going to sit with us in our sorrow, you know?
Job's friends, when he was so broken over everything that happened to him, when they were in their
better self, they were sitting with him and they didn't give him advice. They didn't say anything.
And so a wise friend will let you be in your place,
your sadness, your hurt, wherever you are, even in your resentment, without trying to drag you out
of it or without trying to tell you why you're wrong for being in it. Right.
They'll just sit with you for a bit. That's good. And then friends will give you feedback,
honest. They're honest to you. So they might say, you know, it sounds like,
this is a funny story, Allison, but a woman who was at a conference with me, a business conference,
she wasn't even a Christian. She heard what I did and she said, oh, I was married to a narcissist.
It was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I'm like, what? Tell me more. She said, it
taught me how to stand up for myself. It taught how to have boundaries.
And so that's what I would say to the woman, that you have things to learn in this fire. And it
might be, I need to learn to find a good attorney, or it might be, I need to learn first before I
take that step to just set some boundaries. Or maybe I need to learn to work.
And I need some friends who will support that journey. What kind of friends will not tell me,
oh. You're putting your kids in a public school. Shame on you because I thought you were supposed
to homeschool when you need to go to school so that you can relicense yourself as a nurse so that
if your marriage doesn't work, you can support yourself.
Yeah, I love that. I love that. I love the friend of Job analogy,
kind of with you in it, because it strikes me there is a grief in this,
whether there's a loss and whether it is the loss of a marriage, whether you stay.
And realize this is not what I had wanted or even what I think God wants for marriage.
There's a loss in that. There's a loss if you leave. The loss if you leave is at least more open.
And that's also its own grief and has a different sort of pain. But almost there's a, I feel like
almost for the woman who's like, you're saying for whatever reason, I'm going to stay. I'm going to
do my own work. I'm going to differentiate. I'm going to find my wholeness in Christ even as I stay
because, like you said, it's not what I want and it's not even what God wants,
but I'm not going to leave because I'm not unsafe for whatever reason. That loss strikes me as that
grief is really hard because it's hidden in a way.
And I would imagine that's where you need a couple of friends who really know what's going on,
where you're not the only one carrying that. And that's actually, you know,
15 years ago when I was starting this book, my book came out and I was, you know, getting a lot of
phone calls and I'm thinking, I can't carry this whole load by myself. And so we started a support
group called Conquer with the other women could meet each other and they could, you know, even if
it was online. And so we have grown and we've got women all over the world who are identifying as
being in a destructive marriage. And they are, you know, they're happy to be able to. contact
someone who knows what their life is like, who's not going to judge them, who's going to support
them, who's going to, maybe they're a little further along in their journey. And so they may have a
little bit more wisdom on, you know, hey, I wouldn't say it that way. I said it that way.
And that's what happened. Maybe you could say it this way or those kinds of things. And so you can
be really honest and have that support and have those wise friends, because God says, when we hang
out with wise people, we will grow wiser. And we hang out with foolish people. we will become more
foolish. And I find that sometimes Christian women who have been so burned by Christian pastors,
churches that have not seen or heard them, start listening to their secular friends and they may,
you know, start going to the bars and start flirting with other men at the bars. And that feels
really good, but it's not getting them healthier. Yeah. Yeah, it's an avoidant,
it's an escape tactic. And like you said, it will catch up at some other point. And I love what
you're saying. You're not saying, You know, you've been very clear, like there may be a time where
you leave. There may be a time where you decide to leave and then after a process start dating
again. But that's very different. That's a mindful, intentional process of letting the spirit do
its work. And you will be so much better off later for having done that work.
Yeah, I would say that to any person who's ended a marriage that if you.
don't know how to stand on your own two feet. So part of adulting, and I say this more to women,
but men too, part of adulting is learning to stand on your own two feet. And you had to do that
because you didn't get married right away. But some people, yeah, I got married right out of
college. I never had to stand on my own two feet, but my husband got very ill early in our
marriage. And I, with a, with a, he had cancer. And so I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to be a
widow. And so I made sure I knew how to stand on my own two feet early in marriage, not only
financially. but emotionally and spiritually and physically so that if I became a widow,
I could take care of my kiddos and whatever. So I think it's really important that women stop,
you know, even with this whole trad wife movement and all this, you know, oh, he's going to take
care of me. Well, that's great if he takes care of you for a season, but you should also be capable
of taking care of him if he needs a break or it's disabled. And if he cheats on you or leaves you
or abuses you, You don't want to be stuck because you can't take care of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. You
don't. Yeah. You want to be that you want to be staying in the marriage out of not because you're
trapped, but because you're choosing that out of agency. I love that.
You want to be a God centered woman above and all. Marriage doesn't doesn't go above.
And you're right. There is some because of the and again, you and I both are, you know, you've been
married 50 years. Like I. You know, we're pro-marriage, you know, there's a lot,
but marriage doesn't come above our relationship to God at the end of the day.
I've always wondered, you know, I'm kind of asking you this out of left field, but when Jesus says
there is no marriage in heaven, you know, I don't really know what that means. But to me, there's
something in that of what we're saying. At the end of the day, it does go away at some point on
some level. Yeah. And I think, you know, he talks a lot about the most fundamental relationships
going wrong, like in the Psalms, where he says, if your mother or father forsake you, the Lord will
lift you up. So he's saying, you know, and he says, I'll be your husband.
God even says, I'll be your husband. And so I think that we have made our human relationships,
which he wants us to have, and he wants us to have good ones, but we have made them into what they
were never meant. An idol, sort of. Yeah. Where they come above.
And it's subtle. You know, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking that could happen. Again, you're
married really young. It's not conscious. It's not like you thought, I'm going to make my husband
my world. It's just over time, your soul kind of gets shaped.
And that's the invitation. It's so powerful. Leslie, as we close, what would you say?
What would you speak directly to the woman listening? is in this position of recognizing there's
something destructive here. What would you say to her? So I would ask her to ask herself.
And so what women do that we work with in this situation is they're trying to change the hell in
order to fix whatever's going on. So the impact that you have on me. So now I feel insecure. Now I
feel like. you know, garbage because you called me a name or now, you know, whatever. So we try to
get him to stop doing those things or start doing those things so that we don't feel insecure. We
don't feel afraid. Let's switch that around. The serenity prayer is really good. Lord, help me to,
you know, accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can change and the wisdom to know
the difference. And so. Part of our work with women who come to us saying, what do I need to do?
What are the magic words, Leslie, that will wake him up? What do I need to say? What boundaries do
I need to have to shake him? The question I want you to ask is, what do I need to feel safe?
What do I need to trust this person with my children, with my finances,
with my life, with my health? What do I need, right? And so ask yourself,
then he may not be giving you that, right? For sure. So now I'm not getting that from him.
What do I need to do to get my needs met? Right? Because I might need,
so I might need to create some boundaries. I might need to sleep in a separate bedroom if I'm not
safe. I might need to go to a lawyer. I might need to understand the law and what rights I have.
I might need to get some coaching or counseling so that I get stronger inside. Instead of focusing
on how do I... How do I be the person to change him? That's not your job.
Your job is to love him, honor him, not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
How do I do that? How do I speak the truth and love to him? It's all your work to do, right?
But if you need safety, then the person who needs to take care of that for you is you,
the prudent see danger and take refuge. Yeah, yeah. That's good.
What do I need to be this, this person? I, I, I think that's so helpful.
Tell my listeners where on that night, if they need more support, if they need, if they're
listening to this, where they can find you and your resources and what's the best place to plug in
with what you're doing. Cause you're helping so many women, Leslie. Yeah. Thanks Alison. Let me
just say one more thing about that if I can, because I think that so many women start to feel, feel
so selfish. Bible tells us not. So let me just say one more thing. There's a couple phrases that
I'm just going to say. Guard your heart above. Of all else, it is the offspring of life. Proverbs
says, set for you if you don't. Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
Who does that for you if you don't? And so you are called to steward your one precious life and not
to squander it living afraid because he's given us a spirit of fear.
All right. And so those are the things that I really encourage you. And this is hard work to do all
by yourself. And it's hard to find someone who gets it. So we have an organization and we have lots
of resources. And so you can start by just taking a quiz. Am I really in a destructive marriage?
It's on my website at leslievernick.com and go through the quiz and evaluate yourself. Watch the
videos. What does God have to say? And then if that resonates for you, then you might want to. Join
some small groups that we have, or you might want to join our Conquer. We have some coaching groups
around these issues that will really help you do your own work so that this isn't as devastatingly
awful as it could be if you don't do your own work and then you just go repeat the pattern in the
next relationship. So good. So good. I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful for your ministry.
And thank you so much for just taking the time to be with us today. Thank you, Allison, for having
me. It's been great. 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, YouTube, or wherever
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you are, you honor God, you heal others, and you stay true to your God-given self.
"Can I forgive someone and still keep healthy boundaries?"
"Why does forgiveness still feel impossible?"
Forgiveness is one of the most beautiful teachings of the Christian faith—and one of the most misunderstood.
Many of us learned that forgiveness meant moving on quickly, letting go of our anger, or restoring a relationship before trust had been rebuilt. But what if forgiveness isn't about minimizing harm at all?
In this episode, Dr. Alison Cook sits down with theologian, author, and advocate Dr. Amy Orr-Ewing to explore a richer, more biblically grounded understanding of forgiveness. Together they unpack the difference between forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, and repair—and why naming the truth of what happened is an essential part of healing.
Whether you're navigating family wounds, betrayal, church hurt, or simply wondering why forgiveness feels so difficult, this conversation offers both compassion and hope.
You'll learn:
- Why forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation.
- How forgiveness differs from denying or minimizing harm.
- Why anger can be a healthy and necessary part of healing.
- How forgiveness and justice can exist together.
- What Scripture teaches about forgiveness after abuse or betrayal.
- Why forgiveness is often a journey rather than a single decision.
- How God's grace empowers forgiveness without requiring self-abandonment.
Forgiveness isn't pretending the wound never happened.
It's telling the truth about what was lost while slowly allowing God's grace to heal what was broken.
Make sure to check out Amy’s new book, “Forgiveness: Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear”
More Resources:
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 78: The Mental Health Benefits of Forgiveness and Thoughts on Grace with Max Lucado
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
Forgiveness is required where repair is required in a relationship where a loss has occurred.
There's an actual place for visceral anger when a human being has been harmed or hurt.
You don't stay there, but to pretend that that anger and rage isn't a real part of the human
experience of suffering is not a requirement of a Christian faith. We don't have to pretend that.
As a Christian, when I forgive, I'm not alone in like covering,
paying for the debt that has been incurred. There's this source of grace, this source of payment,
which comes from outside of me that I receive and I become a channel of when I forgive and I become
active as a participant in something divine and something really beautiful and wonderful.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's Deep Dive episode of The Best of You. I am so
thrilled you're here with me today. Today's conversation was so rich.
I got so much out of it, and it really inspired me to think more deeply about this topic.
Today, we're talking about one of the most central, beautiful, complicated,
and often deeply misunderstood words in the Christian faith. forgiveness.
For so many of us, forgiveness is a word we learned early on. We learned that God forgives us.
We learned that we are called to forgive others. We learned the cautionary tale that bitterness can
take root in the soul and that we should be forgiving of others. And all of that is true.
But some of us also learn something else along the way that isn't true that isn't helpful that
isn't what forgiveness actually means we learned that forgiveness means to rush past pain we
learned to silence anger before we've even named the harm we've learned to feel guilty for still
feeling hurt by someone we've learned that forgiveness meant pretending something didn't matter or
minimizing what happened or restoring trust with the other person before there's even been
repentance recognition repair or safety. And this is where things can get really confusing for many
of us because forgiveness isn't a denial of harm. Forgiveness isn't the same as reconciliation.
Forgiveness doesn't erase the need for justice. And when we reduce forgiveness in that overly
simplistic way, we actually lose sight of the power of what it really is.
Forgiveness doesn't mean staying in a relationship. that is unsafe. It doesn't mean protecting a
system, a leader, a family image, or someone else's reputation at the expense of the truth.
And yet forgiveness is still one of the most powerful, beautiful, and distinctly Christian gifts
we've been given. So how do we hold both? How do we reclaim the power of forgiveness without
weaponizing it? How do we honor the command to forgive others without rushing the process of
healing? How do we tell the truth about what happened to us and still remain open to the
supernatural grace of God? And this is what today's conversation is all about.
My guest today is Dr. Amy Orr Ewing. Amy is an international author, speaker, and theologian who
helps people think deeply and honestly about the Christian faith in the midst of some of the
hardest questions of our time. She holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford.
She's so well read. You'll hear that in today's episode. She goes so deep on this topic. She's an
international speaker, theologian, and a public advocate for the Christian faith. She is also the
founder of Advocate Collective, which supports her writing, speaking, justice, advocacy,
and her work with survivors of abuse and church hurt. She is the author of several books,
including Why Trust the Bible, Where is God in All the Suffering, and her latest book, we're going
to talk about today, forgiveness, reclaiming its power in a culture of outrage and fear.
What I so appreciate about this conversation is that Amy doesn't flatten forgiveness into a slogan
or an easy catch-all bucket. She helps us see that biblical forgiveness begins by telling the
truth. It begins by naming the harm, naming the loss, naming the reality of what happened.
It doesn't ask us to pretend. In fact, it can't exist if we don't first acknowledge what happened.
It doesn't ask us to bypass grief, anger, or our body. response to trauma.
And at the same time, Amy helps us see that forgiveness isn't weakness. It isn't being passive.
It isn't letting someone else off the hook. It's a courageous participation in the grace of God.
And the process cannot be rushed. Forgiveness is a journey that can take time to move through the
whole body, the whole nervous system, the whole soul. So for those of you who have ever wondered,
why can't I just forgive or does my anger mean I'm a bad Christian or can I forgive and still
maintain distance? from someone. I know this conversation is going to be deeply freeing and hopeful
and encouraging to you. You'll hear us talk about forgiveness and justice, forgiveness and
reconciliation, the Psalms and holy anger and what happens when forgiveness is coerced and why true
forgiveness never minimizes the dignity of the person who has been. This is such a rich and nuanced
conversation. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Dr. Amy Orr Ewing.
Well, I'm thrilled, Amy, to just meet you and just benefit from your expertise today.
This is such an important topic. And as I was saying before we started recording, I just so
appreciate how... and how nuanced your work is on the topic of forgiveness not undermining its
importance and also not minimizing what it's not I would love to just start personally what's your
own experience with forgiveness whether personally pastorally maybe with your work with survivors
of abuse what What's your own personal experience with forgiveness that made you interested in the
topic? Yeah, thank you so much. And thank you for inviting me on.
It's such a deeply, sometimes actually triggering word for Christians,
this idea of forgiveness. So my context is that I grew up in a family where my parents radically
experienced Christian faith. in their 30s so they had both come from atheist backgrounds and then
you know they were sort of all in for jesus and became church planters my dad was an amazing bible
teacher and evangelist and so i would say i grew up in a context where was very kind of biblically
based and um you know deeply rooted in us was this truth that you know we need to be really careful
not to be unforgiving I mean you know it's really really important that you forgive and that you
you know repent and repair relationships and so in the faith tradition that I was in I think there
was a high value placed on that and I remember as a younger person you know experiencing hurts and
you know sometimes quite quite painful things and worrying as a follower of Jesus that I might be
in danger of unforgiveness when I experienced pain, including after I thought I'd forgiven someone.
So, you know, that was kind of my faith context. And then, you know, I've been married for nearly
30 years. I have three sons and my husband in 2020 went through a really profound experience of
CPTSD. He'd had traumatic abuse as a child and for various reasons,
bereavement and other other reasons this kind of flared up um for him and so uh having you know my
husband's also a pastor and so I'd We'd walked with people in our own lives and in our church lives
who'd experienced abuse, walked through this journey of figuring out how you feel the feelings in a
healthy way, how you go on a therapy journey where that is needed, and how forgiveness can feel a
bit dangerous in the context of someone who's experienced egregious abuse.
And then in my work life as well, I was figuring out how to process,
you know, like catastrophic, egregious spiritual abuse and sexual abuse by the founder of a
ministry that I had been involved with. He's called Ravi Zacharias. Your listeners may be aware of
that case or, you know, maybe could look that up.
walking with women who'd experienced sexual abuse at the hand of a very senior christian leader and
seeing then in the christian community how the concept of forgiveness was sometimes it felt like it
was sometimes used to sort of prop up the system around a christian leader who'd you know caused
tremendous harm including sexual abuse so those are some of the some of the strands and then my
actual work in public theology i'm involved in apologetics and kind of presenting the christian
faith in contexts where people have objections, intellectual objections to faith.
And so I'll be on university campuses and taking live Q&A and often thinking about the question
from an intellectual point of view of God and suffering. And so I began to wonder whether this idea
of Christian forgiveness was something that I was being called to think about more deeply and to
integrate. some of the sort of theological thinking, but also experiences of supporting people who
are survivors of abuse journeying into a healthy spiritual place and how there was a tension with
forgiveness there. Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, that's why you really come to this with some,
you've been around the block in many different ways with this.
Before we... dive in, I'm curious, because that's also been my experience that forgiveness is,
for many of us who grew up in Christian homes, it is sort of a very essential,
sort of central idea. Why do you think that is?
Well, I think one of the reasons might be that some of The kind of female heroes of the faith that
I grew up being exposed to would have been like the top two I can think of are Corrie ten Boom and
Elizabeth Elliot. And both of them, if you think about their hero stories for us,
the sort of heroic Christian. woman is a woman who's forgiven horrific harm yeah whether that was
the death of her husband or for Corrie ten Boomie the death of her sister and you know wider wider
suffering so I wonder whether that's part of it interesting I think as well you know it is true
that a healthy functioning relationship any healthy functioning family you know you you need to
learn how to practice sort of everyday forgiveness for community to to work right and so anyone who
maybe was exposed to Bonhoeffer's teaching on community or or even if you're a mum just trying to
figure out how to get your kids to get along you know on a very basic level it is like important
but the problem is when you sort of apply what works or what is needed to work in the normal rub of
everyday community living. And you apply it at a very simplistic level to egregious moral
wrongdoing without more nuance. I think that's where some of the problem comes in.
Yeah, that's really interesting about the heroes because it is powerful in those settings.
But I also think, I wonder as we're talking, because I was kind of trying to get,
just thinking about this whole topic, you know, we have, and it's true that we've been forgiven.
We've all been forgiven. Right. And that is such a starting place of.
Yeah, exactly. It's the starting place of being a Christian. I mean, it's just. Yes. It's kind of
this idea we were talking with. I don't know if you know Stephen Tracy's work with mending the
soul, but he was talking about how we have this idea we're all sinners, you know, so there's.
But that sort of is a is a debt clear where there's different ways in which we've been impacted by.
sin and harm as humans. And so that kind of leads me into,
before we kind of get into, because there's justice issues and there's all the issues you were
talking about where there's been deep, egregious harm. How would you define forgiveness,
what it is and what it is? biblically,
theologically, and then even psychologically? How do you think about what it is? That's a huge
gauzy question. Let's just start there. Yeah, I've written a book on this one.
It's like, yeah, how do you do this in 20 seconds?
So I think for me, the starting place for Jesus's teaching on forgiveness is he sort of helpfully
conceptualises forgiveness in the realm of debt and loss.
You know, the New Testament language, when Jesus is talking about forgiveness, the mental picture
is that a loss has occurred and a debt now exists because that loss has occurred.
Now, that loss could be a financial loss. It could be a loss of bodily autonomy. It could be a loss
of peace. It could be, you know, loss of dignity. It could be some kind of loss psychologically.
Forgiveness is required where repair is required in a relationship where a loss has occurred.
Forgiveness is forgiving or releasing the debt that is actually owed to you because of the loss you
have experienced. Now, if we sort of then zoom out a little bit and think about it from a Christian
point of view, if we're followers of Jesus. at the centre of the Christian faith is this image of
the God made flesh you know God in Christ Jesus of Nazareth not just living a perfect life and then
you know dying an unfortunate death but that his death is actually a sacrifice for all the losses
of all the harms of all the people in all the world like a cosmic sacrifice occurs that that gives
tremendous value to the loss you or I have experienced because it says that to release it to
forgive it would require this kind of cosmic intervention this from from outside of ourselves and
so as a Christian when I forgive I'm not alone in like covering paying for the debt that has been
incurred There's this source of grace, this source of payment,
which comes from outside of me that I receive and I become a channel of when I forgive and I become
active. as a participant in something divine and and and something really beautiful and wonderful
that actually dignifies me as the one who's suffered but also empowers me to do something I
actually wouldn't be capable of which is forgiving this harm that has been done to me without
minimizing either my own value or you know the value of of what's occurred so um one of one of the
crucial steps I think that is often missed both in the church but actually outside the church if we
don't have the Jesus and God bit when we talk about forgiveness is this that number one forgiveness
is conceptualized so without God or Jesus forgiveness is conceptualized a bit like Elsa in that
movie Frozen where she sort of sings just let it go like you release into the universe
you let it go and that in a way requires you to play a psychological trick on yourself because the
body keeps the score right and you in the mind you know that what has happened to you really hurts
and really matters so you letting it go requires you to somehow feel that either it doesn't matter
anymore or that it is released in some way um that is sort of on you but crucially and uniquely
christian forgiveness doesn't ever ask you to do that christian forgiveness begins with saying the
harm that happened matters it hurts it was wrong and that a debt has been incurred that is so huge
that to forgive it would require this cosmic help from outside i think that's really amazing
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Yeah,
that's really beautiful. You can't gloss over the depth and the darkness and the evil,
for lack of a better word, of the crime, of the harm in rushing to the unforgiveness.
And you see that in the story of Jesus. You're right. It's awful. horrific but you have to start
with naming the violence and the and the and the yeah exactly and the new testament doesn't skirt
over that yes so yes you know when jesus says father forgive them for they know not what they do
We've had all these other words from the cross, I thirst, like the physical penalty and cost to the
human body of crucifixion, the physical suffering. We've had the dear woman, here is your son,
like the devastating relational fallout of the pain and suffering of this world.
there's not like a rush to just say the magic words and we're done. It's like,
no, Christian forgiveness is a journey that doesn't ask us to minimise the harm that has happened
or rush over it. In fact, you know, as I was writing the book, one of the things I found really
fascinating is how, you know, in the Bible we have... you know what we call the imprecatory the
imprecatory psalms the psalms where a human being voices the unsayable like i hate you so much i
want your children to die violently because you've hurt me so much you know which obviously we
don't condone but those words are there because there's an actual place for visceral anger when a
human being has been harmed or hurt And, you know, you don't stay there.
But to pretend that that anger and rage isn't a real part of the human experience of suffering is
not a requirement of the Christian faith. We don't have to pretend that. And the journey of
forgiveness is... is not about glossing over or trying to make the pain or harm smaller so that we
can you know by sheer force of will forgive it's like no acknowledgement and that's also why
confession and repentance are so important and you know god doesn't forgive us without confession
and repentance And there's a very, very deep and close relationship then between how we forgive
people as followers of Jesus in terms of the person who's harmed us actually confessing and
repenting. There's a close relationship there too. Yeah, I love that you brought up the Psalms as
an example of the journey. That we meet the psalmist in there,
you know, kill the, you know, the... The real vitriol in many ways,
we meet them on the journey. This is how I feel, God. And we can.
And find consolation in that when we are on the journey. Right now, what I feel like is I want that
person to die because they've hurt me so much. That's what I feel like. That's the emotional truth.
Do I think that's where I want my soul to stay? No. But biblically,
that is part of the journey. I think that's really a really beautiful.
way to look at those psalms uh for the listener there's a place for that yeah exactly the idea in
psychology of effective justice like yeah the the experience of anger and and rage or just you know
not even just for the person who suffered but often for the the loved ones of the person who
suffered to be allowed to feel This is really wrong.
Like everything in my body tells me this is wrong. Everything in my soul tells me this is,
you know, a violation of what we hold dearest. And what I've so often seen,
unfortunately, in the church and is that that step is just not allowed.
It's like, you know, you are a very bad Christian if you in any way.
voice any of that or even are sort of seen to feel any of that and um that I found it really
interesting in the research for the book looking at some of the studies around forgiveness and
obviously there's this as you'll be aware this strand of work that looks at how forgiveness can be
harmful There's a whole body of psychological literature that says forgiveness is harmful.
And what I wanted to do was make sure, you know, I don't just sort of cherry pick the research that
is kind of good for our side, for Christians. You know, this says forgiveness is so great and these
are the benefits. But also to try and grapple with what does that mean?
How could forgiveness be harmful?
The study suggested that forgiveness was harmful where it was coerced.
So where a person who was not ready...
and was not really choosing this themselves but was either shamed into or you know that there was a
social pressure or other kind of pressure they were kind of coerced into forgiveness then it
actually became psychologically harmful to them because of course they weren't actually really able
to experience the joy of forgiveness and the benefits it was not real so coercion was harmful and
then the second thing that was harmful was this element of being rushed through the real stages so
that you don't actually get to you know i i would argue is it really forgiveness if there's a
minimizing of the anger that that isn't actually what what what what forgiveness really is meant to
be so yeah this can actually cause harm and unfortunately in the survivors that i've worked with i
don't think there's a single one who hasn't had that harm layered on top of all the other harm
they'd already experienced. And so I really wanted to, you know,
write into this and speak into this so that we can stop causing further moral injury.
Often it's really well-intentioned, you know, it's Christians saying, I want you to have this
spiritual benefit of forgiveness. Yeah. But you're actually causing moral injury to people who've
already been crushed and trampled underfoot. by the beast they experienced.
That's such a powerful way to untangle that knot,
right? So in Christian spaces, and we'll get to kind of where you were talking about with the sort
of, it almost seems like sort of a shallow let it go that isn't really forgiveness outside of,
but in faith spaces, the harm has been rushing at Best case scenario,
rushing people and worst case scenario, abusively coercing people.
And here's, let me give you a really practical example. Here's, you know, what I've heard in every
single case, I think, where a survivor has been sexually abused within a Christian setting.
So either an organization or a church by a senior leader. And there will be,
at some point, an equivalence made between the sin of the sexual abuse and the sin of unforgiveness
of the survivor who's coming forward. And, you know, they're causing division and gossip and,
you know, they're not forgiving. Letting this guy who, you know, made some mistakes,
he and his family need to be protected here. It's like... I mean,
it's so outrageous. And, you know, when I say it out loud, we can think how ridiculous. But
honestly, it is every, every situation that I've been involved with that dynamic has been in play.
So a psychological pressure to silence the victim who themselves is a Christian and believes in
forgiveness and is then made to feel this kind of moral dilemma about speaking up,
which is hard enough already.
That's what I mean about the sort of weaponization of it. It is.
It is absolutely a weaponization and it is absolutely a re-traumatizing of someone who's already
experienced trauma. It's abuse. It's spiritual abuse, you know, and there's just no other way to
look at it. And a total failure to draw a distinction between truth-telling and forgiveness.
You know, I love Rachel Denholland has been such a pioneer in this area. I think her speech,
I'm sure your listeners will be aware of her sort of victim impact speech at the sentencing of
Larry Nassar, the sexual predator who abused the US gymnastic team.
And she spoke about, as a Christian, her, you know, heart...
felt and honest offer of forgiveness to this man who'd absolutely marred her life and her call on
the judge to hand out the fullest sentence of the law and there is no discontinuity theologically
as a christian biblically there's no discontinuity between those two things so i can forgive and i
can pursue the full civil or criminal penalty of the law yeah That's right.
That's right. Both of those things can be true. And that person can receive divine forgiveness for
the spiritual wound they've caused. And I think evidence that they've actually repented would be a
willingness to admit to, to own up, repent and plead guilty and pay the civil or criminal penalty
for the crime. Right. So in this case, I'd love for you to talk to us a little bit about this.
You know, that's a great example. I think about similarly to a marriage that's been destroyed by
betrayal or infidelity. I can forgive this person. I might not stay married to them. I might let
the natural consequences play out, right? Forgiveness does not equal reconciliation.
Forgiveness does not equal repair.
Talk to us about then, you know, you describe forgiveness as a rat,
kind of getting at why then? What is the purpose of forgiveness? not very clearly.
It's not letting somebody off the hook necessarily. It's not removing consequences.
It's not repairing. It's not going back into relationship with them. So you talk about it as
meeting a great human need. So what then is the need underneath it?
I would draw the distinction between there always being repair.
And reconciliation possible. But if there is ever going to be repair or reconciliation possible,
there would have to be forgiveness there. Sure. Yes. So we can have forgiveness that doesn't then
flower fully into repair and reconciliation. There could be numerous reasons for that. Normally,
the most significant one would be that the person who caused the harm and the breach.
is either unrepentant or is in a state that they are an ongoing danger to the well-being of the
person that they've been closely aligned to in a covenant, whether that's a parental or marital
relationship. And there needs to be healthy separation for the safety of the individual.
Yeah, I mean, the beauty that forgiveness brings, I think, is then a different kind of relationship
and connection. So Rachel Jen Hollander can forgive Larry Nassar and he can go to jail.
He can go to prison.
But there's still a beauty in her forgiving him. There's a release for her from the woundedness,
from the ongoing need to get vengeance and any sort of festering bitterness.
And there's incredible health benefits. Again, you know, the studies suggest that the practice of
forgiveness for the person who practices it, regardless of whether there's a reconciliation,
just the practice. practice of forgiveness you know impacts diabetes and heart disease it impacts
like brain function and you know levels of anxiety and depression i mean the impact is absolutely
is absolutely vast for for the person in the instance where there's been a separation or a divorce
um even though that marriage hasn't survived in the form it was in previously like a reconciliation
hasn't been possible for whatever reason that could be that there was violence or addiction or
ongoing harm it could be any reason um but if the party that's been harmed is able to forgive and
is putting boundaries in place you know and not continuing to be a wife or husband but is forgiving
the person that's really harmed them i think that has huge implications for any children involved
it has huge implications obviously for the person themselves as they're able to go on and rebuild
their lives and learn from what they've experienced it may also be that you know being forgiven but
also
being allowed to actually experience the consequences of that poor behaviour enables that person
then to go on and get help, the cheater or the person who is primarily at fault.
So forgiveness can do so much good even when it doesn't flower into full-blown reconciliation in a
way that we might have hoped it would. And I think it undermines the power of forgiveness to say,
that in every case if it really was forgiveness it has to equate to full reconciliation so one of
the things that i um do in the book is sort of suggest you know that there are multiple models of
what forgiveness actually is operating particularly in the church and i suggest that um This view
that there's a big difference between forgiveness and reconciliation is actually the correct one.
So sometimes if someone accuses you of being unforgiving, it may be because,
you know, they haven't got the desired outcome that they want. But there could be all kinds of
reasons for that. A lack of repentance, you know, lack of confession. Other biblical reasons why.
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Yeah, I love that. I always say it takes two people to reconcile. It takes one person to forgive.
Reconciliation requires both people to come to the table. Forgiveness doesn't. And you talk about
this in the book, and I just kind of want to shift gears here to as much as forgiveness is...
I love how you just really talked about when it's weaponized and not used appropriately.
You talk in the book about these stories, and I think about the book The Shack. Do you remember
that book? Did you ever read that book? I don't want to spoil the ending, but that's kind of that
at the end. And it's just such a gut punch at the end when that's... The invitation to him,
I think, you know, the work you've done with these women survivors where most of us are just like,
how could you possibly forgive? How could you do that?
And this is a unique, as much as it can be misused and as much as I want my listeners to hear you
say, if someone is weaponizing it against you, it is so wrong.
It's not. It's not the way of Jesus. It's not what the Bible is saying. It is a journey.
You need to go through that full process of grief and pain and anger.
And just like the psalmist did, that whole journey is so valid. Do not rush it.
Do not let anyone coerce you into it. And all of that being said, what is this unique gift?
that the power of forgiveness brings into a world in your subtitle that is filled with rage,
that is in many ways, on one hand, there's a superficial sort of let it go kind of everything goes,
but on the other hand is angry and outraged and punitive. What is Christian?
a truly Christian understanding of forgiveness bring into this world?
Yeah, thank you. That's such an amazing question. And this is really how the other sort of route
into writing this book came about through just seeing the rising anger and outrage in the culture,
whether it be through identity politics and, you know, the idea of sort of power through grievance
and rage that, has sort of taken hold of a generation like we assert our identity on the basis of
intersectional injustice and then you know we're propelled forward on this power of rage and how
that's breaking apart families and communities and so countries I wanted to do in the book yeah and
nations I wanted to do in the book was to look at the question of whether There could be such a
thing as forgiveness, which really identified with and kind of upheld the impetus of that rage
where it says, you know, injustice matters because people matter and people are made in the image
of God. So harm experienced by a image bearer, a divine image bearer matters at a really visceral
level.
Ask whether, you know, if there was this sort of extraordinary cosmic intervention into our world
through the person of Jesus of Nazareth and his extraordinary death on the cross,
which, let's face it, the symbol of that is, you know, the defining symbol of the whole of Western
civilisation for the last 2000 years. Could it be that there is a key in the person of Jesus that
answers the heart cry of this generation that says, yes, your intuitive sense that harm matters,
that injustice matters. There's a truth in that, but that alone will lead you to where we are with
all this division, rage and grievance. But there's a power in the person of Jesus and his death by
crucifixion that's a power outside of ourselves, which both means that we can be forgiven for the
unforgivable and be reconciled to God and each other, but also empowers us to rebuild our world,
our communities, our families, our nations in a way that...
dignifies what it means to be human, but also offers this opportunity of redemption and grace.
And I think only in the Christian faith do we have that possibility. I think it has all kinds of
ramifications at the end of the book. I have a chapter where I think about nations,
what this could mean for nations and try and draw a distinction between patriotism and nationalism.
So, you know, you can probably tell from my accent that I don't live in America, right? I live in
the UK, but I'm in America a lot and I hear lots of people talking about Christian nationalism.
And then I'm in Europe and I hear, you know, the rise of nationalism in Germany. Father is German.
Rise of nationalism in France. We've got a kind of rise of nationalism in Britain. And thinking
about there's this real confusion between love of nation and nationalism.
So I began to think about that. What would forgiveness have to say even into that conversation?
And I realised that... The key distinctive between patriotism,
which, you know, we can believe that God orders people into nations, that a love of nation is a
godly thing to love the land you're born into and to want the good of your people. But that doesn't
require you to scapegoat the foreigner or to hate. the other nations you can have a love of nation
that can say i love my nation and i can recognize that there are things in my nation for which
we're not totally proud so i'm british we've got a history of empire you know pre-abolition we had
a history of slavery yeah i can look at my nation and say i love my nation But not everything we
have done or do is altogether perfect. You can't do that in nationalism. Nationalism is about
domination, superiority, expansion. It's about being better than others and forcing our will on
others. And the key difference between the two... It's forgiveness. Do I recognize I need
forgiveness? Do I recognize I sometimes mess up? Do I believe in the possibility of a second chance
or do I assert my superiority at all costs and scapegoat and go after anyone who challenges me?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's powerful. I think it has massive implications. Yeah, it's powerful.
And just as I'm listening to you, it just strikes me that It's the truth,
as Jesus said, that sets us free. And the truth cuts both ways. The truth of harm,
the truth of injustice, the truth of pain. We have to face it in our country,
in our community, in our family, in our church, in ourselves. And the good,
what's worth salvaging, all of that. And forgiveness.
It's really interesting listening to you. I mean, that forgiveness is that bridge between the two
things we all hold. Yes, it's like kind of integral to even how our society has been built.
So if you think about the impact of Protestantism, even on our form of capitalism,
where, you know, you have a limited company, you have the possibility of trying something that
could fail without your family being destroyed. You know, there's like this idea of forgiveness and
the possibility of second chance being built in there. And, you know, one of the things that I
found most moving, I think, when writing this and thinking about it was just seeing the beauty of
Jesus, you know, as a follower of Jesus in the midst of this. I was reading...
Peter Levine about the polyvagal therapy and came across this phrase where he talked about what a
trauma survivor needs in order to recover is for someone to bear empathetic witness.
The bearing of empathetic witness to what occurred and it struck me that That's exactly what the
centre of the Christian faith says God has done in Jesus. And so when we talk about forgiveness,
the central idea is that God in Christ has borne empathetic witness to the horror and harm and
trauma and suffering of this world and has said that we matter and our pain matters.
he's going to redeem us and give us this second chance and new life and grace and then when we
become his followers we experience so I think a Christian who forgives someone who's harmed them
doesn't necessarily just muster the strength to do that we receive a grace a power from outside of
ourselves but it's not just an idea it's real it's tangible it's granular and it's you know through
the power of the cross so we're kind of receiving this help this flow of grace which then we offer
to to to the world around us and that's kind of how communities are healed and families are healed
and like when we've really suffered egregious harm you know it can be a really important step in
our own healing this is a great place because i wanted to as we wind down because what i'm hearing
you say i love how you paint that picture because that also gets at the journey aspect of it
because sometimes the The quick fix forgiveness is out of our own willpower.
Whereas what you're describing is a process. And I felt myself as I was listening to you,
I was thinking in my head, it's a process of saying, a process, key word, of in my whole body.
And I do a lot of the parts work, the inner parts work, different parts of us. are on board before
other parts of us. Part of me wants to forgive and part of me is like, uh-uh. And it's a process
of getting your whole soul on board with, I trust you, God. I do not trust this other person.
And I maybe don't even trust that justice will play out in this lifetime, but I do trust you
ultimately. And that is supernatural. And therefore, because of you, I can.
release i can somehow because we trust justice will ultimately be done yes and it's not just lip
service it's in our nervous system it's in our bodies and that takes time that takes time yeah that
takes time i had a a um profound sort of traumatic experience in my early earlier in my 40s and had
um amazing therapy my psychologist was a practitioner of schema therapy so very much embodied and
um I really resonate with what you're saying that healing kind of it takes time to sink in to to
every sort of part of ourselves and i think the same is true of forgiveness which is why i want i
hope that both the message of how powerful this is as a tool and as a positive agent to heal the
world and to help heal us but also um i hope that those who've perhaps been in faith spaces here
today that this is not a weapon to kind of beat you with and make you feel guilty that you you're a
failure as a forgiver you know um or to feel coerced to be rushed into it but to be kind of invited
into this beautiful gift that we get to receive and share in but that we also get to practice and
then the impact on the body the impact on our relationships is so incredibly positive It's so
beautiful. I love that, you know, to really be invited. I love that word into the journey.
Two things can be true. And to really honor how powerful it is means we have to honor the depth of
the journey. Because it will transform us. And it is deeper. It's not lip service.
It's not shallow. It's not trite. It is profoundly transformational.
And maybe the next step is to just trust, just to let one part of us believe that it's worth the
journey. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What would you say as we close?
You've kind of said it, Amy, but, you know, just for the listener. who says, who's feeling that
way, is feeling that way. I do believe in it. I know it's good, but I'm not ready. I don't,
I'm angry. I'm, you know, I don't know how to get there. What would you want to say to that woman
listening today?
Well, I've been there. So first thing I would say is you're really not alone.
And you're not a failure as a person of faith. So to have those feelings. is legitimate as a child
of god and as someone who wants to follow jesus and you're not sort of required to um be rushed
through that in in a way that actually wouldn't be real or true so to just kind of pretend
forgiveness or even fake it till you make it i think the second thing i would say is that i love
the lord's prayer when jesus says when you pray say father that's an expression of attachment of
healthy attachment with the heavenly father hello be your name holy is your name a sort of
acknowledgement of god as transcendent and beyond us and then it goes on forgive us our sins as we
forgive those who sin against us and i would say as part of your daily prayer ask the lord to help
you Because the beginning of forgiveness is to even want to be in a position where it could be
possible. I think that's what our part is as disciples of Jesus.
It's just wanting it and asking for the Lord's help. And then I think the third thing I would say
is that if you've experienced abuse, egregious harm, violence,
spiritual abuse, sexual abuse and any of these deeper wounds it's worth um going on a journey with
someone who's actually trained to help you recover from that and sometimes you know we can i think
think like there's a quick fix but we wouldn't look at someone strangely a christian who broke
their arm and went to hospital and got it in plaster and got their professional help as well as
obviously their small group to pray for them and in the same way you know if there's this longer
term wrestle in your soul like it is it feels impossible on a human level to forgive it may be that
you you need some help in that journey with people who are trained and skilled to do that So I
think that's the last thing I would say and, you know, reach out for and seek that help. I love
that. Thank you so much just for. Diving into this topic, it's so important.
I feel just personally really enriched by your work. Tell, you know, tell my listeners where they
can find your work and find the book. Thank you. We'll be sure to link to it. Thank you so much.
So, yeah, it's called Forgiveness, Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear.
You can find it on Amazon or any bookseller, Barnes & Noble,
anywhere you buy your books. And if you want to find out more about my work,
I have a 501c3 in America called advocate-collective.org.
You can find me there or just follow my name, Amy or Ewing, on Instagram or Facebook.
I so appreciate the work that you're doing. It's so important and so needed. And we're just
grateful for your time today. Thank you so much.
Have you ever noticed how quickly old patterns resurface when you're around family?
Maybe you find yourself walking on eggshells. Struggling to voice your preferences. Feeling responsible for everyone else's emotions. Or slipping back into roles you thought you'd left behind years ago.
In this episode, Dr. Alison revisits one of the most requested conversations from the podcast, exploring how the dynamics we experienced growing up continue to shape our relationships today.
Through the lens of attachment theory, boundaries, and family systems, Alison unpacks five common patterns that can influence the way we show up with the people we love—and how awareness is the first step toward healing.
You'll learn:
• Why family relationships can pull us back into old roles
• What enmeshment is—and how it differs from healthy closeness
• Five family patterns that often follow us into adulthood
• How childhood experiences shape the way we handle conflict, boundaries, and relationships
• Why naming a pattern isn't about blame—it's about healing
• Practical questions to help you begin breaking free from unhealthy dynamics
Healing doesn't require pretending your family was perfect.
It begins by telling the truth with wisdom, compassion, and grace—so you can love others without losing yourself.
More Resources:
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 194: When Relationships Start to Drain You—Using Discernment to Stay Connected Without Losing Yourself
Episode 178 How to Recognize Toxic Tactics, and Stop Taking the Bait
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
Don't forget to browse this week's sponsors, who make it possible for me to bring you these resources for free + provide you with additional discounts!
- Quince - How you dress affects your mood and you can trust that Quince has you covered in every day sustainable wardrobe staples. Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
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*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.
TRANSCRIPT
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of The Best of You. We are closing
in on the 4th of July weekend. I cannot believe that. I cannot believe we're nearing July,
that the summer is already a month. behind us it's flown by i hope your summer is going well i hope
you're finding some spaciousness for your soul i know in my own experience with summer both when
the kids were little but also now as an empty nester i love summer but sometimes the absence of
structure it's it's more chaotic sometimes i can lose sight of my own boundaries my own rhythms the
things that keep my soul in healthy shape, if you want to put it that way. It can kind of feel off
kilter when everything's a little more chaotic. There's a lot more time with family and friends and
even some travel and sometimes family reunions and other types of reunions. And all of that can be
wonderful. And also some of that can begin to cause us to lose sight of our rhythms.
And even some of the boundaries that keep us sane and keep us healthy and keep us close to that way
that we always talk about on the podcast of living from love, right? Walking with love,
walking in step with God's Spirit versus just kind of being reactive and over-functioning and
working for love and trying to make everybody happy. And as I was thinking about myself and how I
can get off kilter in the summer, and I was thinking about you and wondering how that's going for
you. I thought this would be a great weekend to re-air an older episode. This is an episode from a
ways back. It resonated with many of you. In fact, I shaped this episode around questions I was
receiving from listeners. And it's all about this idea of enmeshment and how we can become
enmeshed, particularly in our... of origin from the past, but also it applies to our families in
the current day. And enmeshment is just the opposite of healthy boundaries. We'll get into that in
today's episode. But we also get into the importance of boundaries and how to watch out for these
toxic patterns, both patterns that shaped us back in the past,
but also patterns that can sneak up on us. in the present last week in my conversation with dr
stephen tracy we talked about something i think so many of us are trying to untangle and it's all
about how we honor scripture how we honor god while also telling the truth by not denying the toxic
patterns that are sneaking in or noticing harm and not being afraid to name it or at least protect
ourselves from it or protect our kids from it some of this means how do we remain tenderhearted
without becoming naive? How do we forgive without denying reality?
How do we honor our parents without abandoning ourselves? Maybe it's our in-laws that we're going
to be spending time with this summer. Maybe it's our parents. Maybe it's a sibling. Maybe it's a
friend group. And we're aware that some toxic dynamics can sneak in.
And we're not trying to blame anybody, but we are trying to be real and wise and grounded about
protecting ourselves and being wise before God? And these are big questions.
And for many of us, they're very real. They show up with a simple phone call.
from a parent where you immediately start to feel anxious or when you maybe set a boundary that you
really need to set for your own health or sanity, but suddenly you feel guilty or bad or maybe you
feel even judged by other family members or friends or they show up when you have a preference that
you're afraid to state or maybe your life looks a little differently and you're not sure how to
bring that change into a current friendship. And all of this makes me think of one of my favorite
verses. I mentioned it last week in my conversation with Dr. Stephen Tracy, and it applies whether
we're talking about spending time with people we love or whether we're walking into potentially
toxic situations. And it's what Jesus said in Matthew 10, 16.
He said, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
This verse is just so striking to me because Jesus is holding two things together that many of us
tend to bifurcate, right? We keep them separate. He calls us to be innocent. And there's a
connotation of innocence, of being kind, of being open, of being available, of being receptive,
right? He doesn't want us to become cynical or shut down or closed off and definitely not cruel or
always assuming the worst. But Jesus also calls us to wisdom.
And again, I think about that snake, you know, the serpent. None of us like snakes. I know I can't
stand them. They terrify me. But when you think about them as an animal, they're low to the ground.
They're in the dirt. They're in the mud. They're in the muck. They're very aware of what's
happening, right? The dove is high above it all. She's not in the midst of it,
right? She's able to kind of stay outside of things and stay. innocent, but the serpent is in the
muck and the mud. And Jesus is calling us to both. Don't be naive.
That's the part like the serpent that's in the muck and sees what's around us. I'm walking into
something here that may go sideways. I'm walking into a situation where it's possible these toxic
patterns are going to reemerge. I need to be wise about that. I can't pretend that's not going to
happen. I want to be innocent and loving and available. And I also need to be wise and shrewd and
in some ways strategic and smart. about how I enter into this situation.
And this all means we have to learn to recognize what is actually happening in front of us. We need
to be able to discern patterns. We need to be able to pay attention to fruit. What's the fruit of a
certain situation? We need to be able to tell the truth when something is harmful or going down the
wrong path, even when that's happening with people we love, even within families.
And in today's episode, I talk in particular about our families of origin. These could be parents
or grandparents or even in-laws, people who had an impact on your early life or maybe your
spouse's early life. And one of the things I hear so often is about this,
one of the 10 commandments, right? One of the greatest commandments, one of the 10 commandments
that we are supposed to abide by is to honor your father and mother. And that can be challenging
for many people. Even if you had a healthy family, even if you have healthy relationship with your
parents, figuring out how to honor without necessarily losing yourself can be tricky.
Honoring our parents, honoring our family members is a way that we honor God. It's important.
And it also doesn't mean being naive. It doesn't mean pretending. It doesn't mean putting ourselves
in harm's way. It doesn't mean denying the impact of what's happening.
It doesn't mean carrying emotional responsibility that was never yours to carry.
And in fact, what I would argue is that sometimes the most honoring thing we can do for God,
for the other person, and for ourselves is to be honest and to name what's happening with clarity
and compassion. Because when we name the truth of what has happened either in the past or in the
present, we're not blaming. Naming isn't the same as blaming or shaming. Naming isn't about
punishing. Naming isn't about retaliation. Naming is about looking at the truth,
telling the truth, saying this pattern exists. It existed back then.
It exists now. It's still affecting me. It's still shaping me. It's still shaping my partner.
It's still shaping my sibling. This pattern is real. And with God's help, I will not let this
pattern continue to do harm. That's holy ground. That's not blaming.
That's not shaming. That's not being cruel. That's not punitive. That's the holy ground of healing.
The truth is every parent falls short. Every single family has wounds.
Every one of us has places where we need grace, repair, growth, and mercy,
right? All of that is true. And what's also true is that grace doesn't require denial.
And healing and growth can't happen when we're not telling the truth. So in today's episode,
we're going to look at five patterns that can shape us in childhood and that continue to affect us
well into adult. We're going to talk about unpredictability, parentification, criticism,
control, and rescuing. Some of these may apply to you. Some of them may not.
But all of it applies to this idea of how do we create healthy families and how do we heal from our
own wounds? Again, this isn't about shame. This is about awareness. It's about learning to say
there is a reason I tend to revert to this old pattern when I'm with this group of people,
or there's a reason why conflict spikes my anxiety, or there's a reason why I have such a hard time
stating a preference. or even knowing what I want. There's a reason I feel so criticized.
Once you can begin to name the reason, you can begin to get to the root underneath the reactions,
you can begin to heal. And this is why this work matters.
So today, as we revisit this conversation about how our childhood patterns shape us in adulthood,
I want you to listen with compassion. Compassion for your parents who were shaped by their own
stories. Compassion for yourself, because you may still be carrying these patterns you never chose.
And compassion for the people you are caring for now as you learn to show up differently.
Now, listen, before we get started, some of you may have really healthy relationships with your
parents. Maybe they're not perfect, but for the most part, your parents were reliable. They showed
up for you. They support you. And even when there were ruptures, you knew that you could repair.
You knew that you could find a way back to each other. For some of you listening,
there's no relationship anymore with your parents. The relationship got so toxic and the trauma was
so deep. You can't be. in relationship with those people. And that's so painful when you have to
remove yourself from those relationships. And for many of you listening, you're somewhere in the
middle. with your parents. There were some really good and supportive things that you got from your
parents. And there were also some hard things, some things you're trying to unlearn.
No matter where you fall on that spectrum, there are two crucibles where we typically become aware
of these childhood wounds. Number one is our intimate relationships, our relationships specifically
within marriage. That is so often the relationship where suddenly we begin to notice our own
patterns and we're like, oh my goodness, why can't I engage? in a healthy conversation about
conflict. I tend to just go into flight mode or I go into fight mode or I shut down or I withdraw.
Oh my goodness, that's what I did in my family of origin. That's great knowledge, but now I've got
to figure out how to heal so that I can show up in this. current relationship in a different way,
right? So that's one of the gifts of intimate relationships is they bring to the surface some of
these areas where we've got wounds from our past that we need to heal so that we can show up
differently in this current relationship going forward. The second big place where a lot of these
wounds begin to surface is when we have kids of our own. And we begin to realize, oh my goodness, I
didn't even realize. Now I'm trying to parent this child. I want to do it differently. And suddenly
I notice myself behaving in ways I don't like. I notice myself getting angry.
I notice myself getting avoidant. I notice myself avoiding these hard conversations.
Or I notice myself having a really hard time figuring out how to set boundaries.
Or I notice myself having a really hard time when I need to let my... find their own way apart from
me. We begin to notice some of these patterns that likely go all the way back to our own childhoods
when we begin to parent ourselves. And so the stakes can feel really high because we begin to
realize I've got to heal these patterns because I don't want to repeat them.
in these relationships I care so much about in this present day and age with my spouse,
with my kids, with my friends, right? And so I just want to say to you right at the top of this
episode, the goal is not perfection. That is not the goal.
This is a process, that awareness that, yeah, I've got some growing to do.
I've got some things from the past I have to undo. And it's going to take me a little while,
but just my ability to name those things and begin to even say some of those things to the people
that I love. Hey, I know I'm not great at conflict. I know sometimes I can actually flee any
conflict before it even surfaces. And I want to let you know that I'm aware of that. And I may not
be able to change that right away. but I'm going to work on it. And I promise you, I'm going to
keep coming back. Or you might need to say to those loved ones, you know, I know I've got some
anger. I can get really angry and I'm becoming more and more aware of it.
And I want you to know that I see it and I'm working on it. And when I notice it,
I can become more aware of it more quickly. And I can come back to you and say, I'm sorry that
didn't come out right. Can we do a take two on that conversation, right? There are lots of ways you
can let your loved ones know, I'm healing some stuff here. These patterns go way back.
I'm not going to change overnight, but I'm aware. I'm honoring that. And I'm committed to growing.
and healing, and moving forward in a new and better way. Even when you give yourself that
spaciousness, you're calming your nervous system, which allows you to show up more authentically,
with more calm, with more courage, with more confidence. If your spouse or your friend came to you
and said, hey, I know I still do this thing. It's got a long tail. It goes all the way back.
This is deeply rooted. I'm aware. I'm sorry. I know that's hard for you. You know,
we don't expect people to change on a dime, but that awareness is a huge step toward health in all
of our relationships. So remember, you're committing to this journey of healing,
this journey we often on the podcast use that Greek word sozo. in the Bible that means salvation,
that can also be translated as healing. We are on this journey of sanctification.
We are on this journey of being made more and more like Christ, which means being made more and
more like that person who God wants us to become the most beautiful version of ourselves.
This is a process that we will be on throughout our entire lifetime, but every single step you can
take to own it, to honor it, to name it. without shame, both to yourself and to your loved one,
is a huge step and a success in and of itself. I want to start off by naming some key anchoring
terms because I'm going to be using these terms a lot. And then I'm going to move into the five
toxic patterns of behaviors that may have impacted you as a child and that you're carrying with you
into adulthood. The first word I want to name is enmeshment. Sometimes the emotional bond between a
parent and child becomes so intertwined that it's hard to distinguish who you are and your own
feelings, your own thoughts, your own beliefs from that of your parents.
This is what we mean by enmeshment. We can actually become too close, too enmeshed.
We become so caught up in another person that we don't know where they end and I begin.
When you're a child, you are dependent on the adult who is caring for you to be the adult.
It's the adult's responsibility to help honor that balance,
that dance. I go deep into this topic in my book, The Best of You, but I call it that dance between
connection and autonomy, closeness and distance.
We need both in healthy relationships, and it's the parent's job.
to really delineate that dance of being close, but also honoring difference.
I love you. You are my child and you're different from me.
You're a unique individual. And it's my job sometimes to step back and see you for who you are as
someone different from me. That's a really nuanced dance between parent.
and child. And enmeshment occurs when a parent begins to blur those lines. And typically the parent
is depending too much on the child. They want to see the child as an extension of themselves.
This creates a blurred boundary between parent and child. Enmeshment can make the healthy process
of what psychologists call individuation, the process of becoming your own person,
really, really difficult. Even if you've created physical distance, that emotional hold can remain
really strong. And if you're someone who grew up in an amnesty relationship where your parent lived
their life through you, even when you moved away from home, even when you got your own job,
maybe even got married, even had kids yourself, you might find yourself struggling to know what you
think, know what you want, know your own feelings as separate from the people who raised you.
You might even feel guilty about that. That's because it's been really hard for you to individuate.
A parent's job is to essentially raise your child to leave you.
And I think about this in nature, right? We see these moms that there's a point at which you're
raising that child, you're nurturing that child, but eventually that child has to leave the nest.
and learn to fly without you. And so when you have that end game in mind,
when you understand that eventually your child needs to leave you, you're going to love that child,
but you're also going to equip them to leave you, to function on their own,
apart from you. That's your job. And when you do that well, your child will be delighted to
continue to stay connected to you because those roles are clear.
You've built that trust. You've made yourself a safe place for your child to return to as an adult
because paradoxically, you've honored their need to leave you.
You're not trying to keep them close to you in an unhealthy way. You get that your best way of
staying close to you child is to honor that they need to leave you. It's a beautiful paradox.
Now, the other term I want to throw out here is attachment theory. Some of you might be thinking
about attachment as I'm talking, and it can be a really helpful framework for understanding how our
earliest bonds with our caregivers shape our future relationship. But for today's purposes,
it's important to understand that a secure attachment happens when your parents offer that
consistent love and support where they're allowing you to feel safe with them.
But here's the thing, they're allowing you to feel safe with them so that you can explore life
independent from them. That's the essence of secure attachment.
I'm safe enough with these people who love me that I can go out into the world and explore it on my
own. And there are different milestones that I go through in the best of you of... that happens at
different junctures and different ages. But throughout your developing years as a child,
that's essentially what's happening in a healthy, secure attachment. There's that safety from those
parents at home that allows you to go out and explore the world independently. And when that
doesn't happen, we start to notice those anxious attachments, those avoidant attachments, those
mixed attachments, where we don't have that safety at home. And it inhibits our ability to explore
the world outside of us with confidence. So there are a lot of things that can disrupt secure
attachment. Abuse disrupts secure attachment. Neglect disrupts secure attachment.
And also enmeshment can disrupt secure attachment where it's not actually safety in the sense of
that stable home base where this person loves you but does not need you.
When enmeshment occurs, this person loves you to make themselves feel better.
They keep you close to them. There's a sense of closeness that you learn to understand as comfort
when you're doing what the caregiver wants and needs you to do for their sake.
That feels like it's comfort, but it's not actually safety.
So here's what I want you to remember. Healthy parent-child relationships are built on two key
building blocks, connection and separation. Both are necessary.
A parent's job is to help you develop a strong sense of self while also supporting you as you learn
to live your own life. And so this involves encouraging you to learn how to trust your own
instincts, how to make your own decisions, how to explore your own ideas and feelings.
And that leads to healthy individuation. When enmeshment occurs, that process gets thwarted.
You can feel like you're betraying your caregiver. You can feel like you should defer your own
needs, your own instincts, your own decision-making to fulfill the perceived needs of the parent.
Now, there's a really good book. I've recommended this book before. It's a best-selling book by
Lindsay Gibson. It's called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. And there's a reason
this book is everywhere, because she just so clearly lays out what some of these patterns look like
in emotionally immature. And so I'm going to give a really condensed version of how I have noticed
some of these behaviors of an emotionally immature parent showing up. But that's really what's
happening here. It's where a parent doesn't have the maturity to do what the child needs to become
a healthy, autonomous adult. Number one is unpredictability. When you're parents,
emotional states are unpredictable. Maybe they had an undiagnosed mental illness.
Maybe there was an addiction. Maybe they just had a lot of emotional outbursts or any difficulty
managing their own emotions where they couldn't take responsibility for their own emotions.
That can leave a child with that anxious attachment. There isn't that sense of safety.
It's like one day mom is great. The next day mom can't get out of bed. And there's nothing to
explain that. I want to be clear. It's not that parents can't struggle while raising kids.
We can. But we have to be able to name it for them. We have to be able to talk to our kids about
that. Listen, your dad struggles with depression. Sometimes you're going to notice that he has a
hard time getting up. It has nothing to do with you. He's getting help for that. We're working on
that. We love you. Here's what's happening. This isn't your fault, right? It's in the absence of
that communication and that honoring of what's truly happening, the kids begin to make up stories.
This is my fault. And kids start to connect dots that aren't meant to be connected when there's
unpredictability. I come home from school and my mom is really sad today and she's not naming that.
She's crying off in the corner and I can see that and that affects me, but she's not talking to me
about it. I don't know what's happening. So as a child in my little brain, what I assume is this is
my fault. I have to come home from school every day, super duper happy because somehow the way I'm
coming home from school. is making mom behave differently, even when that's not true. So again,
unpredictability is when a parent's emotional state is unpredictable and unaccounted for.
The parent does not take responsibility for what's happening. Another example, a parent loses their
temper and gets really angry. We don't love that. That's not great. That's hard for kids. But what
makes it even harder is when it goes unaddressed and unnamed and unrepaired. If a parent is
struggling with an anger issue and they sometimes come down hard, The ability to come back and say,
I got angry. I have a temper. That is not your fault. You did nothing to evoke that kind of
reaction in me. That's my fault. That's my job. to work through that anger.
That is not your fault, right? We're naming it, which allows the child to release the pain of that,
understand that it's not their fault, and see an adult be an adult. An adult takes responsibility,
an adult takes accountability, and hopefully and presumably the adult begins to make changes as
well. And so that unpredictability can also just be part of neglect. Sometimes a parent's just
absent. They are not in the room. They might not be yelling. They might not be crying. But due to
their own problems and their own heartaches and their own hardships, they're maybe going through
the motions of sitting at the dinner table, of getting you to bed, getting you to school, but
they're absent. There's no emotional presence. And it's erratic.
Sometimes they're present. A lot of times they're not. Kids make up narratives in the absence of
consistency. They will make up a narrative about that. Those narratives are almost always self
-shaming. It's me. It's my fault. I'm the problem, right? It's really hard for you to trust that
someone will show up consistently and reliably. Number two, the other one I see so commonly is what
we call parentification. This occurs when the parent relies on the child to meet the parent's
emotional needs. So if you were conditioned to take care of your parents' emotions,
you became the parent for your parents, you may struggle to understand healthy boundaries in adult
relationships. You may feel like it's your job to be the adult in the room for everyone around you.
You may take on more responsibility for other people's emotions than is your responsibility to
take. It's really hard to change this pattern if you were parentified as a child.
So for example, Even a well-meaning parent, maybe you're a highly empathetic kid.
You're pretty precocious and you can kind of read the cues and you can tell that mom is sad or dad
is upset. And you go to them and you say, oh man, are you okay? And slowly over time,
mom or dad or whoever the person is caring for you just begins to confide in you. Yeah, you know,
this is really hard. And you actually have the ability to be there for them, to...
them through those emotions, to cheer them up, to make them feel better. Maybe as you begin to get
a little older, you might even have wisdom for them. And slowly you start parenting your parent.
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Now listen, when you're in an adult relationship with your parent, this is going to happen a little
more. We do. move into two-way relationships a little bit with our parents as we become adults,
although it's always really a one-way relationship. A parent always has more power than the child,
even in adult parent-child relationships. But man, when you're a kid, if this is the primary means
by which you're relating to a parent is that you're caring for them, it's a big problem because two
things are happening there. Number one, you're learning how to always prioritize someone else over
your own needs. And number two, you're not getting your needs met.
Think about that. You're not getting your needs as a child met. Your parent isn't attuning to you
and attuning to your emotional states and saying things like, I love your empathy.
I love that you care about me, but I want you to know this is not your problem.
This is my problem. I'm the adult here. Thank you for noticing that I was sad.
I appreciate that. And this is not your problem to solve. This is my problem.
I'm an adult. I have other adults who will help me through this. I'm here for you.
I want to know what's going on with you, right? That's what a healthy parent does. In those
situations, it's not that we don't want to honor the empathy of our kids. It's beautiful. But we
don't want to take that slippery slope down to letting our kids parent us. And it happens all the
time. We have to watch that as parents because two things are happening there. They're
overdeveloping that attunement muscle to other people, but they're also underdeveloping what it
feels like to have someone else attune. to them. And this sets you up for all kinds of issues in
adult relationships. When you go into your adulthood, you don't know what it looks like to be in a
relationship with someone who's there for you. You only know how to show up for other people.
And that sets you up for a lot of codependency. It sets you up to be taken advantage. of by other
people. It sets you up for one-way relationships that are unsatisfying where a lack of intimacy
occurs. So this is a big one to understand if you see some of those patterns in your adult life
where you really have a hard time receiving care from others, asking for what you need,
even identifying what you need. It may well be that you grew up in an environment where you had to
be the adult way too soon. And so already from a very young age, you were pretty good at assessing
the needs around you, but you did not know how to be a child and receive the care of someone else.
And that's really important in healthy relationships, the ability to both give out and receive
care. Thirdly, we're going to talk about criticism. If you grew up in a culture of criticism,
constant criticism, this damages your core sense of self. It's really hard for a child to
understand that all of this criticism around me is not actually about me because these are my
parents. They know best. That's what kids think. So all of this criticism that I'm getting,
that must be the truth. I must be a bad kid. I must not be okay. They're criticizing me for a
reason. This is really unhealthy. We don't grow up with a healthy sense of our goodness,
of our God-given worth, of the beauty in our soul. We grow up feeling inferior,
feeling insecure, feeling unworthy. We don't understand inherently that we are a beloved child of
God. Now you can heal, but it is so important to begin to connect those dots and go, you know what?
Part of the reason I can't actually believe in myself and believe that I'm worthy of good love is
that I've never experienced it. I've been told in one way or another that I was worthless, that I
wouldn't amount to anything, that I was a failure, that I could never get anything right. the day I
was born. I don't have any other memories. So how would I know what it's like to internalize an
entirely different message, which is I am beloved. I am worth love.
I'm not perfect. Of course, who is? And I am a beautiful soul made in the image of God.
Number four, control comes in. If you grew up in an environment that was highly controlled.
Now again, Sometimes well-intended parents want to keep you overly safe and they want to control
everything. Sometimes it's out of a good intention. They don't let you take enough healthy risks.
Sometimes it's coming from a selfish motivation where they're more concerned about how they appear
in the world. And so they control your behavior so they can look good in the world to their
friends. They want you to go to the right school or play the right sport or have the right friends,
right? And that's really more about them than it is about you. So whether that's coming from a
desire to keep you from harm and they control too much, or if it's coming from that more self
-serving place. It makes it hard for you when you get into your adult world to understand how to
take healthy risks. So if you grew up in a highly controlled environment, you might go one of two
directions. You might take too many risks and overcorrect and blow everything up, or you might just
be really, really scared and stay really, really small because you've never learned how to develop
that healthy tolerance for some of the uncertainty, some of the stressors even, some of even the
hardships. of life. And then lastly, I want to talk about rescuing.
And I see this in certain types of families where the parents, out of usually a goodness of heart,
they're constantly swooping in and rescuing kids out of any discomfort, out of any hardship.
They're fighting their kids' battles. Now, sometimes as parents, we need to intervene on behalf of
our kids, right? Something's happening that is wrong. There's an injustice and we need to intervene
to protect our kids. That is absolutely true. But in parents who are rescuing, it's those normal,
everyday incidences that are hard. I didn't get invited to this birthday party. And no, they're not
ganging up and bullying me mercilessly. They're just not including me in their group. And it's
really painful. And as a parent, we got to help our kids honor that that's hard and also teach them
how to tolerate the pain of that. Two things can be true, right? You have to learn how to navigate
challenges in life. You have to learn how to do that with your parents there as that safe anchor.
They're never going to leave you, but they're also not always swooping in to rescue you out of it.
Sometimes doing things that are hard or even doing things where we try and we're not successful at
them are really important for our character and our growth. So this thing of rescuing can also
create a situation in which you arrive at adulthood without those necessary skills to tolerate the
things that come our way in life. As adults, there can sometimes be an entitlement.
There's just this constant kind of feeling of being disappointed by other people when maybe, in
fact, those other people are actually exhibiting normal behaviors. They're not taking
responsibility for something that isn't theirs to take. It's actually yours to take responsibility.
So all of this comes down to that separation and connection. How do I stay connected to people
while also understanding what's mine is mine and what's theirs is theirs? And so here are five
questions that you might ask yourself. Maybe you ask a loved one or a trusted advisor related to
these five parenting patterns. If you suspect that they may have an impact on you today, these are
just some questions to think about and notice and wonder about and get curious about because it
will help you begin to frame your experience so that you can take brave steps toward healing.
So the first one, as it relates to unpredictability, how do I react? when someone I care about is
emotionally volatile or inconsistent? Do I find myself constantly trying to manage their feelings
or walking on eggshells? And if you notice that inside of you, that when someone else is
emotionally volatile or inconsistent, it sort of triggers a part of you that's like, oh, I need to
do something to fix that. I need to change something about myself to fix their feelings.
That's a cue that there's a wound there. that you could begin to heal. Because the truth is,
if someone else is emotionally volatile, that's their responsibility to work through that.
It's your responsibility to be aware, to notice what happens inside of you, to take responsibility
for yourself in that moment. It's not your responsibility to try to fix their emotions.
Number two, as it relates to parentification, do I feel responsible for taking care of others'
emotional needs before my own? In my adult relationships, do I struggle to ask for help or set
boundaries because I'm so used to always prioritizing others? And just notice that.
Notice if that's true. My default is just to immediately take care of them, immediately go to their
needs, whether it's your friends, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your own parents. I've got
to take care of them. I've got to be the bigger person. I've got to do what they need. Versus
sitting with the sometimes uncomfortable feeling of I wonder what I need in this situation from
myself or from another person. And that may be just that beginning to notice the effects of that
parentification in your own adult life. And then number three, when it comes to criticism,
how do I respond to feedback or criticism from others? Do I immediately internalize it,
criticize myself, or feel like I need to perfect myself? to avoid being judged.
In other words, if I notice criticism around me or even any healthy feedback,
do I immediately assume I'm at fault? I must have gotten it wrong. I've got to do better.
And if so, that's something to notice. What if instead I could take a deep breath and wonder,
is it true? Is that criticism even about me? Or is it more about this other person?
It's possible this has nothing to do with me. It's possible I haven't done anything wrong.
And you can begin to build up that new muscle. Number four, control.
Do I find it difficult to make decisions without seeking approval or validation from others?
Am I able to pursue my own interests or do I feel pressure to live up to the expectations of
others? And just notice. If I were to vote a certain way, if I were to attend a certain church,
if I were to wear a certain article of clothing as an adult, is there just sort of this internal
backlash where it's like, I can't do that. I'd get in trouble. Even though I'm an adult and even
though I'm not doing anything wrong, I'm just doing something a little bit different than other
people. Just notice that. Begin to pay attention. What if I could challenge myself to take some
small steps toward autonomy, toward doing some things that I like to do,
even though they're different from what I was taught was okay.
And you might start with some low-hanging fruit, right? It might start with something you wear, a
food that you eat. That's just a little bit different than what you were allowed as a child.
And then number five, rescuing. When facing challenges, do I tend to rely on others to bail me out,
to fix things for me? Or do I feel empowered to tackle problems on my own? How comfortable am I
with allowing others to fail and learn from their mistakes? How often am I wanting to swoop in and
rescue others? That might be another way this shows up. And just notice that. And maybe ask for
feedback, again, from a trusted advisor, because you're beginning to identify patterns. There's a
reason you're this way. Likely this goes all the way back to childhood. So these questions should
help you identify how these early patterns might still be affecting your adult life and your
relationships. And I want you to remember this above all else. Healing starts with you.
No matter what happened in your past, you have the power to begin to change some of these patterns.
You can do this inside of you. It starts with just beginning to notice and name some of these
patterns and beginning to entertain just the thought, what if it could be different?
What if there was another way? And you will begin to unlock the natural God-given healing inside
of your soul. Because no matter what happened to you in the past, your body is designed with a bent
toward healing. Invite God's spirit into that process and ask God to begin to nudge you when one of
those patterns is showing up in your life. And I promise you, you will begin to see numerous
opportunities and numerous occasions to make a tiny change.
One brave step at a time.
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.
Scripture is powerful.
It has the power to comfort, guide, convict, and restore. But when it's taken out of context or used to control, it can also leave deep wounds.
In this conversation, Dr. Alison sits down with theologian and Mending the Soul co-founder Dr. Steven Tracy to explore how Scripture can be used as medicine—or as poison—for those who have experienced abuse.
Together, they unpack some of the most commonly misused passages around submission, forgiveness, honoring parents, and divorce, while offering a more faithful way of reading Scripture: one that reflects God's heart for the vulnerable, the oppressed, and the wounded.
Here’s what you’ll cover
* Why spiritually abusive people often weaponize Scripture
* How to recognize the difference between biblical truth and spiritual manipulation
* What God reveals about His heart for those experiencing abuse
* Why humility matters when we interpret Scripture
* How healthy boundaries honor both God and human dignity
* How survivors can begin rebuilding trust in both God and His Word
Whether you've experienced spiritual abuse yourself, love someone who has, or simply want to handle Scripture with greater wisdom and compassion, this conversation offers both clarity and hope.
Because God's Word was never meant to keep you trapped in harm.
It was always meant to lead you toward healing.
More Resources:
Read Dr. Steven Tracy’s book: To Heal or Harm
connect with Dr. Steven Tracy's ministry, Mending the Soul.
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 163: Healing Spiritual Wounds – Understanding Abuse in Faith Spaces
Episode 17: What is Church Hurt and How Do I Heal?
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey everyone. I’m Dr. Alison, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Today’s conversation is a powerful one. My guest is Dr. Steven Tracy, theologian and the co-founder of Mending the Soul, a global mission dedicated to resourcing and equpinpping community and faith leaders in informed and compassionate responses to those impacted by abuse.
He is the author of a new book called To Heal or Harm: Scripture’s Use as Poison or Medicine for Abuse Survivors.
And that title really says it all.
Because Scripture is powerful. It is living and active. It can comfort us, ground us, guide us, correct us, and bring us back to the heart of God. But because Scripture is powerful, when it is misused—when it is twisted, weaponized, or wielded by someone seeking power or control—it can also cause devastating harm.
For so many abuse survivors, including many of you, the wound is not only what happened to you. It’s what was said to you in God’s name afterward.
“You need to forgive.”
“You need to submit.”
“You need to honor your father and mother.”
“God hates divorce.”
“Don’t gossip.”
“Don’t be bitter.”
“Don’t touch God’s anointed.”
These are words and ideas taken from Scripture, but when they are ripped from the larger heart of God, they can become tools of silencing instead of pathways to healing.
And that is what Steve helps us name today.
One of the most painful realities we talk about today is that sometimes the most vulnerable people are the ones most easily harmed by distorted theology because they genuinely want to obey God. They want to be faithful. They want to be gracious. They want to forgive. They want to do what Scripture says.
And yet faithfulness to God never means surrendering your dignity to someone who is destroying you.
That’s where I want to pause for a moment with a passage from Exodus 3 that Steven will expand on in today’s episode. God says to Moses:
“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them.”
That passage gives us such a clear picture of God’s heart.
God sees.
God hears.
God knows.
God comes down to deliver.
God does not minimize oppression. He does not spiritualize abuse. He does not ask the vulnerable to pretend they are fine in order to protect the powerful. God sees the affliction of his people. He hears their cries. He knows their suffering—not just intellectually, but personally, compassionately, intimately. And he moves toward them with deliverance.
That matters so much for anyone who has been taught, explicitly or implicitly, that God is mostly concerned with preserving appearances, protecting institutions, or keeping a family together at any cost.
The God of Scripture is not indifferent to harm. He is not unmoved by suffering. He is not aligned with the abuser. He is near to the brokenhearted. He protects the vulnerable. He exposes what is hidden. He tells the truth.
In this conversation, Steve helps us understand how Scripture can be misused in marriage, in families, in churches, and in counseling contexts. We talk about common passages that get weaponized around submission and forgiveness. And We also talk about how to read Scripture with humility, with wisdom, and with special attention to those who are vulnerable.
One of the things I appreciated most about Steve is his posture. He has deep theological training, but he also speaks with humility. He names how much he has learned from survivors, from women, from marginalized communities, and from people whose life experiences helped him see things in Scripture he had previously missed.
That kind of humility matters. Because when Scripture is interpreted from a place of unchecked power, it can be used to protect the powerful. But when we come to Scripture with humility, with reverence, and with the heart of Jesus, we begin to see again and again that God’s heart bends toward the wounded, the oppressed, the silenced, and the vulnerable.
So whether you are a survivor yourself, whether you love someone who has been harmed, or whether you are a pastor, counselor, leader, or friend who wants to help without causing more harm, I think this conversation will give you language, clarity, and hope.
The title of Steve’s book is To Heal or Harm. And my prayer as you listen is that Scripture would become again what God intended it to be—not a weapon used against you, but a place where you encounter the God who sees you, hears you, knows your suffering, and comes near to bring healing.
Please enjoy my conversation with STeve Tracy
Alison (00:10.962)
So Steve, you start this book, such a powerful book, and there's a lot in it, but you start with a story of a woman named Cheryl. And the title of the book is To Heal or Harm, right? To Heal or Harm. And she is an example of someone for whom scripture was used in a harmful, very harmful manner. Can you share with my listeners who haven't read the book yet?
A little bit about her story and why it was an important place for you to start to frame this conversation.
steve tracy (00:47.296)
Absolutely. I was introduced to Cheryl through my wife Celeste, through their friendship and
Celesta's ministry and Cheryl's life. And Celesta just spoken so highly of Cheryl and said, This woman is has such a heart for Christ, and she just wants nothing but to honor the Lord, follow Scripture, and sadly Scripture has been really leveraged against her. but I just heard such respect from Celeste for Cheryl as she was in a horrible
Abusive marriage, but but trying to figure out, you know, she had a spiritually abusive husband with with advanced degrees in theology who just weaponized scripture against her. She'd grown up in a very fundamentalistic church that weaponized scripture against her. So she really illustrated at the highest level, most destructive level, how
A man or a woman who wants to follow God has and obeys scripture actually can find themselves in tremendous bondage because of that heart to honor God and follow scripture, when scripture is misused. And Charles
Alison (01:53.278)
Yeah.
Alison (02:09.737)
Yeah.
steve tracy (02:11.563)
become a dear friend and I we just so so respect the journey she's been on and she graciously agreed to you know write that introduction to the book really it comes out of a lot of pain but there it's a beautiful sequel in that we've just seen the Lord's healing in her life and rebuilding, restoring. So she kind of symbolizes the the whole picture of the the harm
Alison (02:24.361)
Yeah.
steve tracy (02:39.935)
scriptures weaponized, but that's not the end of the story. It need not be the end of the story. th those same scriptures that were mu used against us can be a tremendous source of life and healing. So, yeah. She covers the whole thing.
Alison (02:43.049)
Yeah.
Alison (02:54.771)
I love I love how you talk about this because you you talk in the book and it and it really makes sense because scripture's powerful. So when it is weaponized, when it is used against us, it's powerful, but it is also so powerful for healing. I always think of the the verse in Song of Solomon that says, Love is as strong as death. The the love of scripture, the love of God is stronger. but
steve tracy (03:17.74)
Yes.
Alison (03:24.625)
You say in the book, and I think it's a really well put that scripture can become poison or medicine, especially for abuse survivors. And tell unpack that a little bit. What is it? Why is you know, why is it so powerful? How you you know, you're you're kind of getting at it with Cheryl's story, but it's like we we want to follow scripture. So we're primed for a vulnerability there if someone is mis.
using it, especially if we're being already being silenced or abused or or a victim. What have you seen in in how's you know, how that happens and why it's so powerful in that way?
steve tracy (04:06.966)
Yeah. abusers take advantage of vulnerabilities, naivities. abusers and not that one size fits all. There's as many kinds of abusers as there are people, but there are certainly gent some general characteristics. And I liken liken abusers to sharks that n that smell blood in the water. They're looking for the vulnerabilities. So often it's
individuals that just have a an innocent, naive trust, you know, think children, others, that that can be so taken advantage of. Or or an an an innocent, naive again, desire to do what's right. And that's a good thing, but if it's not coupled with life experience and wisdom, and it's that's not a judgmental statement, you know,
sometimes we we just haven't had certain experiences so we're we're naive, not in any kind of a bad sense other than we're more vulnerable 'cause you don't know what you don't know. And abusers take advantage of that. that just innocent desire to honor God.
Alison (05:17.535)
Yeah.
Alison (05:24.608)
Yeah.
steve tracy (05:25.334)
That's beautiful, but if you're if you're not astute to the reality of evil, the the the characteristics of evildoers, boy that that can just be deadly. And so often Christians because we want to be trusting and loving, etcetera,
We don't want to be mean. We don't set the boundaries that we need to set. And I know just from looking at your website, you talk, I think, quite a bit about boundaries that's actually necessary. but if if we don't understand that, we don't know how to do that, we can be really vulnerable. And then scripture is kind of the ultimate tool, so to speak, in a spiritual context. It's God's word. So if I can just
dump scripture on you, I I've I've got the trump card, right? Well, unless you know how to interpret it for yourself with some confidence, then I I you you stand condemned. Like you have to do what I say because I'm saying what God says, so you have to do it. And that that's how this often works.
Alison (06:22.686)
Yes. That's right.
Alison (06:33.47)
Yes.
Alison (06:39.004)
Yeah, and this is the essence of spiritual abuse, right? Taking the name of God in vain, you know, misusing the name of God for power and control and manipulation and ill intent, which is just you such the heart of the work that you're doing, you and your wife, as you're trying to help people heal. yes, I so so Steve, my a lot of my audience, we talk a lot about.
steve tracy (06:42.531)
Right.
steve tracy (06:49.75)
Right. Right.
Okay.
Alison (07:06.098)
And it comes a lot out of my own story of being high in empathy, a natural kind of people pleaser, but but that sort of fond response that has been conditioned, and then it's reinforced in many ways by faith culture. Just as you're saying, we want to be kind. And there's a real genuineness behind that. and I always think of the verse, it's just becomes such a a powerful verse for me. Be shrewd.
steve tracy (07:27.938)
Right.
Alison (07:34.226)
As the snake and innocent as the dove, right? It's both. We have to be shrewd and wise. And for some people, one of the other of those is easier. But for many of the people in my audience, it's learning that the shrewd ways where you can kind of outwit the person who's trying to take advantage of you.
steve tracy (07:37.432)
Love that. Right, right.
steve tracy (07:54.349)
Yeah, ab absolutely. And honestly, I think it's more difficult in the evangelical culture for women. In the sense that there's just a lot of kind of innate patriarchy. I don't want to get into a whole gender role discussion here. That's not my point, but if a man sets boundaries often in an evangelical church context, that's okay, he's just being a man.
Alison (08:01.715)
Yes.
Alison (08:22.42)
Yeah.
steve tracy (08:23.32)
But if a woman stands up for herself and sets boundaries, often that's that that's frowned on at best and really demeaned at worst. And that's that that's
Manifestly un unfair and wrong. Every human it doesn't matter whether you're a man or a woman, this isn't a gender issue. You have a right biblically to set boundaries. And and we need to be able to affirm that for people. There's a way to do it, of course. but that's not being ungodly, unloving, etc., if we set healthy boundaries.
Alison (09:03.048)
Yeah. I love that. So there's two directions I really want to go. One is getting at what you're saying, this idea of how power and and even hermeneutics, how interpreting scripture can get misused. the other way I wanna go is more practical. I wanna start there and then circle back to some of the scripture interpretation stuff. Because I remember when I was I first started seminary, because I did my
Initial masters in counseling at a at a seminary. And I remember my professors saying it was the first time I'd heard this, everybody brings a lens to scripture. And just because you're Protestant or just because you're evangelical, you know, our our Catholic brothers and sisters, I think, you know, you can you can argue with some of the theologies, but they do understand that we're bringing an interpretive lens to scripture. But so are are we Protestants, so are we evangelicals. And you again, you can bring one that's harmful or you can bring one
steve tracy (09:40.558)
Right.
Alison (10:00.926)
And I love how you land on this in the book that honors the most vulnerable. I I just I think that is such a powerful place that you land. I guess I just went in that, I guess I just went down that path. So we'll go down that path. we'll come back to the actual scriptures in a bit for those of you listening. But I just I think it's important to zoom up for a second and go, how are we approaching the text? Because
You can you can approach the text with ill intent, but you can also be naive in approaching the t the text and do harm. So tell me a little bit about how you arrived. You you've studied, you know, you've been a pastor, you've been in seminary, you've studied scripture, that this idea that we have to read it through the lens of the most vulnerable.
steve tracy (10:55.758)
Yeah, well I would even even move it up twenty thousand more feet at the highest level and say, I really think the starting point in most respects for sound interpretation of scripture, technical word is hermeneutics, is is to begin with a humble receptive posture. And you know, i in our flesh we
Alison (11:01.512)
Yes, yes.
steve tracy (11:24.908)
we tend to not recognize our own vulnerabilities and biases, etc. And that's not only about sin. It's also just about, you know, we're we're products of our culture. So we we breathe the air around us, so to speak. So if
There are certain things that aren't even questioned. If we lived roughly 150 years ago in the South as Christians, we would have thought, with very few exceptions, that slavery was thoroughly biblical. And and it's easy for us in 2026 to look back and say, what idiots they were. How could they have thought that? But
again, we're w we're products of our culture in in so many ways and so we have lenses that we don't even recognize. We we just it's just how we think.
culture as well as sin, but it's both. They're not the same. But that that feeds in it creates a like a you know lens through which we read scripture. So having a humble receptive posture is the beginning place. Just in essence saying to yourself, and I would often tell my seminary students this, have often said this,
You have and I some really wrong beliefs. But here's the scary thing. Most of them we're not aware of. But I think that's a fair starting place to assume because we're fallible, finite, and sinful human beings, there's some things that we think that are not right.
steve tracy (13:15.648)
And how are we gonna have those surfaced? The only way is if we have a a humble receptive posture. One of the things coming back, Alison, to your comment about
Alison (13:21.876)
Good.
steve tracy (13:29.592)
the vulnerable, the marginalized. I I'm the pinnacle of power, right? I I'm white, I'm male, at least in the church world, I have a PhD in biblical studies, like, you know, how in the world am I gonna recognize some of my wrong thinking if I am not willing to listen to the voices of those with very different experiences?
I shudder in hindsight at some of the things I th thought, said, as a young pastor right out of seminary. my goodness. I I was clueless to the experiences of the marginalized of women, people of color, of of abuse survivors. Those weren't my experiences. So my world was so different, and the only way I could and I read scripture accordingly.
Alison (14:18.228)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alison (14:27.199)
Wow.
steve tracy (14:28.494)
But in over the years, God's really humbled me in a countless ways. And I've learned to listen to those voices. It's not that scripture changes, but the lens that I have through which I read scripture has dramatically shifted. And so I see things in the text I just didn't see before. they were there, but I didn't see them. So yeah.
Alison (14:50.912)
Interesting. It's that's powerful what you're saying, that it was through your own. I love that emphasis on humility because there is humility, your willingness to be with others whose stories were so different from your own that challenged. Was there any specific moment or one that stands out of that lens?
getting shattered or at least challenged because I think that can be that's that's a very formational process to open yourself to that.
steve tracy (15:30.536)
absolutely. one of those most pivotal moments, it was really a I mean, I look back on it and say, This is the grace of God. cause Steve Tracy needed some massive reframe in his thinking. I share it in the book. I was doing a s
part of a preaching series. I was one of the teaching pastors and we were doing a series on family life. And my goodness, I had a master's in theology, so I and I could read it from the Greek. So I mean I had it wired, right? And I preached one of the sermons on on family life and I thought frankly it was an excellent sermon. And
Monday morning I had a a letter in my box from a young woman in our church. she was in our singles ministry. I ov I oversaw singles among other things. And she unloaded both barrels on me. And and it was very appropriately so. And she basically said, I I've sat through four or five weeks now of sermons on the family. She said it nicer than this, but basically said, You guys are clueless.
You you're telling us to honor our parents, to forgive, to submit. Do you know what it's like to flee from an abusive father who who beats you senseless? Do you know what it's like to be woken up in the middle of the night by your mother fleeing for her life with her children? And then you tell us we're simply supposed to forgive, submit, respect, on and on. Before you
Alison (16:53.632)
Yeah.
steve tracy (17:12.788)
Issue your grand again, she said it much more kindly, but what I heard from the Spirit was before you issue your grand pronouncements, start listening to the experiences of your flock that are different from your own, and you will be addressing scripture different differently. That was a moment of tremendous humbling for me.
Alison (17:17.525)
Yeah.
Alison (17:31.61)
Mm. Wow.
Alison (17:37.684)
Yeah.
steve tracy (17:38.019)
And I have gone back and apologized to that woman. but that was one of the bigger moments. Going to Africa for the first time in 2007 was the second. it was and and that was to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I've been over twenty times now.
have staff there. It's been called the rape epicenter of the world. There's a level of violence, particularly against women, that's it it just takes your breath away, gives you literal nightmares, but God's it work in profound ways. But that first conference, initially it was how can these people be so
malignantly patriarchal and how can they be defending all this? And and we were there almost a month and then they started in appropriate ways challenging me about things that I'd never thought about.
Alison (18:35.624)
Mm.
steve tracy (18:37.774)
from forgiveness to honoring parents to respect for the elderly to a variety of things. And it and God just overwhelmingly convicted me that I had looked down on people of another culture because I could see certain things that really don't accord with scripture.
But I was completely oblivious to things in my culture that I didn't even question. And they were pointing that out. And that was a second one
Alison (19:04.584)
Mm.
steve tracy (19:08.366)
It was painful, but boy, I needed that. So that's that's just really given those two events in particular. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of others, but those were particularly powerful in just surfacing my need to come to life and especially scripture with some humbleness, a lot of humbleness, and and receptivity. Lord show me. I I love what David says at the end of Psalm 139 when he has spent
Alison (19:12.329)
Yeah.
Alison (19:31.22)
Yeah.
steve tracy (19:38.413)
the whole chapter, or the author, saying, God knows everything about me. If I go to the highest heavens, he's there. If I go to the shield, he's there. Before there's a word on my tongue, he knows it, you know, etc. He knows everything about me. But then you get to the very end of Psalm 139.
Says, search me, O God, and know me. Well, that's not for God's benefit. He's just said God knows everything. That's for the author's benefit. and see if there's any unhealthy way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting, the way of righteousness. He he's saying, God, I'm assuming there's there's there's
Alison (20:03.434)
Yeah.
Alison (20:11.348)
Yeah, yeah.
Alison (20:19.36)
Mm.
steve tracy (20:29.27)
All kinds of things that are unhealthy in my heart. I don't see and you see, please reveal that to me. That should be our posture coming to Scripture. God, I'm sure I've got some s some things wrong here, but I don't know what they are. Show me, Lord. And often what God will use to show us will be other brothers and sisters who've had a very different life experience.
Alison (20:41.501)
Yes.
Yeah.
Alison (20:55.028)
Yeah.
steve tracy (20:55.81)
that see things differently. Their experiences are different. And that'll maybe wake up some things in us that need to be woken up, a a shift of perspective. And it's particularly needed right now. in our culture, we are so polarized. It it's, you know, you're on the right or you're on the left. And then that's light and dark. I mean, there is no middle ground. There's no discussion.
Alison (21:21.205)
I know.
steve tracy (21:23.456)
And we can't learn from each other. And that's not just sad, but it's tragic. Because there's error on the right and the left in every way, you know. W we need to learn from each other, but only a humble receptive posture is gonna let us get those insights that ultimately then are gonna help shape and correct.
Alison (21:31.954)
It's tragic.
steve tracy (21:51.116)
Misconceptions when we come to reading God's word.
Alison (21:54.611)
It it is so everything you're saying is so profound and so countercultural to your point. I I find myself I do a part part for for many of the reasons you do the work you do, I do a now a daily devotional podcast where I I bring sort of psychological wisdom to scripture and I'm very clear. I'm not trying to argue the the doctrines, I'm simply trying to highlight these themes that I think are so evident, themes like attachment and
steve tracy (22:00.046)
Yeah.
Alison (22:24.582)
And securiti and you know, God's love that are in the scripture and suffering and things that don't often get highlighted. And I've heard from so many people that say, Gosh, I I it's so helpful to hear that you know, I I was kind of almost inoculated against those scriptures because of the way they've been used for harm, but then you see them from a different light. And I I say that because sometimes I I sh I personally have
Shy away from taking on some of the, and I guess where I'm going with this is humble receptivity doesn't mean we don't have beliefs. It doesn't mean we don't have opinions. It doesn't mean we don't care. But it does mean we are more interested. I guess I would say I I'm not as interested in being right. I I'm I have, and it gets to me at psych the psychology of differentiation. I can hold.
steve tracy (23:04.312)
Absolutely. Right.
Alison (23:21.48)
A view, I can hold an opinion and also understand that I'm still probably missing some things and I have something to learn from you. And that's just hard. Those kinds of conversations are in the public space. I can lots of people in private I'll have those conversations with are very hard to come by. Very hard to come by.
steve tracy (23:43.032)
So hard to come by. my goodness. but we are
I'll use the word impoverished if we don't have those conversations. We're we'll be in an echo chamber. And then if we're not careful, the only podcasts we listen to, the only news that we listen to, will all reflect our our preconceptions. And so so they just reinforce what we already believe, some of which is dead wrong.
Alison (23:54.942)
Ooh.
Alison (23:58.784)
Mm-hmm.
Alison (24:14.973)
Exactly.
steve tracy (24:23.124)
So we we've gotta have those conversations and voices.
And and and you rightly say, Alison, it doesn't mean we don't have convictions, but this is how we sharpen our convictions. And even if nothing changes in our conviction, it will dramatically change how we view other people. Even if at the end of the conversation we s we still think our conviction is right and that other posture is wrong, and it may well be that we change, but let's assume we don't change. We will look at that other person.
Alison (24:43.498)
Good.
Alison (24:55.337)
Yeah.
steve tracy (24:58.96)
Differently. There'll be a level of compassion that's and understanding that wasn't there before. And that is that's the heart of Jesus. Like he, there's a reason it was the spiritual leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, that hated him and the sinners that flocked to him. And it
Alison (25:19.657)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yes.
steve tracy (25:24.262)
Obviously Jesus had, I mean to use your language, strong convictions, of course, but the way he lived those out was was with such tenderness, such compassion, such understanding. You know, like the woman at the well in John 4. He's not justifying immorality in the least, but he he had such an app
Alison (25:29.246)
Yes.
steve tracy (25:53.135)
appreciation i i in the sense of deep understanding of her woundedness. She wasn't just a Samaritan, let alone just a slut, basically. That's she was engaging in inappropriate behavior, but that that wasn't all he saw the person and the need.
Alison (26:14.046)
Yes. What's the whole story? Yeah. Yeah.
steve tracy (26:16.94)
Right. And that's what we want to learn to do. Jesus models this for us. So we need to do it, especially now in this horrifically polarized age where we slap a label on someone and they're woke, they're right, they're left, whatever, and then we don't hear anything they have to say and we don't learn. We're not challenged and they're they're just a label and not a human being that needs compassion.
Alison (26:22.048)
Yeah, he does.
Alison (26:39.701)
Yeah.
Alison (26:46.28)
Amen. Yeah. Well said. What Steve, what are I'm just curious, in your years of work in the trenches and hearing people's stories, what are some of the most common ways you've seen scripture weaponized, especially in marriage, family, and church contexts?
steve tracy (27:06.39)
Yeah. A as far as specific texts.
Alison (27:10.196)
Yeah, sure.
steve tracy (27:15.186)
It's probably yeah, I mean dozens of texts immediately come to mind. you know, I I give the example Allison in the book years ago when we still lived in Phoenix. We live in Portland, Oregon now, and boy, that's a tale of two cities. Talking about being able to appreciate and understand both both sides politically.
Alison (27:34.378)
Yeah.
Yes, I bet.
steve tracy (27:38.815)
Which has been been really good for for a lot of reasons. But at this time, it was probably close to 20 years ago, one of our board members was on the Phoenix City Council and had a tremendous heart for abuse and abused women in particular and and sponsored a lot of domestic violence programs in the city of Phoenix. So she got me in with all of the domestic violence directors. not
Not just faith-based, but that time there were 12, 14 primary DV shelters, and she got me an audience with all of them, set it up, had me do a presentation, you know, 20-30 minutes on mending the soul and our resources for for abused women, children. And then I took took some QA time and I watched one woman like you can feel the energy, you can like and it was
She was just about to burst. So she I mean, the second I finished and and asked if there are any questions, she literally just jumped up and blurted out, What does many of the soul say about wives smitting? And she in essence was quoting from Ephesians five twenty-four. And again, most of these were not
Alison (28:51.637)
Yeah.
Alison (28:56.756)
Yeah. Yeah.
steve tracy (29:02.978)
Faith based shelters, a couple of them were, most weren't, mainly trained social workers, but boy, all and these were all female directors and w she articulated you could tell what they were all asking. I mean they're all their heads are nodding and I'm on the spot, like what can you say about women submit and everything. So I think that's probably the most commonly as f as it relates to family life, and and the husband's the head from First Corinthians eleven one would be a close second. Those those are really
Alison (29:15.934)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alison (29:32.298)
Mm.
steve tracy (29:32.865)
overlapping though those two texts because on the face if you don't look if you don't use sound hermeneutics you don't apply don't look at the context you don't let scripture interpret scripture you could take both of those to as many do and say the man has all the power the woman just need to submit that's God's plan and if you're not submitting you're out of the will of God end of discussion and if you do that with those texts that we have we have
basically given a carte blanche opportunity for abuse and it's done in the name of obeying scripture. So that's
Alison (30:10.291)
Yeah. yeah.
Alison (30:15.774)
Yeah. How do you so with something like either those scriptures or others, how do you begin to entangle what they actually mean? How how do you approach that? Because I I know sometimes in my own work what I will do is immediately say, I'm not here to to to jump into a debate on whether you're egalitarian or complementarian. I I what I am here to do is say whatever you're you know, believe
you you you that you have to be risk you know we have to honor human dignity. but sometimes I don't know if that's you know how how do you you know so I always try to disarm the immediate like what I feel like is often a red herring like what's the correct interpretation versus what is actually harming human souls? And and and that's sort of my therapeutic lens.
steve tracy (30:51.363)
Right.
Yeah.
steve tracy (31:12.31)
Yeah.
Alison (31:12.518)
Right. So for example, if I have a man and a woman in my office, I I've never done a lot of couples counseling, but let's say, you know, to me it's like I it's less about trying to get the guy to to to have a different doctrine. And it's more about what how can we honor this woman sitting in front of you? Or less about having the woman have a different doctrine and more about how do you honor this person God made you to be? That's my bottom line conviction. But I guess I'm curious because you've been a pastor.
Ан сортов аз а терапист, томі дас ава інте.
steve tracy (31:42.051)
Yeah.
steve tracy (31:45.91)
Yeah, and that's a fair approach at that in that context.
Alison (31:47.614)
I'm curious how you how you try to untangle that. Do you think
There are inherently harmful doctrines that actually need to be dismantled, or how do you actually kind of dig into teasing out the the passage from the harmful ways they've been applied?
steve tracy (32:08.492)
Yeah, excellent question. And given my biblical studies training, I go ahead and go for the details. That's what I'm trained to do. But I I agree with you in that you know, in in this book I don't get into issues of ordaining women. I have some real strong views. I'm and if
Alison (32:09.874)
Okay.
Alison (32:18.142)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alison (32:27.55)
Right.
Yeah.
steve tracy (32:35.202)
I'm not afraid to say Slus and I are I don't even like the complementarian egalitarian language 'cause biblically I think both sides are believe in gender complementation. The question is whether it's hierarchical, in a power sense. I I'd rather use mutualist hierarchical as the two categories. But I I don't get into ordaining women in the book, even though I come we
Alison (32:50.377)
Interesting.
Alison (32:57.93)
Interesting.
Ye like the hot button issues, you don't
steve tracy (33:04.15)
Well, it's a i it's a hot button. I'm p not at all afraid to have that discussion, but I try to build on common ground that whether or not one believes that in in more traditional gender roles so to speak, surely from the biblical text we should be able to agree to these things.
Alison (33:26.272)
Hmm, that's good.
steve tracy (33:29.686)
I I do and it's probably the lengthiest or at least this one of the lengthiest sections of the book is is unpacking Ephesians 524. Again, I don't approach it in terms primarily of of model gender model of marriage, but just note several things right in the text that will rule out abuses.
Alison (33:56.97)
Yes.
steve tracy (33:57.419)
Starting with the fact that that the paragraph begins in verse 21, and that's indisputable, because there is no verb in verse 22. The the verb is assumed from verse 21. and then
Everyone all exegetes agree on that. So the the paragraph on guidelines for husbands, wives and marriage begins with submitting one to another in verse twenty one. Now not all self-identified complementarians agree with me here, but I give arguments for saying, no, that's
That's mutual, that's back and forth. And other passages of scripture support that, particularly first Corinthians seven, one through five, in a context of s sexuality in marriage, sexual intimacy, Paul expressly says the wife does not have
Alison (34:41.534)
Yeah.
steve tracy (34:57.868)
authentic authority over her own body, but the husband does, and then he flips it upside down and says the husband doesn't have authority over his own body, but the wife does. I mean that's as mutual as you could ever ask for. So I think that's a very relevant. It's the same author and it's a similar topic. So you know, those are the kind of observations from the text that help really temper even if you one believes that
Alison (35:08.202)
Yeah.
steve tracy (35:27.182)
God has ordained gender roles in a hierarchical way in marriage, there's per I I I call it parameters of submission. some guidelines that we should all be able to agree on, whether one comes from a
Alison (35:37.198)
Mm, mm-hmm.
steve tracy (35:46.157)
self-labeled complementarian or egalitarian position. and then secondly right out of that that passage in Ephesians four, it it's it's amazing to me how and we see this so often with abusive men, they just want to camp on wives submit and completely ignore
the broader context, I mean it's it's just right there in those verses that describe what male I mean if you wanna use male headship language, male authority language, that describe what that looks like. It looks like
self-sacrifice patterned after Jesus who gave himself for his bride the church putting others' needs above one's own, you know, and nurturing for well being. We all wherever we're at on the continuum, we should be able to to agree, 'cause that's what's right there in the text. And if you get that
Alison (36:25.63)
Yeah. Yeah. Laying down your life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's Amen. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
steve tracy (36:52.426)
Man, you've precluded abuse. And that's out of the picture.
Alison (36:54.686)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I like that. That's a I really like how you're describing it's it's about mutualism, regardless of where you land on some of the and being like Jesus. That's the baseline. You can't you can't you can't really argue with that. and if your if if your doctrine is yeah. Yeah. Ha how how you gosh, I could just I could talk to you all day, Stephen. I wanna I do wanna get to this question.
steve tracy (37:10.274)
Yeah.
steve tracy (37:14.008)
Shouldn't
Alison (37:26.568)
We've kind of teased out the way scripture can harm. As you've worked with people with especially survivors of abuse, how do you begin to help people separate out God's actual heart from the distorted image of God through scripture? So that because understandably, sometimes folks, when they come out of abuse, ditch the whole the whole shebang because it's been used against them. How do you help?
steve tracy (37:54.456)
Yeah.
Alison (37:56.171)
Folks, and give I'm curious of some maybe some words of of hope that you've seen. And I know you we kind of brings us back to Cheryl's story.
steve tracy (38:05.708)
Yeah. again, e excellent question. I I was very recently did an online training for 150 or so Spanish speaking leaders from twelve different countries and heard some of the most heartbreaking stories, testimonies of of abuse and what what some of these people, men and women had
experienced and also heard God's redemption. But what I focused on in that training and that's what I would pass on here is again it comes back to scripture but taking different biblical texts that describe God's response to abuse and letting that be our paradigm.
It's easy and we don't want to discount our experiences, but we also wanna be sensitive to the fact that our experiences how we interpret our experiences may be f
may be colored, may may be off. And so that's where scripture can be that healthy corrective. And we look in the book of Exodus, I think it's chapter three, when God sees the children of Israel in bondage, they're in slavery. and and the the language that's used there is is is very specific and graphic of their being just ground.
Yeah.
steve tracy (39:42.103)
You know, it's it's metaphorical, but basically they're being crushed by abuse. And then we we read and it's a fourfold response. This tells us God's response to abuse when especially when we feel like he doesn't see, he doesn't care, where is he? this tells us, and it says God saw maybe I should even read it, because it's just so beautiful, and I actually weave
the a whole chapter of the book toward the end around this Exodus 3 7 God said I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt so God sees our our woundedness the things we've experienced that that are so destructive I have heard their cry
Because they're ta of their taskmasters. so he sees what's happened. He hears our cries as we cry out in our pain. I know their sufferings. And and the language here in Hebrew suggests not just cognition, but a heart response. God feels our pain. And I go so far and I make this argument in the book that God God suffers when we suffer.
Alison (40:58.581)
Mm, mm, mm.
steve tracy (41:10.348)
theologians have debated whether in fact God suffers emotionally, and the consensus historically has been that God's perfect so he can't suffer. I I absolutely reject that 'cause that's not what scripture says. Scripture says God is moved
Alison (41:23.146)
Hmm. Yeah.
steve tracy (41:28.76)
When his children suffer. And and moved in the sense that he feels our pain. He suffers with us. in Isaiah sixty three it says regarding the Israelites who were suffering because of their own sinful choices, in all their affliction he was afflicted.
That's a different view of God. When I, his child, ache, my heavenly father aches. So that's that's God's third response is he he he feels, he suffers with us. And then finally, I have come down to deliver them. You know, supremely we see that in Christ. You know, if we wonder, well, where's God when we suffer? And and of course in our work I'm I'm asked that frequently. you know, where was God when my
Grandfather was raping me, etc., etc. And I can't, no, no theologian can completely answer that question, but I know from Exodus 3 and many other texts that God has a plan for deliverance. And I see that first and foremost in Christ. He's not this detached up on Mount Olympus like the Greek gods, unmoved.
Alison (42:31.552)
Mm.
steve tracy (42:42.638)
mover. No, he came into this world and suffered with us and for us and he continues to. But he has a plan. He's working a plan. he comes down to deliver. So those four responses from Exodus three give me tremendous hope and confidence in a world of tremendous pain.
Alison (42:50.912)
Mm.
Mm.
Alison (42:56.808)
Mm.
Alison (43:02.718)
Yeah, that's beautiful. What what would you you and maybe that was kind of it, but just as we as we kind of wind down here, I'm curious, after all your wor years of walking with survivors, what would you most want someone listening who's survived abuse to know about God, scripture, and themselves?
steve tracy (43:26.734)
Boy, I gotta write another book on that one, Allison. just a couple things. one, you're not alone. There's so many of us. Well, I mean, all of us have experienced at least abuse small a. and a shockingly large percentage have experienced abuse capital A. Those things basically would constitute a crime.
And and you're not alone. There are countless others, both around you and in the pages of Scripture. We often don't come to Scripture with a lens for abuse because that's not what we're modeled and o often pastors don't aren't trained to give that. I wasn't. but it's there, you're not alone. Secondly, there is absolutely no evil you've suffered, no
Alison (44:01.129)
steve tracy (44:23.47)
You've experienced that is too great. That is too great for our loving Almighty God to heal, to redeem, to transform. I say that as someone who has spent 20 years working in war zones, working with
Alison (44:40.0)
Yeah.
steve tracy (44:42.958)
torture survivors, etc. etc. We lost one of our dear beloved staff members a couple of years ago to a terrorist attack. Like I this this is very personal for me. I mean things we've experienced, but w again, we work in the worst of the worst, and I have just seen God give new life, new hope, use horrible experiences.
That others have had and and I just shake my head saying, Wow, there is nothing that God can't. There is nothing He can't redeem and transform because I've I've seen it, I've witnessed it. Scripture testifies to that. Whatever our listeners have gone through, God wants to meet you in that place of pain. He's big enough.
Alison (45:19.336)
Yeah.
Alison (45:36.512)
Mm. That's beautiful. Tell my listeners a little bit more about mending the soul and what you guys do and what you offer. You've got some fantastic resources for folks. I'd love for for folks to know how to find you.
steve tracy (45:47.469)
Yeah.
Appreciate that. Our website is it's pretty simple. W.mending the soul dot org. lots of resources there. we're putting more and more in other languages, lots in Spanish and and this new book, by the way, Doctor Allison, Zondravin has given us permission to translate into Spanish. We're really excited about that. as well as the the
Alison (46:10.496)
Right.
steve tracy (46:14.136)
Book right before that, Mining the Soul, Understanding and Healing Abuse, second edition, is done in Spanish and Portuguese and French. and we make the other language translations available as download online. And there's a lot of free stuff. we have a healing workbook that Slusta did out of came out of her years of clinical practice, Mining the Soul workbook for men and women.
guidelines for facilitators to facilitate small healing groups. We really believe in the power of small groups. So just lots of resources. You know, some are a nominal fee and plenty are are free. our mission is to offer Christ-centered psychologically sound healing resources. I mean that that is what we do domestically and globally. We have a new, I think the first of its kind,
abuse healing workbook written f that's Christian, written by and for Native Americans. That was a collaborative project and we're super, super excited about that. It's really taking off. Yeah. So lots lots of resources you know on on the website. yeah.
Alison (47:15.849)
It's incredible.
Alison (47:25.568)
That's incredible. Well, it's great stuff. I can't, you know, just just think so highly of what you're doing and your years of expertise. And like you said, when you've been in the some of the there's a lot of conviction that comes when you've seen some of the worst atrocities and you see the power of God, you you really live out that love is stronger. You know, love is stronger. It doesn't always feel like it, but it is.
and I can just sense that coming out of you. You've seen it. You've seen some of the worst of the worst, but you also see the power of God is bigger and that's just a beautiful reminder for all of us today.
steve tracy (47:54.562)
Yeah.
steve tracy (48:03.83)
Yeah, I I appreciate that. O often one of the biggest hurdles in beginning a a healing process when we've got some deep wounds is the the thinking that if I open that closet, you know, if I face what's there in my past, I don't even know what skeletons are gonna come out. Yeah, and and it's gonna be a torrent, it's gonna be a tsunami that will engulf me. I I can't afford to even think about what happened to me. I can't handle it. And I I pr I understand and
Alison (48:17.056)
Mm.
Alison (48:21.726)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
steve tracy (48:33.744)
appreciate that. That that's not a a a ridiculous fear. and there's ways to negotiate that and sometimes that involves some professional help and some context, et cetera. But for those who might be feeling that, yeah, you're you're right, Alison, having
Alison (48:36.928)
Yeah.
steve tracy (48:52.838)
seen some of the absolute ninety percent of what we see and experience in Congo, I can't talk about here in the US. It wouldn't even be appropriate. I mean it's it's so extreme that there aren't words for it.
Alison (49:04.458)
Yeah.
steve tracy (49:05.698)
But it has you're right, it has given me a tremendous boldness and confidence. And that's not to say that healing is easy or I you know, I I've had to walk that road myself and deal with secondary trauma and nightmares and and all that. I I take it really seriously. But in the midst of that, when I say there is no evil, no suffering that's too great for God to heal
Alison (49:13.802)
Yeah.
Alison (49:19.52)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alison (49:23.593)
Yeah.
steve tracy (49:31.842)
mean that to the absolute core of my being. Yeah.
Alison (49:33.876)
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible. Thank you. Thanks for your time today. It's the book is called To Heal or Harm. It's a powerful book. It's it's meaty, it's deep. There's it's practical, but there's also a lot that I think is really just interesting about how we approach scripture academically and it's just a really rich rich resource. So I highly recommend it and just appreciate you and all all your work.
What if healing isn’t just about changing your circumstances—but also tending what’s been growing inside of you?
Last week, we explored the metaphor of seed and soil: the way your nature and your nurture shape who you become. This week, we’re going deeper. Because your inner world isn’t just one plant—it’s more like a whole garden.
In this episode, we’ll explore the difference between tending your inner garden and tending the outer soil around you. You’ll learn why old patterns can still show up even after you’ve changed your life, why boundaries are not punishment, and how real healing involves both compassion for what grew inside of you and courage to change what surrounds you now.
Here’s what we cover:
*How to recognize the tender, resilient, overgrown, and buried parts of your inner world
*Why changing your outer environment helps—but doesn’t automatically heal the inner one
*The difference between boundaries as punishment and boundaries as self-stewardship
*How differentiation helps you stay connected to yourself, even in difficult relationships
*Why real change is possible, even if the soil around you has been hard
Real healing is rarely a single breakthrough moment. It's the slow, faithful work of tending what has been entrusted to you, one step at a time.
More Resources:
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Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 212: Why You Feel Everything So Deeply (and Other People Don’t): Childhood, Sensitivity & the Nervous System
Episode 20: Making Peace with Yourself (& Facing Your Fear of Disappointing Other People)
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
Last week I shared a metaphor with you that my daughter brought home from medical school.
So today we're gonna move into part two. How do you steward this plant? And what does healing actually look like? Not just theoretically, but in practice. So I wanna organize this episode around two themes. We're gonna adjust the metaphor just a little bit. I love that. Metaphor of thinking of your brain as a plant, and we're gonna keep going with it. We're gonna adjust it just a little bit to this idea that your brain is actually a little bit more like a garden of related plants than one plant. The first theme we're gonna dig into today when it comes to healing, when it comes to stewarding that brain of yours, that beautiful brain of yours that you've arrived at adulthood with is thinking of it like a garden. And the first part of healing and stewarding is to tend to the inner workings. Of that garden, the unseen parts. And the second theme we're gonna dig into today is tending to the outer garden, the soil you find yourself in today, because that's what you have control over today. You have control over that inner life of the plant, over the root systems, and the different pieces of the inner workings of that inner garden you've inherited today. And you also have some control over the outer. Soil. You didn't get to pick your family of origin, but now you have agency to adjust the nutrients in the outer soil that is shaping you today. And these two things that inner work and the outer work go together. You need to tend to both components in order to fully thrive. So last week we talked about this research on dandelion children and orchid children, and I heard from a lot of you, and I really appreciated your feedback that resonated. And a few of you wrote back to me and said, I think I'm a little bit of both dandelion and orchid. And I loved that you said that because that is exactly where we're going today. Just to refresh your memory, those dandelion children, these are the ones who by nature. Are a little more hearty. They can grow almost in any kind of soil, and we likened it to dandelions In real life, they can grow anywhere. They don't need a lot of special nutrients or a certain kind of temperature or climate around them. I also likened it to a wildflower. I wrote about it in my email that I sent out to you last week. I was hiking in the mountains and we saw all these different kinds of wildflowers, and there are just some wildflowers that grow. They go through snow, they grow through drought. They just. Grow. And then there are the other kinds of flowers. These are like the orchids or in wildflower language, more like forget me, knots or other kinds of flowers that are really sensitive. They need a specific kind of soil, a specific kind of environment. They wilt if they get too much sun or they don't. Thrive. If they don't get enough sun, they need a certain kind of humidity, a certain kind of temperature, a certain kind of climate around them to thrive. And we talked about last week how these flowers don't do well in certain types of soil, but when given the right kind of soil, they can almost do better and surpass the dandelions. And this is where the science gets even more interesting. 'cause I wanna add to the metaphor, I wanna build it out a little bit this week because your brain is complex. In fact, I ran across some really interesting recent research out of Harvard that uses this phrase called brain architecture to describe how the brain is built over time. This research talks about how simple neural connections form first and then more complex circuitry and skills develop over time. The brain also prunes. Refines those connections, making certain pathways stronger and more efficient. The brain is constantly growing and changing and adapting. In other words, what grows inside of us. This plant that we arrive at adulthood with isn't one single thing. It's evolving. It's adaptable. It's able to be changed. Another word for this is what we call neuroplasticity. So for today's purposes, I want you to think about this inner world, this inner architecture that you've arrived at adulthood with as more like a whole garden of plants. There may be parts of you that are tender and sensitive, like that orchid that have been buried. Or hidden because they weren't in the right soil. And there also are very likely parts of you that are hearty and persistent, like a dandelion. These parts of you may be more natural, or these might be parts of you that you've had to develop to survive. But the point is your soul is more like an ecosystem, a garden than it is one plant. There are likely patterns within your soul that grew strong because you needed them. You may have learned to please others as a form of survival, and this pleasing part of you is hearty like that. Dandelion, no matter what context you find yourself in now, you do not stop pleasing other people even when it no longer serves you. Or there may be pathways inside your soul that became efficient because they helped you survive. You learned to focus on tasks, to get things done, to make things work, and you're still doing that now, even when it comes at a cost. There may be those tender places inside your soul that never got the care and the nutrients that you needed that need to be brought out of hiding and into the light of the sun so that you can finally lean into that sensitivity, that receptivity, that is a beautiful God made part of you. And so the question I want us to sit with today is what is growing inside of me? Now I wanna get curious about this inner garden. What's beautiful, what's buried, what's covered over with weeds, and how can I now tend it? Because the beautiful part of this journey that's ahead of us now as adults is that we can. Tend this garden, we contend it inwardly and we contend it by shifting the soil we put ourselves in, including tending the relationships we put around us. This is the hopeful part. If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you've heard me talk about how healing isn't just about what happens inside of us. Our nervous systems are constantly responding to the world around us, and sometimes what feels like stress, brain fog, poor sleep, or just feeling off, can be influenced by factors we don't immediately think about. One of those factors is the air. In our homes, if you notice waking up congested or dusting constantly, or basically things feel heavier than they should, then you might look into investing in Air Doctor. It's the only air purifier we use in our home. What I appreciate most is the peace of mind. I've noticed fewer odors, less congestion, and overall better sleep. But what really impressed me was learning how it works. Air Doctor uses a powerful three stage filtration system that captures particles about 100 times. Smaller than what many standard air purifiers can remove. It helps filter out things like dust, pollen, mold spores, pet dander, wildfire, smoke, bacteria, viruses, odors, smoke, ozone, and VOCs that can affect the quality of air We're breathing every day, and I'm not the only one who's noticed a difference. Over 93% of Air Doctor customers report fewer allergy symptoms and air Doctor recently won Newsweek's Reader's Choice Award for best air purifier. If cleaner air is one small way you can support your wellbeing and create a healthier environment for yourself and the people you love, I'd encourage you to check it out. Head to air doctor pro.com and use promo code. Best of you to get $250 off select Air Doctor Air purifiers, including the 30 504,055 500 models. We're so confident you'll love Air Doctor that every purchase is backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. This is an exclusive podcast only offer. Available now@airdoctorpro.com. That's A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R o.com using promo code B-E-S-T-O-F-Y-O-U. So let's focus first on that inner garden. What's going on inside of you? For example, there may be a part of you that's sensitive, attuned part of you that picks up on the emotional temperature in a room. Maybe you feel things. Deeply. Maybe you notice what's going on in other people, and maybe you even notice things that they tend to miss. It might be your own kids, it might be in friends. It might be that the wild flowers in your life come to you because you have an insight into them that they don't have into themselves. And part of nurturing that inner garden is really honoring. That gift and protecting it because that is your gift to steward, and it also is a gift that can grow weary if overused. The goal intending these more sensitive parts of you is to understand the rhythms that help this part of you thrive. It's understanding that you get to choose, right? You don't always have to extend that gift of empathy. That's your gift to steward. You get to pull back and say, I need to take some space for myself because I've been pouring out a lot, and that's not. Selfish part of stewarding, tending those sensitive attuned parts of you is learning when those parts of you need. Rest. I tell the story in my new book, the Secure Soul of a Breakdown, essentially, that I had in my early thirties, and one story that I don't tell but is pertinent here to this conversation is I went to see a therapist for the first time in my life. Now, that in and of itself is a little problematic because I was. Almost finished with my own doctoral work in psychology, but for the first time, I finally set the help of a therapist and he said something that I just thought was so beautiful to me. I had this gift of being a healer. And I think a lot of you who listen have this gift too. It's what I'm talking about when I'm describing this process of being attuned to the movements of others. You have a high empathy, you have an ability to read emotional subtext. You have a sense of what's going on in the people around you, and that gift is beautiful. But if you don't A, know that it's your gift, and B, know how to pull it back. So that you don't get depleted. It can also lead to burnout. And that's what had happened to me. And I remember this man, this psychologist, he was Argentinian, and I remember he said Jesus couldn't help but heal if people touched his garments. Healing came out of him, and this is why it was so important for Jesus to step away by himself. To rest. And when he said that to me, it gave me permission that my soul is a soul that needs spaciousness. I don't like thinking of it so much as taking space. 'cause that sounds like we're taking space from other people, which can sound negative. I like thinking of it in the positive that my soul is one that thrives. With spaciousness, and what that means is because I absorb a lot of data from people around me and I almost can't help that, it just happens. I need periods of time where I'm away from other people and that's how my soul thrives. Now practically what that means is I sometimes have to say to people, you may not hear from me for a couple of weeks. It's not because I don't love you, it's because I'm taking time to pray and rest and receive, or I have to gently remind a friend if you don't hear back from me for a few days. It's not because I don't care, it's because I don't do well with instant. Communication. Right? I have to translate that reality that mine is a soul that needs spaciousness into communication with others whose souls are wired differently. But that therapist was the first time, and again, I was in my thirties, that. I felt like I had permission to do that, and when I looked at the life of Jesus, I saw that he often stepped away from the demands and the crowds and the people around him. Not because he did not love them or did not care, it's because he needed to receive something himself. Now, different people have different. Needs. One of the most well-researched traits is the introversion extroversion scale. This is one of the big five personality traits, often named by the acronym ocean, and the E is the extroversion scale. This is something that is somewhat hardwired into us. Certain types of people by nature need more spaciousness, more solitude, more quiet to recharge. You probably know who these people are if you're not one. They're the folks who turn their phone off or who don't go on social media or who take a while to reply. They tend to run deep, not broad. Too much social stimulation might deplete them. And if that's you, the tending here is to learn how to communicate on behalf of that part of yourself. Because if you don't learn to take that spaciousness, you do run the risk of depletion and burnout. And resentment. And. And sometimes the wildflowers in your life are higher on that E scale. They are energized by constant connection. They wanna respond immediately to every text, to every social event. They show up all the time. And again, this is a beautiful quality. There's no right or wrong here, but it's so important to know your nature so that you contended. Well, if you're an OrCAD living with a dandelion on this dimension, you have to have conversations about how to navigate rhythms of togetherness and a apartness of spaciousness and of speed. The dandelion in this case has to learn that someone else's need for solitude is real, and they have to learn to honor that and not see that as rejection. That's not a diminishment on their own self. And the reality is if you have that sensitive side of you, you may have learned to adapt based on the soil in which you were raised, whether it was your own family that tended to be more extroverted or more. Emotionally charged, and because that was overwhelming to you, you may have developed a part of you that figured out how to adapt to that and survive that. You've never known how to give yourself permission to actually honor that need for more. Quiet. Now, you don't wanna do away with that. Part of you that learned how to survive, that part of you that learned how to show up in a room full of extroverts, right? That can really serve you in certain situations, right? You've learned how to masquerade as a dandelion in some ways, and that's not all bad, but when it becomes a problem is when it's not you choosing, right? The goal here is. Agency. The goal here is you leading you. You having the self-awareness to know the sensitive part of me needs some quiet. I need to log off. I need to not be reading other people's subtext in this moment, and that's okay, right? This other part of me that's gonna come in and try to criticize me and tell me I'm being selfish. That part of you needs that reframe to step back and give you space to refresh yourself so that you can show up for other people in healthier, more sustainable ways. The bottom line here is that the work of healing, the work of stewarding this plant you've been given, you've arrived at adulthood with isn't to shame any one part of the garden. This is the way the garden grew. If you don't wanna rip out the dandelion part of you that learned to survive because it looks too tough or it's overgrown, right? You wanna help it find healthy boundary lines within your soul, and you don't wanna criticize the more sensitive parts of you, the orchid part of you, because it needs more care. The work of soul tending is to become a wise. Compassionate gardener of your own soul to notice what is growing inside of you, to understand why it grew the way it did, and to offer each part of you what it actually needs. Some parts of you need to be drawn out into the light to be made more visible, and some parts of you need healthy boundary lines, healthy containment. Maybe you grew up in a home where the emotional atmosphere was unpredictable. Maybe a parent was loving one day and then withdrawn, or guilt tripping the next. Or maybe you grew up in a home where conflict was always simmering just below the surface, and nobody ever talked about it directly, and that kind of soil is sensitive, emotionally aware, attuned part of you, the orchid part of you learned. Something maybe you learned that you needed to be vigilant. You had to read the room constantly. You could never shut it down. You had to be ready and prepared, reading everybody's verbal and nonverbal cues to the point where you never learned to read your own exhaustion. Maybe that part of you got really, really good at scanning for danger at anticipating other people's needs at making sure nothing escalated into conflict. And over time that part of you got overburdened. It's been working so hard for so long that it doesn't know how to rest. Or maybe you grew up in a home where achievement was what got celebrated, where love felt connected to performance, where the message around you, whether spoken or unspoken, was that you were valuable, when you were useful, when you were successful, when you had it together, when you didn't have needs or weakness in that kind of soil. The hearty, capable, dandelion part of you got a lot of sunlight. It thrived. It got really good at producing. But the more vulnerable parts of you that are still there in all of us, these are the parts of you that just needed to be held at times that needed to be taught. That it's okay to have moments of tenderness of weakness. Vulnerability and those parts without that learned to go underground. They learned that they weren't welcome and you may have spent years, maybe decades shaming any sensitive part of you for even existing. And because you shame that part of yourself, you sometimes shame the sensitivity in other people. Some of you may have navigated real pain in relationships in a marriage that was hard. A friendship that ended in betrayal in a faith community that was more wounding than healing. And somewhere in that pain, a part of you closed off, decided it was safer not to need people, decided that vulnerability was the problem, not the solution. And so now there's this walled off place within your soul, and you're not entirely sure how it got so thick or how to get to the other. Side of it. These are the kinds of narratives that the soil writes inside of us and the work of healing. Real healing starts with being willing to look at those inner narratives to notice them, to name them. In the framework I use in the Secure Soul, I talk about recognizing these inner bids. For connection, a flash of anxiety, a moment of loneliness, a longing that surfaces seemingly out of nowhere. These are inner bids for connection. Some part of you saying, I need you to recognize what's happening within. And so tending your inner garden starts with something that seems rather simple, but is a practice you have to develop. It means recognizing those inner movements and notice where you feel self-critical. Instead of compassion, where are you rolling your eyes at yourself? Where are you shaming yourself? Where are you telling yourself to just get over it, to toughen up, to stop caring so much? Because that self-criticism, that self contempt, these are weeds that cannot be allowed to crowd out your inner garden. So how do you begin to pull the weeds and prune that inner garden landscape? First, it starts with getting curious. The next time you find yourself reacting in a way you don't like shutting down in a conversation or snapping at someone you love or spiraling into anxiety or resentment, instead of trying to fix that feeling or shame yourself, get. Curious. Ask yourself what part of me is showing up right now? What part of me is longing for connection? Second, it means bringing compassion to these parts of you instead of beating yourself up again. And curiosity and compassion are closely linked, right? Getting curious is often an easier first step to just notice with curiosity why you're feeling the way you're feeling. Compassion takes it one step further to say, I get it. I understand why being around that person brings out the guilt, the anxiety, the big emotions. That part of you has been cultivated in that soil and it needs care, not contempt. And then lastly, this moves into the outer world around us. It means letting yourself be seen. These different parts of us learned to hide and healing asks us to bring these different parts of us back into relationship with yourself, with God, and with trusted other people. Initially, that might mean a therapist. It might mean a spiritual director, but over time it also means the people that you put around you that reflect soil, your soul actually needs tending. Your inner garden isn't a one-time event, it's a practice. It's ongoing and as some of the most important work you will do. If it's really true that we are what we eat, I'm always on the lookout for snacks that actually fuel my body instead of filling me up with sugar and processed foods. That's why I love mosh protein bars. 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Start building Brain Health into every day with Mosh Bars. Thanks to Mosh for sponsoring this episode. Now let's talk about the outer garden because as you well know, the soil you were planted in as a child is not the only soil you're living in now. You've been making choices consciously or not about the soil you surround yourself with as an adult. And some of you have done real hard, courageous work to change. That soil, you changed the kind of people you put around you. Maybe some of you left a family system that wasn't healthy. Maybe you drew a boundary with a parent or a sibling who was harming you. Maybe you ended a friendship that was draining the life out of you. Maybe you found a church community that actually sees you and nourishes you. Feeds you. Maybe you married someone who is genuinely safe. You built a life that looks different from the one you came from, and that was brave. It took a lot out of you, but you've done it. And even as you've changed that outer soil, you still have to do the inner work. I also know that some of you have used this framework in your own families. Right now I've heard from a few of you have already been talking about seeds and soil at your dinner table with your own kids, with your spouse, noticing which of your children are more like orchids, which one are more like wildflowers, adjusting how you tend to each other accordingly, and this is so beautiful. This is the outer garden work in action. You're creating healthier soil for your own family. And here's what I wanna say to those of you who've worked really hard to change that outer soil, who've found healthier relationships, a better environment for your soul, a safer community, you may have noticed that even in that good healthy news, soil, old patterns still show up. Maybe you're in a safe marriage now, but you still brace for criticism. That never comes. Maybe you found a community that genuinely welcomes you, but you still hold back. You still find it hard to trust. You still maybe perform or please or perfect still trying to manage their perceptions. Maybe you know, intellectually that you are safe now, but something in you keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is simply a cue of the earlier soil that still has lasting effects. The outer soil changed, but the inner garden still carries the memory of the old one. This is why the inner work and the outer work have to happen together. New soil creates great conditions for healing, but you still have to tend what's growing on the inside. And some of those roots go deep and it can take a while to change their patterns. Now, some of you listening today still find yourself in difficult soil. Some of you are in a marriage that is really hard. You're not just going through a rough season, but something has been depleting and withering for a long time. You're committed. Maybe there's not infidelity or some other clear cut reasons that would make you feel like you can leave, but something is really hard, whether because of you or because of them, or because of the soil you've tilled together. Some of you are still enmeshed with parents, with siblings in ways that are costing you. You're still getting pulled back into old dynamics, still playing the same role, still shrinking yourself to manage other people. And I want you to know that the fact that you're still here, still listening, still asking questions, still wanting to grow, this is so beautiful. It's actually this seed of healing. You haven't given up on yourself even when the soil around you has made that really. Hard, and there are a couple of things I wanna share with you in particular because I find that when people are in difficult soil, they often see two choices. Stick it out. Or leave, and I talk about this a little bit in my book. I shouldn't feel this way, where there's this third category about moving slowly with wisdom. Because the reality is there's often a lot of territory between those two things. And that territory is where two key terms, differentiation, and boundaries. Tend to live differentiation. This is a concept from family systems. It's the ability to remain in relationship with someone else while staying connected to yourself. Maybe you don't feel like you can leave altogether. Maybe a parent who's been toxic or still is toxic needs your care. As they age, or maybe it's a spouse who's really hard to live with, who isn't doing their own work, but you don't feel like you can leave for whatever reason. You learn how to stay present to the other person without being swept away by their soil. Research on couples and family systems consistently shows that even when one person in a stuck system begins to differentiate, begins to respond differently. That's all that means to make different choices in small, nuanced ways to hold your ground calmly without withdrawing, but without escalating the entire system has the opportunity to shift. You don't have to wait for the other person to change to start making changes yourself. It might mean simply that you stop over explaining yourself. To a family member who is never going to validate you. You're not doing it to be cold or to be punitive, or to be retaliatory. You simply choose to stop outsourcing your sense of reality to someone who cannot see you. And when you make this choice out of agency, out of the own health of your inner garden, the other person will pick up on that. They may not like it at first. You don't need them to like it because you know the truth of what you're doing. It might simply mean you stop participating with certain activities with a spouse or with a friend. You just say, I'm not doing that anymore. You're free to do it. I'm not gonna do it. It's not healthy. For me, this can be so hard to do, especially in a marriage. It's hard to start drawing boundary lines in a marriage, but I just want you to hear me say that drawing boundary lines is not punishment. It's not harsh. It's not about trying to get the other person to change. It's about tending your own inner garden. It's saying, this is what I need to thrive. This is what I need to be a healthy human in this relationship. I can't control you, but I can control me. And then you let them have whatever reaction they might have. Sometimes it's painful, sometimes it doesn't feel very good, but over time, they have an opportunity to change. Boundaries in this context are not walls. They're not ultimatums, they're not all or nothing. They're small, consistent acts of self stewardship. Research on boundary setting and close relationships shows that clear, calm, consistent limits. Even tiny ones, reduce anxiety over time for both people in the relationship. It takes time, it takes work. Get some support as you do this, but you can create new soil. What I most want you to hear is that your healing is not contingent on someone else changing. First, you can begin to tend your own inner garden regardless of what the soil around you is doing, and sometimes, not always, but sometimes when one person in a system begins to grow, heal, and change the system around you begins to shift to. Finally, some of you need to hear that it is okay to create more distance from a soil that is harming you, not because you don't care about the people in it, but because you cannot grow in depleted soil indefinitely. And your growth, your healing matters not just for you, but for your children and for the people you lead and love and care for. Then there's a last group I wanna speak to directly. Some of you didn't inherit your difficult soil, you chose it out of love. I hear from many of you in my email, maybe you're parenting a child who is bringing real turbulence into your home. Maybe it's an adult child whose choices are creating chaos that keeps spilling into your life. Maybe you're a grandparent who stepped in when the original soil was. Two Toxic who said, not on my watch, and brought a child into your home to give them a fighting chance. Maybe you're a foster parent or an adoptive parent or a stepparent who walked eyes open into hard soil because you believed that healthy love could prevail over toxic history. I want you to know that it can, the research on what's called earned security, the idea that a child who didn't receive safe, consistent attachment early on can develop it later through a reliable, attuned relationship. That research is real and hopeful. You are doing something so powerful and so beautiful, and it's also. Really hard. I want you to hear me say, the courage it takes to do this work is real, and it can be incredibly depleting. And I think sometimes people in your position feel like you're not allowed to say how hard it is because you chose it, because you love this child, because you know their history. But knowing why someone carries toxic soil doesn't mean that soil stops affecting you. You are still a plant. You still have a seed with its own needs and you are trying to grow while also neutralizing poison that was never yours to begin with. I think of Isaiah 43 when I think about some of these tricky situations. God says, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. God doesn't promise that faithful presence will always be easy, but he promises he will be with you. In it. We have really incredible research on compassion fatigue that tells us the most important thing you can do for the difficult soil you've chosen to tend is to make sure you are being replenished. Somewhere you need at least one regulated, nourishing relationship. It could be a spouse, it could be a friend, it could be a therapist, someone who functions as what researchers call a co-regulatory anchor. This is someone who can sit with you through the turbulence. They don't necessarily take away the hard soil, but they can keep you from becoming consumed by it. Often the boundaries that you may most need in these situations is the internal one. You have to work on setting limits with the part of you that is tied to outcomes or timing, or how well or how quickly they improve. The bottom line for all of us is that you can be a faithful. Present loving gardener to others and still tend your own garden. In fact, the research is clear that the caregivers whose presence most effectively creates conditions for change in others are the ones doing their own inner work. Your wholeness, the health of your own soul isn't a luxury. It's part of what spills over to them. Here's where I wanna land today. Number one, the inner work and the outer work are not separate. They're in relationship with each other, just like the seed and the soil. As you do the inner work, as you turn toward the parts of yourself with compassion instead of contempt, when you start to name the narratives the old soil wrote inside of you, you become more capable of making healthy. Choices about your outer soil. You stop unconsciously recreating the environments you came from. You develop the self-awareness to make different choices. And two, when you do the outer work, when you change the soil around you, when you differentiate, when you create healthier relationships and healthier environments. It creates the conditions for the inner work to take root. Good outer soil isn't necessary to change the inner soil, and it also won't do that work for you. Changing your outer soil is only half of the equation. Both matter. Both are essential. Healing is rarely a single breakthrough moment. It's the slow. Patient faithful work tending both your inner garden and that outer garden that surrounds you together. Over time, and here's what I believe with everything in me, both from the research and from what I've seen these past few decades, real change is possible no matter where you are today. Real lasting, meaningful change. Is possible. You can become healthier, not by changing your seed, your DNA, the way God made you. That's not the goal. And you wouldn't want to, but you can learn how to steward how God made you to be. Well, you can tend to the garden you're growing now with the awareness and the agency you didn't have as a child. You're not stuck where you are. You can create richer soil boths inside your soul and outside your soul. One brave step. At a time. If what we talked about today resonates with you, if you're starting to see the connection between the soil you came from and the patterns you're living now, I wanna invite you to go deeper with my new book, the Secure Soul. It also has a secure Soul companion guide. Workbook. It's the heart of everything we've been talking about in these two episodes. You can find a link to it at the secure soul book.com, and you can get the first three chapters of the book as well as the first few chapters of the workbook. Now, when you pre-order, 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 apples. Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to or watch podcasts, and click the plus or follow button that'll 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 a five star review and be sure to join us each weekday 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. I.
Why do certain situations overwhelm you while someone you love seems completely unaffected?
In this episode, Dr. Alison explores one of the most important questions we ask about ourselves: Why am I the way I am?
Using the image of a seed planted in soil, she explains how your God-given wiring, childhood environment, sensitivity, and nervous system all work together to shape the person you are today.
This conversation offers a compassionate framework for understanding yourself—and the people you love—in an honest, empowering way. (You’ll want to share this episode with your loved ones!)
You’ll learn:
- Why your brain is like a plant
- How childhood shapes your mental and emotional health
- The difference between your wiring and your wounding
- The research behind “orchid children” and “dandelion children”
- How different kinds of “soil” shape your nervous system, relationships, resilience, and sense of safety
- Why highly sensitive people may struggle more in hard environments—and thrive more in healthy ones
- Why healing begins when you understand both the seed you were given and the soil that shaped you
This episode will help you see your story—and your loved ones—with more clarity, compassion, and hope.
More Resources:
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 143: Reparenting Your Younger Self—How to Stop Seeking Approval From Others & Find Inner Security
Episode 22: How to Build Trust with Yourself
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
Don't forget to browse this week's sponsors, who make it possible for me to bring you these resources for free + provide you with additional discounts!
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*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.
TRANSCRIPT
Your brain is like a plant and every plant, if you think about it,
starts with a seed. It's the wiring you came into this world with, the way you process the world
around you. This is your seed. Now let's talk about the soil because you can have the most
beautifully made seed in the world and if the soil is wrong, if it's depleted,
if it's toxic, if it just doesn't have what that particular seed needs,
the plant, is going to struggle. It might survive but it won't thrive.
The seed and the soil don't operate in isolation. They're in constant relationship with each other
and that relationship is where a lot of the story of your current life actually lives.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's Deep Dive episode of The Best of You. I'm Dr.
Allison, and I'm really excited about today's episode because I want to share something with you
that I learned recently that I couldn't wait to share with you here on the podcast. It's a
metaphor. I heard it from my daughter who was recently home visiting us. She's in medical school.
She was sharing it with my husband and I as we were driving up for a weekend getaway into the
mountains. And honestly, it stopped all of us in our tracks. We couldn't stop thinking about it and
how it applied to our own lives individually and the lives of people we love. Because I think this
metaphor helps explain one of the most tender questions so many of us carry.
Why am I the way that I am? Why do I get overwhelmed so easily?
Why do I shut down when someone gets too close? Why do I feel anxious even when everything is
technically okay? Why do I keep reacting in ways I don't want to react? Why does healing sometimes
feel so hard? Why am I the way I am?
And underneath those questions is so often an even deeper one. Is this just the way I'm wired or
did something happen to me? And if so, what? In other words, how much of who I am is just my
nature, my biology, my temperament, my nervous system, my genetics, and how much of who I am is
nurture, the environment I grew up in, the relationships that shaped me,
the stressors, the wounds, the messages I absorbed along. way.
And here's where this gets tricky. When we put too much emphasis on nature, we can start to feel
helpless. We think this is just my brain. This is just my personality. This is just how I'm wired.
And while there may be truth there, it can leave us feeling stuck as if change isn't really
possible. But when we put too much emphasis on nurture, especially on parents or childhood or
family systems, we can end up feeling overwhelmed in a different way. We can start searching for
someone to blame. we can feel crushed under the weight of trying to figure out exactly what
happened and how to fix it. And if you're a parent yourself, that kind of nurture emphasis can also
become terrifying because suddenly it feels like every mistake you make might permanently damage
your own. child. Either of those extremes can leave us with a victim mentality,
feeling helpless or stuck. We feel like we can't change ourselves or we can't change what happened
to us. We need a better way to understand the relationship between how we're wired and how we've
been shaped. A way that tells the truth without making us feel hopeless. A way that honors the
impact of our environment without reducing us to our
ourselves with compassion and still believe that growth and change and healing is possible.
And this is why I love this metaphor. Here it is.
Your brain is like a plant. And every plant, if you think about it,
starts with a seed. That seed is your nature. It's your DNA,
your temperament, the raw material that God put into you before you ever took your first breath.
It's the wiring you came into this world with, the way you process the world around you,
the things that come naturally to you, the things that cost you, that are hard for you. This is
your seed, the seed of this plant. that is your brain. And that seed gets planted in soil.
The soil is your nurture. It's your family of origin, your parents or step-parents,
your grandparents, the town you grew up in, the culture and community that surrounded you.
The soil is everything that was already there when you arrived. You didn't choose it.
You were just planted in it. Now, here's the thing. Both make up who you are today.
The seed cannot grow without the soil. And soil without a seed is just dirt.
Both matter. Both shape who you become. And the relationship between them,
between the seed you were given and the soil you were placed in, that relationship is,
I would argue, one of the most important things you need to understand about yourself.
In today's episode, we're going to dig into both of these elements. What kind of seed were you
given? What uniquely makes you you that cannot be changed? And what kind of soil shaped you?
We're going to go through some of the different types of soil that I see and how that impacts the
way your brain, your nervous system, who you are today developed. Because I don't think you can do
the real work of healing, of becoming the best, most whole version of yourself without getting
honest about both. So I want to start with the seed because I think this is where a lot of us have
some catching up to do in terms of our own understanding and self-awareness. Seeds are not all the
same. I have this Christmas cactus sitting in my office. And this is a true story.
I'm a little embarrassed to tell you this, but I have not watered it in over six weeks. I haven't
touched it. My mom gave it to me and I was so excited. I do well with succulents. I am not a plant
person. I don't have a green thumb. I'm a little too, let's say, scattered. I get distracted and I
forget to take care of them. This hasn't been touched in six weeks and it still looks pretty good.
It's a little droopy. The dirt this morning was just bone dry. I've watered it now,
but it's a lot. it's still looking okay. And this is the thing about a cactus or any sort of
succulent. But this is the thing about a cactus or any sort of succulent. The seed is just hardy by
design. It can go without a lot of nutrients for a stretch of time and still be okay. It still
suffers, but in a different sort of way. It was built differently. And then there are other kinds
of seeds in the plant world. These are seeds that grow into some of our most beautiful flowers,
the gardenias, the orchids, and flowers like those. And these types of plants,
these flowers, these are not like my... cactus, they need regular watering.
They cannot have too much direct sun. They need rich soil, careful tending,
the right temperature, the right humidity. If they get neglected, they wilt or die on the vine.
But here's the thing, when they're cared for well, they're extraordinary. There's nothing quite
like a gardenia in bloom. I love both types of flowers. I love my succulents and I love my more
delicate blooming gardenias. And here's where I think this gets interesting.
This is supported in research in psychology. Researchers in psychology...
childhood development have actually found something very similar in humans. There's a concept in
developmental psychology called differential susceptibility. It's a term that was developed by Jay
Belsky. And the shorthand version of Belsky's research, it's fascinating, is this.
Some children are by nature more sensitive to their environment than others.
Belsky used the metaphor of orchids. and dandelions. Dandelion children are the ones who can thrive
almost anywhere, put them in a challenging environment and they survive, put them in a flourishing
environment and they do well. hearty. They're resilient. You've seen these people,
maybe in your own family, maybe in your friend group. Maybe you are this person. I like to think of
them as wildflowers instead of dandelions, but these are the people that just seem to get up and
get going no matter what soil they're planted in. And then there are the orchid children.
They're more sensitive to their environment, to stress, to conflict, to the emotional temperature
in a room. In difficult soil, they really struggle. But here's what the research also shows.
When orchid children are placed in a supportive, nurturing environment, they don't just do okay.
They flourish often more than their wildflower peers. The same sensitivity that makes them more
vulnerable also makes them more responsive to goodness and nourishment.
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There's another framework that I think also speaks to what Belsky's research is getting at.
And this is the well-established framework called the highly sensitive person. This is research
that was originally developed by psychologist Elaine Aron. And if you've never heard this term
before, it might be worth pausing here for a moment and checking this research out. About 15 to 20
% of the population is wired with what she describes as a deeper processing of sensory information.
Highly sensitive people notice more. They pick up on subtleties in a room,
in relationships, in tone of voice, in the unspoken tension that other people might walk right
past. They feel things more deeply. They tend to get overstimulated more easily.
And I've worked with a lot of women in particular who have this designation. And sometimes we can
shame ourselves for being too sensitive when in fact, this is a beautiful way that God has made us.
I've always been highly aware of the emotional environment around me. Even a little bit of unhealth
in a room registers in me. It always has. And for a long time, I didn't understand why other people
seem to just be able to move. through the world and in and out of groups of people and not be
affected by things that would have derailed me. And when I've come to understand that this is not a
deficiency, it's the seed God gave me to steward. And that seed needs a very specific kind of soil.
On the other side, I think of people I know. One of my closest friends, a roommate I had for years
comes to mind. My mother-in-law comes to mind. These are people who grew up with very little,
who've navigated enormous hardship. My mother-in-law ended up as a refugee in a resettlement camp
for years. She then became an immigrant in this country where she spoke English as a second
language. And she is just... She can just adapt. She just shows up in a certain kind of strength
wherever she is planted. She's a wildflower. I see it in her.
I just... Throughout the course of different seasons of her life where I've traveled with her, I'm
just amazed at her ability to adapt to hard situations.
We need people, friends, family members, loved ones, maybe it's you,
people who can hold steady when things are hard. Now here's why this matters.
Neither is right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse. Neither kind of seed is the problem.
But if you don't, know what kind of seed you are or what kind of seed your loved one is,
you will likely spend a lot of time either berating yourself or struggling with things that don't
seem to bother other people, or you'll be completely blind to what it's costing you to keep pushing
through without care. And both of those things will catch up with you eventually.
So I want to pause here. for a moment and ask you as you're listening,
where do you land? Are you more like a wildflower, like a dandelion where you can land almost
anywhere and land on your feet? Or are you more like an orchid where you need the right kind of
soil? You're sensitive, you're attuned. If something's off, it's going to get to you. Or are you
somewhere in between? How much do you... understand about the raw material you came into this world
with. The way God designed your nervous system, your brain, your psyche to work and move through
the world with its unique gifts and unique challenges. Because that self-knowledge,
that ability to understand yourself, this isn't just interesting. It isn't just good for cocktail
conversation. This is foundational to how we see ourselves and how we become a healthier,
more whole version of who God made us to be. Now let's talk about the soil for a minute.
Because you can have the most beautifully made seed in the world. And if the soil is wrong, if
it's... if it's toxic, if it just doesn't have what that particular seed needs,
the plant is going to struggle. It might survive, but it won't thrive in the way it was meant to.
And the thing about soil is you didn't choose it. None of us did. We were planted and we grew up in
whatever was already there. I want to walk through a few different kinds of soil,
and I'm going to be personal here because I think sometimes stories are the best way to make this
real. In my own case, you already know I was given a highly sensitive disposition.
I grew up in a small town. My parents were good, kind people. My grandparents lived down the
street. Wherever I went in this town, people knew who I was. There was good and bad with that, but
there was a stability and a rootedness to my childhood that I didn't fully understand until I left
at 18. That soil had a lot of nutrients in it, genuine connection.
consistency, the security of being held by a community. And I don't want to paint it as perfect.
It wasn't. You'll read about some of the wounds I carried out of that childhood in my new book,
The Secure Soul. They're there. We all have them. No soil is perfect.
But looking back, that soil gave me a really strong root system.
But here's the problem. When I left that soil as an adult,
when I stepped into the real world with all of its complexity and hardship, I wasn't always
equipped. There were rainy seasons. I didn't know how to navigate dark seasons,
lonely seasons. I hadn't learned certain skills because my soil had been in many ways.
sheltered. Good soil can sometimes mean you haven't been exposed to enough of the hard things that
build resilience in a different way. So I struggled a lot in my early years as a young adult.
Now, I want to contrast that with a different kind of soil, a soil that is also characterized with
loving, good nutrients, but where hardship enters in young. And for this soil,
I think of my own two stepchildren who came into my life having already navigated.
profound loss. At a very young age, they lost their mother to a terminal illness.
They had to adjust to the loss of their mom, to grief, to so much change,
and then to me, eventually coming into their family and their family structure shifting.
Now, there were a lot of really good, beautiful ingredients in this soil. They had a wonderful dad,
an incredible grandmother, my mother-in-law, who I told you about who stepped in to that role in
those couple of years. And then I came in and I think I understood because of my own disposition
and my own wiring, I understood intuitively how to be a healthy presence as they began to slowly
attach to me in new. So there was a lot of good in this soil,
but it was still bumpy. It was still rocky. It was soil that required them to adapt and develop
resilience. early on and these two kids i'm so proud of are some of the most resilient people i
know now as young adults the soil they grew up in demanded something of them very young and they
rose to meet that challenge cultivating skills at a level of maturity that i see in them as young
adults that still is amazing to me and i'm so grateful for that you may relate to that kind of soil
where there was a lot of good nutrients But there was heartache or suffering or sorrow introduced
early on that gave you an understanding of what grief feels like,
of what resilience requires in a way that not everybody has.
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And then there's a third kind of soil. And this is the one I think about often in my work.
And you may relate to this. There are people who grew up in soil that was in ways you may not have
fully understood at the time, genuinely harmful, constant lying,
deception. gaslighting, maybe bickering or fighting that never resolved,
maybe walking on eggshells, maybe a home where love was conditional or unpredictable or chaotic or
simply absence. And the painful thing about this kind of soil is that you don't always know it's
toxic until you're out of it because it's the only soil you ever knew. Had a conversation about
this with my guest, Melanie Schenkel. We'll link to that episode in the show notes.
But she talks about her experience of getting to adulthood and looking back and realizing this
childhood wasn't normal. The way my mother treated me wasn't okay. This soil wasn't just neutral or
benign or filled with a certain kind of suffering. It was toxic. It wasn't only lacking certain
essential ingredients. It was also poisonous. Now, I want to name here that as we talk about the
soil you were planted in, this isn't about laying blame. I want to say that clearly because I know
that a lot of people I encounter feel some resistance to this kind of looking back.
It can feel disloyal. It can feel like you're reopening something that you'd rather just leave
alone because you can't change it. here's what i've come to believe you cannot heal a wound you
haven't named you can't tend a garden you've never actually looked at and naming what was real and
hard in your soil, especially if there were toxins there. This isn't the same thing as blaming the
people who were in it. Sometimes the harm was so pervasive and deep and profound that there's
hardly any good that you can see in it. Sometimes it was otherwise good people who were wounded and
as a result wounded you. Often it's somewhere in between.
of these cases the work is the same you have to be able to see the soil clearly to understand how
to heal the you that came out of it you have to be able to understand where were their nutrients
where were their good things and where were their deficiencies where was their toxins or poison
that was never actually named that i need to be able to name in order to move forward in healing
Where was there too much shade where I was left alone too much and was neglected to where parts of
me were never really seen? And where did the sun shine so harshly that maybe all of my achievements
or all of my performance or all of my pleasing had a light shined on? But the other parts of me
never got seen, the ones that were messy, the ones that needed care too.
Where did things in my life and my soul not get watered or tended and they had to learn to go
without? Where were you not taught how to survive the hard seasons, the droughts,
the dry spells? Because nobody around you knew how to do that either. Here's the thing,
if you can't look back at the soil in which you were shaped, it's really hard to steward the plant
God has given you to steward now. It's hard to have those hard conversations with a spouse about
why you sometimes do the things you do. It's hard to explain to your own kids, hey,
I'm not making an excuse. for this behavior, but I want you to know this is something that happened
to me that I'm trying to change when it comes to how I'm showing up for you.
If you don't take the time to look back and understand that soil that shaped you,
it's really hard to show up in healthy ways now. Again, this isn't to blame our past.
This is to see it clearly, to name it. Honestly, and it's the root of what I think brings about the
ability to heal. So now I want to bring these two things together because the seed and the soil
don't operate in isolation. They're in constant relationship with each other. And that relationship
is where a lot of the story of your current life actually lives. I want you to think about it this
way. A hearty seed, a wildflower or dandelion, whichever you prefer. planted in difficult soil will
probably survive, maybe even thrive in certain ways. But even that seed has limits.
Even the most seemingly resilient person has a point where the soil has taken too much from them.
And the thing is, they don't always. know it because they've spent their whole life being the one
who's fine, who's getting by, who's being strong for others. I hear this a lot from couples,
actually. One partner is more of a sensitive seed, more like the orchid,
and they tend to know they're struggling because they feel it and they need something to change.
And the other partner is more like that wildflower, dandelion, more blinders on. And they've been
pushing through for so long without tending to themselves that they sometimes lack empathy for
others or for themselves. They sometimes deny the reality that the soil could and should change.
Sometimes these folks are resistant to change, right? Both. Types of people need to grow in self
-awareness. Both people need to know what they're working with in their raw material to have that
perspective, to see the other, to see outside of their own box, to see that the two together make
something beautiful. And then there's another thing that happens that I think about a lot. A tender
seed, an orchid, is planted early on as a child in depleted soil,
you needed. This is where some of our deepest wounds come from. And here's what I want you to know.
It also is where some of the most profound healing is possible. The research on highly sensitive
people actually shows this, that when an orchid child or an orchid adult finally gets the right
environment, the right support, the right nourishment, they don't just catch up.
They often surpass what anyone expects. The sensitivity that makes you so vulnerable on one hand to
hard things also makes you exquisitely responsive to the good things.
So wherever you land in this conversation, whatever raw material you are getting, whatever soil you
are planted in, neither one is a verdict. If you identify more with the orchid type of seed,
it's an invitation to recognize that you can flourish, to look at the soil and begin to understand
the nourishment that your soul needs to thrive. And if you identify or if one of your loved ones
identifies more with that wildfire, you've just plowed through the soil and kind of stayed hardy
without. ever really taking a look the invitation for you is to take a look is to recognize that
that soil still matters just because you've survived doesn't mean You're thriving.
And this kind of honesty, this kind of ability to name and to see is how we begin to heal and
become the best version of who God made us to be. We do it for ourselves and we do it for our
families, for our children, for our marriages. We do this work of honest naming in order to heal.
Here's where I want to land today. Every single one of us carries something from the soil we were
planted in. It's true for all of us. There is no person listening to this who came through
childhood without some deficiency in the soil, some place where it was too dry,
too harsh, too uncertain, or simply not enough. This isn't a flaw.
This is just the condition of being human. And here's what I've seen over and over again in my own
life and in the lives of the people I've worked with. Healing is possible. It's more than possible.
It's one of the most amazing things that God has designed us to be able to do. Real,
meaningful, lasting change is possible. You can't change the raw material,
the seed you were given. You wouldn't want to. This is how God made you to be in this world who you
are inherently. matters not only to you, but to the world around you. You are a part of this
overall system, this ecosystem of humanity and who you are in your essence matters.
But you can change the way you carry that essence forward. You can change the soil you create
around yourself now as an adult with the awareness and the agency you didn't have as a child.
And this work starts with two. things. Number one,
knowing the kind of seed, the raw material, really understanding it without judgment.
And number two, looking honestly at the soil that shaped you without blame, but without flinching
either. Next week, part two, we're going to... about what that healing actually looks like as you
do it, what it means to notice and name and tend the garden you're growing now with everything
you've learned about the ground you started in. For today, I want you to... sit with a couple of
questions first what do you really know and understand about the seed the essence the raw material
god gave you this can come through looking at personality styles or tools we have a podcast episode
on ocean the the personality traits we understand to be the most inherited the most in that nature
category i'll link to that in today's show notes that could be a place to start understanding
yourself as a orchid as highly sensitive, looking at patterns that have just been true your whole
life. Make a list. Begin to talk to God about God. What are things that are just how you made me?
Things I accept about myself, even am fond of in myself. Yes, there are things about it that
sometimes drive me crazy. And also, I'm grateful, God, for the person you made me to be.
And then number two, what have you been willing? to see and really look at about the soil that
shaped you, what was good, but also hard at times,
what was lacking, what was not there at all, and what maybe was toxic,
poisonous even, that you haven't really fully wanted to name, which means that toxin still has some
access to your own soul. I want you to get honest with yourself about these two dimensions of your
own being. Let these questions sit with you. Pray over them. Talk to God about them. God,
help me to see. Become a student of your own soul in partnership with God's spirit.
And if you want to start going even deeper, a lot of what we're talking about today is at the heart
of my new book, The Secure Soul. It's all about healing the wounds that form when the soil around
us wasn't quite what we needed. You can actually start reading the first few chapters as well as
the first few chapters of the companion guide workbook. Now, when you...
-order. You can find the details about how to get that information emailed directly to you at
thesecuresoulbook.com. I'll also link to all the other resources I mentioned in today's episode in
the show notes, or you can head over to my website, drallisoncook.com backslash podcast.
Thank you so much for being here. I can't wait to be with you for part two next Thursday.
Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if you
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Join us each weekday 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.
When did being a responsible adult become synonymous with being serious all the time?
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that curiosity, playfulness, imagination, and wonder were things we needed to leave behind in order to grow up. But what if those qualities aren't distractions from a meaningful life?
What if they're essential to it?
In this episode, Dr. Alison Cook sits down with entrepreneur, creative visionary, and author Piera Gelardi to explore why playfulness is far more than a luxury—it's a powerful source of resilience, creativity, connection, and emotional well-being. Together, they unpack how stress, perfectionism, and the pressure to "have it all together" disconnect us from our authentic selves, and how reclaiming play can help us feel more alive.
You'll learn:
- Why playfulness is a sign of emotional health—not immaturity
- How stress, perfectionism, and the "cool police" rob us of joy
- The surprising connection between play and resilience
- How to move from a pressured state into a playful state
- Practical ways to reconnect with curiosity, wonder, and creativity
- Why your childlike qualities may actually be your greatest strengths
This conversation is a gentle invitation to loosen your grip, laugh a little more, and rediscover the parts of yourself that make you feel most alive.
More Resources:
Order Piera’s book, The Playful Way: Creativity, Connection, and Joy Through Everyday Moments of Play
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 188: Tiny Joys, Big Healing: Retraining the Brain for Hope with Dr MaryCatherine McDonald
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
I hoped I would get to the next stage of my career by cosplaying serious adult. I felt more
disconnected. It was like I kind of lost my intrinsic motivation. So she said, what do you think
the qualities are that got you here? Curiosity, experimentation, creativity, my joyful,
creative personality. So why do you think that those qualities you have to like...
throw in the trash can to get to the next level. She said, what if you actually lean into those
more as your superpowers to grow? When we listen to the cool police and we try to not be cringe,
we try to not stand out. We're not expressing ourselves. We feel a bit empty in life.
When we try to be a responsible adult and make that mean just being completely serious and zipped
up in our serious suits, we lose connection and joy and wonder and curiosity and all of these
beautiful things that make us feel alive, creative, connected to each other.
Hey everyone and welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of The Best of You. Have you ever
noticed as we enter into these summer months how quickly the summer can begin to steal your sense
of playfulness? These are the very months that are supposed to be more laid back and carefree and
yet they can become the season of stress. There's less structure. And I know structure for me is
often what keeps me steady. So in the summer, it can throw me off kilter. Often our kids are at
home, which is fun, but also creeps into our downtime, our sense of order. Lines are long.
The weather is hot. Someone says the wrong thing. Your child won't cooperate. Your inbox is
overflowing. And before you know it, you're running on fumes. You're tense, maybe even short with
the people you love. And you start to become that anxious, tense adult who isn't any fun.
Well, today's episode is an invitation for all of us back into a playful spirit,
because here's the thing about playfulness. It's not only good for our relationships and for our
emotional health, it's part of our spiritual formation. Jesus says in Matthew 18,
3, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Now, I want to unpack that for a second. What does Jesus mean there? What does it mean to become
like little children? Obviously, we're adults. We're caring for other people. We need to be
responsible. We need to be mature. We need to work on ourselves, right? All these things we talk
about. And Jesus isn't calling us to become irresponsible or childish.
This isn't an invitation to become something we don't want to be. However,
there's something so important here that Jesus... and I tend to think of it like this.
If you think about the context of this passage, the children are running to Jesus.
They're curious. They're open-hearted. They're excited. They're trusting.
They sense someone who is there for them. And I think this has something to do with that childlike
spirit Jesus is calling us. to recover. Children, when they feel safe,
are naturally curious. They're imaginative. They're in their bodies. They laugh easily.
They trust easily. They experiment. They're adventurous. And all of this happens because when
they're safe, they're securely attached. They know someone is there looking out for them,
which so often is our job in the summer. But what if we too can learn from the children around us?
because we too have one who is always looking out for us. But somewhere along the way,
so many of us have learned to leave that part of ourselves behind.
We've learned that being responsible means being serious, that it means we have to hold everything
together, that we have to try to be perfect or polished. We've learned that being spiritual means
being serious. We've learned that the only way to survive is to tighten up, look down,
and try to work harder. But here's the paradox.
Sometimes the very qualities we think we have to abandon in order to be serious adults are the very
qualities that bring us back to life. Curiosity,
wonder, playfulness, movement, imagination, joy.
These qualities are a crucial part of resilience. They're a part of how God designed us to move
through hard things. And they're also part of what helps us love other people and ourselves better.
Richard Schwartz, the founder of the Internal Family Systems model of therapy, described
playfulness as a quality of the true self. comes, it flows out of that centered,
grounded, spirit-led place inside of us. It's not forced positivity or pretending everything is
fine. It's a spaciousness, a freedom, a vitality, an ability to drop your shoulders,
take a breath, and laugh at yourself and at all the shenanigans and absurdities around us.
Playfulness helps us stay present to what's hard without being consumed by it.
And this is what I love about today's conversation. My guest is creative visionary and author,
Piera Gilardi. And she tells this incredible story about being stuck in a long TSA line.
It's one of those tense moments where everyone is frustrated. Everyone is anxious. The atmosphere
feels like it's buzzing with tension. In the middle of it, she makes a tiny,
playful choice. That choice doesn't change the length of the line.
It doesn't magically fix the situation. But it changes her experience of the frustration.
And that in turn changes the experience of the people around her.
I've noticed in my own life recently that when I can find my way back to a good inner eye roll,
I can laugh at myself. I can laugh playfully with the people around me.
The room changes. The stress lifts. Suddenly you're back in that spirit-led place with just a
little more creativity, a little more joy, a little more lightness as you walk through the day.
This is the power of playfulness. It doesn't deny the reality of what's hard,
but it helps move through reality with more connection, more creativity,
and more humanity. And a lot of us need this right now. The world has been a lot.
The summer can be a lot. can be a lot. Marriage and family and relationships and friendships and
church life can be a lot. And maybe the invitation for you today is not to try to do one more thing
better or get one more thing right, but instead to return to a playfulness that God has placed in
you from the beginning. A little wonder, a little laughter, a little curiosity,
a little freedom, a little joy. My guest today is Piera Gilardi.
Piera is a creative entrepreneur, speaker, author, and the co-founder and former executive
creative director of Refinery29, where she helped shape one of the most influential media brands
for women and launched an immersive creative experience, 29 Rooms.
She's also the co-founder of NumaLuma, which is a platform devoted to helping people rediscover
creativity and play in everyday life. Her new book The Playful Way is a beautiful practical
invitation. to move from pressure into possibility. And she helps us reclaim play in practical
ways. You're going to get some practical ideas in today's episode to reconnect to a sense of wonder
and play. I love this conversation. It's so refreshing. It had me smiling from ear to ear,
and I know it's going to have something for you as you enter into the week.
Please enjoy my conversation with Piera Gilardi.
The founder of the model, he talks about the qualities of kind of when we know when we're in the
true self, when we're in that nervous system regulation, when we're connected, you know, and a lot
of them are clarity and calm. But one of them is playfulness. Right. And that's what you're
speaking to. So I would just love to kind of start there because you opened the book with such a
relatable. frustrating story I was just in one of these where you're I think in a TSA line at the
airport so frustrating and you have this moment of becoming playful could you could you share that
with us yeah absolutely so I was at the airport and there were huge delays the TSA line was you
know snaking this way that way it looked like it was miles long and our flight was in an hour and
we were going on a vacation that we really needed um and have been really looking forward to and so
we're just looking at this line and you know the the atmosphere in the airport is so tense you know
it's like it's like a thousand like stress flies like buzzing in the air it feels like and you know
everyone's huffing and puffing and getting annoyed with each other when you know they accidentally
bump each other with their roller suitcases and whatnot and i feel myself starting to just have
that internal voice of like why didn't we leave earlier why did you know that spiral and i
recognize it i say oh i'm spiraling into you know i'm spiraling and i decide to just i we're we
started around the first bend of the first turn in the line and i just made a split second decision
i raised my hand to my partner and he looked at me confused but he gave me a tentative high five
and i said yes one turn closer and he kind of giggled and then like the people around us looked at
us you know they were like slightly amused confused uh so then the next time we went around the
next turn my partner philip was ready so he raised his hand we both high-fived we said in unison
one turn closer and that time people you know chuckled around us and by the third turn in the line
this dad raised his hand for a high five before we even raised ours and You know,
he and his kid were laughing. And then by, you know, basically as we went along in this line, each
turn more people got involved or started to laugh. And so what had been this very pressured,
stressful situation where everyone was, you know, kind of isolated in their own frustration became
suddenly laughter, camaraderie. You know, we weren't going any faster in the line,
but we. felt so different. And we had sparked this moment of laughter and connection for the people
around us. And so ultimately, the state that we were in before that, where we were spiraling,
we were white knuckling, we were stressed out, we were in our minds fighting against what was
happening. That's what I call the pressured state. And when I took a breath and caught myself and
realized that i had a choice to show up a different way and i chose the playful way it didn't
change the situation but it changed us and it changed the people around us it's such a powerful
story because i loved that opening and you're such a great writer you just bring it to life but i
just thought oh my gosh that's it it's so simple but we so often don't choose that You know,
that moment was just this, you know, just a second of you making a different choice.
And you talk about how as children, this is much more normal for us.
We kind of automatically are we're automatically able to play. It's so sort of intuitive.
But as we become adults, we lose that. Why? What's your talk? And how do you describe in the book
why we lose that that childlike desire to play? Yeah,
play is intrinsic to all humans and we... we always can have access to it but we have to practice
it and we we often lose touch with it so i think of it like a muscle that you know if you decide
that you want to be more in touch with it it's about choosing it and finding those moments to
practice it but as as we grow up a lot of things happen i mean unfortunately for a lot of people
they have adverse childhood experiences that might you know mean they have to grow up much faster
there are also a lot of like systemic and privilege-based barriers who's allowed to play and
where. So all of those things are definite realities. And then there's also just the social
conditioning that we get from a very young age. When you think about it, as you start to get into
grade school, all of a sudden, play is just for resource re you know recess so it's this very very
small pocket of time you know unless you go to a school where play is integrated more mindfully but
at most schools it's really about you know doing things a certain way point a to point b it's sit
you know sit still pay attention don't joke around and you're you're you know that's like how how i
grew up you know all my report cards kind of talk about that so there's that then there's sort of
the layer of you know as we get older being a responsible adult and sort of being taught that that
That means being joyless, you know, for whatever reason, that responsibility means seriousness and
approaching things seriously. We have that perfectionist voice that tells you, you know, I
couldn't, I can't afford to make mistakes. So I'm not going to experiment. I'm not going to
explore. I'm just going to try to get the right answer and do it perfectly. So we get all these
voices. There's the cool police, you know, tells you don't stand out. Don't be cringe, you know,
and all of these things, you know, slow. slowly remove you know pull us back from our playfulness
and they pull us back from our authentic selves right like when we're not when we're so
perfectionistic that we're not taking any risks or doing any exploration you know we lose we lose
so much of you know what could be and and that those sparks of inspiration those um those trials
that actually get us to a better answer and something that's more aligned for us when we you know
when we listen to the cool police and we try to not be cringe we try to you know not stand out
we're not expressing ourselves you know we we feel a bit empty in life.
When we try to be a responsible adult and make that mean just being completely serious and,
you know, zipped up in our serious suits, we lose connection and joy and wonder and curiosity and
like all of these beautiful things that make us feel alive, creative, connected to each other.
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It's so true. It almost gets conditioned out of this.
And I almost see it in different... The older I get, it gets conditioned out of me in different
ways. And I was noticing, you know, I'm... in my fifth you know I'm menopausal and I've got to get
to the gym right and get those those and I was at the gym the other day it just reminded me of this
when you said this and I was so out of place I wasn't it was not cool you know this was like a
everybody there was under 30 with like huge biceps you know I was not you know the cool police I
was like I am I am not the cool police here I am so sticking out like a sore thumb and it was just
stressed me out like this And then this older woman, and you could just tell she did not care.
She was much older than me, just came running over to me. And she's like, we have the same orange
shoes. And we did. And it was so adorable. And just to your point, I immediately found joy.
And it was her being connected. And it made me think of it when you said the cool place.
Why is that still getting to me?
it doesn't matter i walk into a room where i'm not fitting in and i immediately sort of shrink and
then this one yeah and this one person who doesn't care and that just changed my whole experience i
had a great time we kind of like kept checking her yeah yes and it's it's powerful it's really
powerful and yeah i the way i think of it is that that pressured state yes what we get into when
we're feeling perfectionistic, when we're feeling judged or self-conscious, you know, that,
that, Oh, I don't want to stand out kind of voice. Like all those things shrink us. So I sort of
think of that pressured state as being clenched hands, right? It's like in our body, we can feel
it. Like everything is tight. Our shoulders are up, you know, maybe we're clenching our jaw,
our hands, you know, our breath is maybe shorter and we're white knuckling, you know? And when
we're in that playful state, we're more like an inflated balloon we're like that woman you know
pointing out the orange we're we're more filled with air um so i always i always kind of think
about that and how what state even just noticing what state am i in right now um is really helpful
just the awareness so you you talk about a point of burnout in your own life and realizing that you
were thinking about it as burnout. You were thinking about it as a creative block maybe. And that
was really underneath it was a disconnection from play. So what, how did you recognize that?
How did you, you know, cause you're in the white knuckling. How did you recognize what was actually
going on there?
Yeah. So, I mean, I grew up in a very playful family and I, you know, moved to, I was,
I'm very, you know, colorful, exuberant. creativity has always been core to my life and my career
and so when I was starting my company Refinery29, my first company,
I brought a lot of playfulness and a spirit of curiosity, exploration,
experimentation to the work that I was doing. And that really served me.
We built a company that was growing and we were hiring a bunch of people.
We started hiring people from more corporate backgrounds.
We also had a lot more pressure on us, a lot bigger goals, you know,
investors that were looking at our progress. And so it started to feel very pressured.
Yes. And I also started to feel like I was standing out in a not good way with my,
you know, being this colorful, creative, playful person that was now sitting in boardrooms where
people were slinging all this jargon that I didn't know and saying things I didn't understand. And
so I had this, you know, I had this huge imposter syndrome and I had and I thought,
you know, I think these playful qualities that got me to this point now aren't appropriate,
you know, and I want to be taken seriously. So I need to be serious. And so I and I think of it
like we're zipping ourselves into our serious. So good. Like it's like. You're getting in there and
it's a tight suit. So I started to stop exhibiting these playful things.
I thought if I asked a question in a meeting, then people would immediately know that I didn't know
the answer. I thought if I floated big wild ideas, people would think I was an unrealistic dreamer.
And I thought if I cracked a joke in the meeting, I would be seen as a joker. So I stopped doing a
lot of these. things that were really natural for me to do in my work. And I hoped that I would be
taken seriously from that. And I hoped I would get to the next stage of my career by cosplaying
serious adult, basically. And what happened was that I wasn't learning.
I still didn't know the answer to these. you know things i mean i was googling like a maniac but
like i still didn't you know still didn't have the answers i felt more disconnected it was like i
kind of lost my intrinsic motivation um i just felt yeah i felt very disconnected and i really lost
my perspective too I remember laying on my apartment floor and crying about what a failure I was,
like sobbing hysterically about what a failure I was. And I wrote this list of all the ways I was
failing. And it was at a moment when the outside world would have thought, you know,
this was my career peak thus far. But inside, I was so brittle,
so depleted.
I was able to realize that I was underplayed and overworked because I had the,
had the privilege at the time to recognize that I was in this bad state. I actually thought, I
thought I should probably just leave my company. I should resign because I wasn't clearly wasn't
cut out for this. Um, and fortunately I got connected to this coach,
Katya Verison and, uh, When I talked to her, the first thing she asked me was,
what do you think the qualities are that got you to this place in your career where you have all
this pressure, you know? Because in some ways, like Billie Jean King said, pressure is a privilege,
right? Like in this case, you know, I had built something. It was a result of success in some ways.
Yeah, it was a result of a certain kind of success, you know? A certain kind of success, that's a
good way to put it, yeah. Yeah, and so she said, what do you think the qualities are? that got you
here. And I said, curiosity, experimentation, creativity. You know,
I also said, I think my personality, my joyful, you know, my joyful creative personality,
like allowed me to meet and connect with a lot of people. And so she said, so, so why do you think
that those qualities you have to like throw in the trash can to get to the next level?
She said, what if you actually lean into those more? as your superpowers to grow and so I didn't
necessarily know if she was on the right track or not but I decided you know I mean right now I'm
at this place where I'm thinking of quitting my own company so I might as well try it and so I
started you know I started leaning more into these playful qualities and what I saw was you know
when I asked questions in a meeting I actually wasn't left out of the room. In fact, people leaned
forward to hear the answer and thanked me afterwards for asking because they were too afraid to.
So my curiosity was helping me to get more knowledge and it was helping me to actually help other
people to also have a better understanding and to clarify what was happening.
I started going back into that big idea. visionary you know imagination mode and what happened was
that we started to have these breakthroughs these like breakthroughs and innovation and do things
that you know ended up being sort of the most the thing our company was most known for came from
leaning into being more imaginative and i started just bringing back my my joy and my humor and
that made me feel much more connected and my day-to-day brighter and so yeah in that moment i was
like so burnt out i was just so so brittle yeah and i found that yeah like i identified that i was
overworked underplayed and when i brought that playful spirit back it brought me back to life
there's such a your time you know i think about the word authenticity right as you're when we are
when we are really inhabiting our true selves, like who we were made to be,
that's when we're going to bring the best. We're not only not going to burn out, but we're going to
bring the best of who we are to the table. I love that.
I love that story. I think it also makes me think of there. You said something really profound that
it was like you had reached this level of success, which is when the pressure. came in.
And I even think about that happens in so many different ways. It can happen with work. I just was
listening to you going, oh my gosh, I've been thinking about that this last six months. I'm like, I
notice I'm losing the play. I'm trying to be somebody because I, you know, and it's not sustainable
and it also isn't your best work. But I think it happens. I was thinking about parenting where we
think our kids need some type of person or some perfection. And really what they need is us.
and our realness and our playfulness. You know, but it's like when the stakes get higher,
something in us goes back to that pressure cooker when actually as the stakes get higher,
that's almost more when we need the playful self.
Yeah, we think of play too as something, oh, I'll do that when times are good or I'll do that when
I have a little free time. Yes, yes. Or, you know. when it's low when it feels low stakes and the
thing about it is that play play is the most helpful actually in those in a lot of those more high
stakes moments when we need you know because play play that playful spirit of exploration
experimentation curiosity that taps us into being stronger problem solvers it helps us to be more
connected to each other and more collaborative it helps us to lower our stress which you know
stress you know shrinks like shrinks our creativity and our resources for finding solutions finding
answers um so playfulness actually is really incredibly practical and useful but we see it as
something that is frivolous and recess That's so, so true. So you've already talked about this a
little bit in your own story and just there that sort of almost the opposite is the inner critic.
When criticism comes in, either towards ourself or towards others, what are the kind of the most
common voices that will shut that play down? You've kind of talked about this, but I think it's
helpful to really name them and notice them because that's when we can make that pivot. Yeah,
you know, I think something people also don't think about, they think of playfulness as being,
because we see it as being frivolous, we don't see it as being courageous. And it's incredibly
courageous to be playful because it requires us to be our authentic selves. It often requires risk.
It requires us to stand out. And so it takes a lot of guts.
And so in the book, I talk about these different powers of play, but I did a whole chapter about
self-compassion at the end because in order to have that courage,
I think we have to nurture our own inner voice and our own self-compassion because there are these
voices that kind of tell us not to play. And those are that voice,
the perfectionist voice that says, I can't afford to make a mistake. I need it to be perfect.
I can't, you know, I can't explore and experiment and play. There's the voice that says I have too
much responsibility to play around. There's the voice that says,
yeah, blend in, don't stand out, don't be cringe.
Yeah, I'm trying to think of some of the other voices, but those are some big ones. You're going to
make a fool of yourself. That's a big one, I feel. You're going to make a fool of yourself. Yeah,
that one really. Yeah, no one's going to take you seriously.
Yeah. A lot of times it's like we're trying to meet serious energy with serious energy.
Yes. Like we think it's a mismatch to bring playfulness into a situation.
What I've been loving is I've been as I've been doing this book tour, I've been going to done this
in four different cities now. I've been hosting these story hours where I share some of the
different powers of play. curiosity, imagination, wonder. And then I tell a story about a time that
that quality has helped me in my life. And then I have the audience share their own stories.
And it's been incredible to hear, you know, people telling stories about being at their parents
funeral and bringing humor with their siblings into it as a way of connecting with each other.
you know, helping to like move through the grief and also to connect to their parents who are, you
know, deceased, but were playful, funny people. Or, you know,
someone shared this hilarious anecdote about going home for the holidays and deciding, you know,
that they wanted to break the cycle of constantly fighting with their parents and trying to change
their parents and reverting to like an adolescent state. So they said they decided they were.
not going home for the holidays they were going on safari and when you're on safari you don't try
to change the animal's diet you don't get in the animal's face about you don't like that they did
you just sit back and think wow this is wild it's
been so fun to hear people's stories a lot of parents you know sharing you know funny ways they get
their you know they like get cooperation their kids brushing their teeth um you know people have
been sharing ways that they're transforming you know mundane tasks through you know through play um
so it's been that's been really fun to just hear these firsthand anecdotes.
And I think everyone has one when they start to see also gratefulness as not just goofing around,
but how it's, how it also represents, you know, humor and curiosity and wonder and imagination.
you know, moving, you know, moving our bodies is so playful. So once I start to kind of open people
up to these different powers of play, the stories that I'm hearing are just so incredible and
vivid. I love that. And I love that you call it a power because it is powerful. Like even just
listening to you tell those, I'm like something shifts and you've touched on these,
but I really kind of want to just take a second and drill down on these. I think there's eight of
them. Yeah. Can you, can you say them again? I've heard you say curiosity.
Yeah, I will say, I will say the powers of play. Let's see if I can remember all eight.
It's a pop quiz.
There's the joyful gesture. So this is someone who brings humor and levity, and they're really
amazing at diffusing tension because humor helps us to de-stress. It helps us to have a little
distance between us and whatever's going on. So the joyful gesture, their power of play is humor
and levity. Then there's the visionary dreamer. So they're the... one with a big imagination who
sees beyond the you know what is to what if um so they're really great at imagining new
possibilities um then we have the curious quester so the curious quester is someone that might go
down rabbit holes of curiosity there they ask a lot of questions they're more of an experimental
you know take a more experimental approach to life And so that's always really good for finding new
ways and also illuminating situations. We have the mover and shaker.
So these are people who find play through moving their bodies.
And they're really amazing at recognizing that our bodies are also,
you know, powerful for helping our minds to get unstuck. So they can help move through stuck
situations by moving their bodies. um we have the wonder wanderer so this is someone whose powers
of noticing are really amazing so you might be walking down the street with them and they're the
one that's pointing to the cloud that's shaped like a rhinoceros or the little you know sparkly
bracelet that's in the crack of the sidewalk they're just always noticing they notice patterns they
notice um and they're also really tapped into just the beauty of day-to-day life
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That's a pretty good list. And I think the listener can go get the book to get the rest of them.
Yeah, get the book to get the three that I'm not remembering right now. I love the way that there's
different, you know, because we're going to resonate with different ones. Because, you know, then I
can almost feel the tension of, I'm not funny, you know, like. But then it's like, but I'm a
dreamer. It's like there are different ways we all play differently. And finding your own kind of
unique. I think of people I know who have sort of a dark sense of humor that sort of is like,
that see the, and I'm like, there's a playfulness in it. And again,
I think what's interesting is you're not talking about We're not trying to bypass what's hard.
No. Right. And any of these things, just like we talk on the podcast all the time, any any strength
or anything can have can become a mask. Right. Right.
But at the same time, that that ability to the flexibility that we know is such an important part
of resilience to kind of flip into. I love the story about going home and seeing the family as the
safari to harness that. as a tool to use in a hard situation is,
is really powerful. And then kind of knowing your own unique way you're going to do that.
Yeah. Yeah. When I, what I was hearing from a lot of people was that I'm not playful.
And when I, you know, double clicked on that, what I would find was that it was because people
think of play as being the joyful gesture, basically. Yeah. Funny.
Silly, light. And so if they're not that or they think of play as being the fun one,
you know, I'm not the fun friend, so I'm not playful. So what I really wanted to do in the book was
to show all these different facets of playfulness and so that people could see themselves in it.
And they could also understand how if they if there was a quality that they wanted to develop more,
how they might do that. and how they might practice that in their day-to-day life.
So let's talk a little bit. So for the listener who's been in that pressure cooker, maybe feels
like they've lost a little bit of that sense of play where you were when you had that.
What's a practice, you know, we can do to, because you do talk about moving out of your head,
right? So then we can get in our head with it. So what's a way that we can begin to shift from
pressured to playful? Yeah. So I think the first thing is recognizing that you're in that pressured
state. So then you kind of feel it. So the way I have, I have an acronym,
even though acronyms are my kryptonite, I have an acronym for kind of shifting state and it's play
P-L-A-Y. So it's pause. And like when you're pausing,
you recognize, oh, I'm in the pressured state. Everything's tight. I'm stressed out. I'm spiraling.
Okay, pause. And then you lighten. So you can lighten with a breath. You can lighten with a,
you know, moving your body or laughter. But essentially,
you want to just kind of try and go from being that clean. from the clenched fist to like a little
bit more of an inflated balloon. Then you activate your play power. So whatever,
you know, you kind of tap into that, whichever play power feels right for the situation or right
for you. And then you're basically saying yes and. So you're saying, which is an improv principle,
but you're saying, okay, this thing is happening. I might not want it to be happening. And I can
look for a playful approach here. So that I find really helpful for adults that feel like they've
completely disconnected with their playfulness. I usually tell them to look in the lost and found,
like go back to childhood. What made you lose track of time?
What, you know, what did you just love doing? And often there's a kernel,
it might not be that, you know, you might, might not want to play with Barbies as an adult, but
maybe that role playing, you know, that you did means that you love, you know,
you love narratives. So you love, maybe you love like sitting on the train and like imagining the,
what the different people's like lives are like, or maybe, you know, you love doing.
improv now or you know there's like so finding the thread like for me as a kid I loved beachcombing
I grew up in Maine and I loved looking for treasure along the beach and so now as someone who lives
in New York City as an adult I love going on wonder wanders so I go for a walk and I just basically
try and like I'm like I'm tuning my dial to delight And I look for things that are interesting to
me. And I look up, I look down, I look all around, I put my phone away unless I need to take a
picture of one of the amazing things that I find. And so that's sort of a practice that relates
back to a childhood practice, but it now fits my adult life and my environment. So I think people
can, yeah, look back and see if there's an adult version that seems appealing of like that
childhood interest. i love that because there's a there's definitely a connection like i was
thinking when you were talking about like the imagination you know i could just imagine worlds in
my head and sometimes i'll go back and read the books that sparked the kids books it sparked the
imagination because somehow it just opens up that pathway back yeah in my brain you know whatever
was tapped into Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And in the book, I also have like these daily,
these small practices. So a couple of my favorite ones that people want to practice play.
One is move to get out of our heads is to do a shake break. So, you know,
I think we think of a lot of times as adults, we're like, I need to move and it's tied to a should,
right? It's all about exercise. I need to be, you know, need to be healthy.
But. kind of finding some space for just like a little bit of free movement. So Shake Break is I
put on a song. I just move freely however I feel like for a minute.
And I did it before this podcast. I do it whenever I need to, you know,
like move through. Sometimes it's nerves or I just want to like wake up my energy if I'm feeling.
anxious i'm feeling sad i take a shake break i love that that one i love that's one of my own
practices that i do all the time the other is the wonder wonder which i just told you about and
it's you know we can even do it in our environment and just say like i'm gonna look up and find
five things that are green or i'm gonna look up and see if i can find five things i haven't noticed
before in my space um so that's that's one just to tap us into that the wonder that's always around
us. And, you know, so often we're so in our head or we're so in our to-dos or our stress that we
don't actually notice the world around us. And that's one that's been, as someone who lives with
depression, going on Wonder Wanders has been so helpful for me. It's such a gentle,
it's like a gentle form of play for me. I love that. Yeah, so I love that one.
And then another one that I really love is Find the Funny. which is basically looking back at my
day at the end of the day and finding something that I can look at through the lens of humor. So
maybe it's a moment I took myself too seriously that I can laugh at. Maybe it's a situation that
stressed me out, but that if I imagine it in a sitcom, all of a sudden it seems so hilarious.
Or if I dramatize it, it feels hilarious. But it's a great way to look back at your day and kind of
find the lightness. put a little distance between you and whatever was frustrating you or stressing
you out. And then I find that because I've, because I practice it sort of retroactively,
then in the moment, I'm more able to see the lens of humor on things.
And it really, it just helps me so much to like laugh about it a little. It's not about not,
it's not, and I think we think of play as this thing that's. the opposite of seriousness.
Yeah. But it's really that that playful spirit helps us to move through through seriousness with a
little bit more flexibility, levity, resourcefulness. Exactly.
It's so well stated. And those are such practical. I love the the practical.
I love that idea of just thinking over your day. I just did it. While you were talking about it, I
was like, oh, I've been taking myself so seriously there. And I can almost imagine the screenplay.
I can almost imagine the script, kind of inner eye roll. I have like an inner eye roller.
I just start, oh, gosh. And it's not being mean. And you're so right. It's such a paradox. It's not
being mean to yourself. It's actually kind of like seeing yourself. And it's just, again, I always
think about, we talk a lot on the podcast about kind of reparenting these. parts of yourself right
it's a gentle and you know think about with your real life kids like if they're doing something
sometimes that eye roll when it's done in love not in anger it's an actual really like side eye
you're you're actually showing confidence you're showing courage and that tracks so much more with
a kid than you know getting all serious and giving them a lecture And it's right. And it's kind of
the same with ourselves. It's kind of like, oh, gosh, you know, if I can if I can sort of laugh at
myself, like I'm pretty free, actually. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's not about being mean and
being like, oh, why did I why was I like that? It's just more like, oh, my God, there I go again.
Freeing. It's it's very it's it's very paradoxical. I love that you're kind of highlighting that.
And even just I appreciate your vulnerability and saying you've dealt with. depression right it
doesn't these things coexist and in many ways playfulness you know some of the funniest people i
know are the people who can kind of see the humor in the darkness yeah and it's not and this is
where just to circle all the way back what i was saying about richard schwartz the founder of this
ifs model that's where he talked about that playfulness is a it's part of our design that is the
healthy kind of resilience, you know, that's allowing us to hold what's hard and also,
you know, just kind of hold it loosely, you know, hold it with a little more lightness.
I really like that. That's beautiful. That's beautiful the way you put it. Yeah. Well, I think,
you know, we also, we internalize a lot of binaries,
you know, and that is so destructive. And so playfulness is holding,
it's holding both and it's a yes and sort of energy.
And I think that that helps us to feel more whole and connected and to be able to sit with the
beauty and the pain and the... know the it's not you know the complexity of of life I love it tell
my listeners a little bit more about where they can find the book it's such a great read it's it's
filled with and you embody I just want to say the playfulness about which you know I felt it even
And I can tell it's a practice because I felt it in myself as we were talking. And I see that in
the book, too, right, that you're embodying it as you go. And it's really powerful. Where can
people find it and find more about it? Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I embodied all these
practices as I was writing it as well. So I really challenged myself to lean into my own
philosophy. And it helped me so much. Listeners can find the book where,
you know, major online sellers where books are sold the playful way. And if you want to also
practice play day to day, I have an app called Numaluma currently free that is all about creative
play in your day to day in those in between moments of your life where, you know,
you have a few minutes and you might be doom scrolling.
it's giving you an active form of low stakes play. So I would love to,
yeah, all about spreading play ripples. And I hope that this book and these practices help people
to feel more connected, creative, alive in their day to day.
I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us. Thank you so much. I loved our
conversation. It was so delightful. Thanks for playing. Yeah, thank 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
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you heal others, and you stay true to your God-given self.
What does it actually mean to raise an emotionally mature child?
In this powerful conversation, Dr. Alison Cook sits down with renowned psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson, whose groundbreaking book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents helped millions name what they didn’t receive growing up.
Now, Dr. Gibson turns toward a new question: How do we become the kind of parents who help our children feel safe, seen, respected, and emotionally strong?
Together, they explore the emotional foundation children truly need—not perfection, but presence. They unpack what emotional maturity looks like, the impact of being raised by an emotionally immature parent, and how we can begin to give our own children the kind of parenting they need.
You’ll explore:
- The signs of an emotionally immature parent
- What a “good enough” parent actually looks like
- How repair builds trust more than perfection does
- The dance of balancing connection and autonomy
- How to create emotional safety for your child
Whether you’re parenting toddlers, teenagers, or adult children—or simply learning how to become more emotionally mature yourself—this conversation offers a hopeful, grounded framework for growth.
Because healthy parenting isn’t about raising perfect kids. It’s about creating the kind of emotional soil where both you and your child can grow.
More Resources:
Order Dr. Lindsay’s new book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child: Your Blueprint to a Lifetime of Happiness and Success for Your Child
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 175: A Game-Changing Toolkit to Help Kids Conquer Worry and Build Courage with David Thomas and Sissy Goff
Episode 68: How *Not* to Lose Yourself—Remaining You While Raising Them with Alli Worthington
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
You can't do these things that encourage emotional maturity in your child if you're not also
simultaneously working on this within yourself. How are you going to orient your beingness toward
your child in such a way that you will create the best possible soil for them to grow in?
And that is your mindset. That is your attitude toward your child.
This attitude that says, I know that you're real inside. I'm very interested.
Hey,
everyone, and welcome back to this week's Deep Dive episode of the Best of You podcast. Today's
conversation was such a gift for me personally, and I know it's going to be for you.
We're talking about parenting. We're going into summer, and we're not talking about it as a set of
techniques or skills or tips, but as one of the deepest invitations to our own emotional and
spiritual growth. If you're a parent, you already know this. Our children have a way of bringing up
parts of us that still need tending. Maybe it's a part of you that is desperate to get it right,
to correct any of the wrongs that maybe happened to you. Maybe it's a part of you that feels
completely overwhelmed, like you're losing yourself in the work of parenting. Maybe it's a part of
you that worries constantly. Am I doing enough? Am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? Maybe
it's a part of you that remembers what you received or didn't receive from your own parents,
and you're constantly comparing and constantly stuck in the past. And this is where parenting,
as challenging as it can be, is also such a beautiful and sacred work because we're not only
helping our children grow into emotionally and spiritually mature human beings,
we're also being invited to grow into emotional and spiritual maturity ourselves.
You can't really become a healthier parent, as our guest today shares with us,
without becoming a healthier human. And the reality is there's a dance at the heart of parenting,
at the heart of any healthy relationship. It's the dance of connection and autonomy, of coming
close and of letting go, being needed, and then also letting our children move out on their own.
They're making their own choices, having their own interests, becoming their own. person.
And today's guest is just so gifted at naming these experiences,
both of parenting ourselves, but also of being parented. She's someone who has mentored me from
afar. I'd never met her before today, but I've read her books. I've recommended her books so
frequently. I'm sure many of you have already read some of her books because she's just such a mix
of kindness and honesty and deep wisdom. I was just so honored to get to have this conversation
with Lindsay C. Gibson. Dr. Lindsay Gibson is a clinical psychologist with over 30 years of
psychotherapy experience. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Adult Children of
Emotionally Immature Parents. This is a book that has sold over a million copies and has been
translated into 38 languages. Her work has helped so many people name what they didn't receive
growing up, not necessarily through harsh labels or blame, but through the deeply clarifying lens
of emotional immaturity. And now in our brand new book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child,
Lindsay turns toward the question so many of us are asking, how do we become the kind of parents
who help our children feel safe, seen, respected, and emotionally strong?
What I love about this conversation is that it's not about perfect parenting. In fact, we talk
about how perfect parenting does not set our kids up for success. In fact, Lindsay gives us so much
relief around this idea of a good enough parent. She even quantifies it for us, what it actually
means in real life. Spoiler alert, it is the parent who misses things sometimes,
who gets distracted sometimes, who loses attunement sometimes, but learns how to come back,
repair, and reconnect. This conversation is for any kind of parent,
parents of toddlers, teenagers, adult children, step-parents, and honestly, for anyone who is just
learning how to become more emotionally mature in the presence of another human. I am so thrilled
to bring you my conversation with Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson.
Well, I couldn't be more thrilled. As I said just before I hit record,
I feel like you've mentored me for these past years and how many times I recommend your work.
I kind of want to start. They're Lindsay bridging to the new book. I think that the naming of your
first book or your previous book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,
was so powerful for so many people because it's less stigmatizing.
Many of us, you know, many folks who I interact with or talk to are clients or, you know,
we... have this sense of something was missing. But almost in our culture,
it can be like, well, it's got to be narcissism or something extreme or it's perfect.
And it's like, well, no, it wasn't that. It's just something was missing. And I think you really
named something so helpful, gave people a way to frame their experience.
I think especially for my generation, Gen X, where some of this was just not in the air that we
breathed. back in the 80s this idea of emotional maturity i i would love to just hear your thoughts
about how that's been for you to see how that has landed so viscerally with so many people and just
what that what that's been like for you yeah well it's it's funny because the The title was
something that we left until fairly late in the process, my editor and I, of writing the book.
And it was recommended by somebody, it might have been a consultant from Barnes & Noble,
I'm not sure where they were from, but they said, no, you've got to describe what's in the book.
You've got to say what it is in the title. And so so we were kind of reluctantly,
OK, we'll we'll you know, we'll we'll make it a descriptive title if you say so. And we laugh about
it, you know, all the time from, you know, do you remember when we had this other title and how
funny that would have been? Anyway, so. Yeah. So, yes, it was it was something that I think.
needed to be articulated needed to be put into words for people like you say people already knew
what this was but they just didn't have a a way of defining it or talking about it that didn't
automatically make them feel like they were throwing their parent under the bus with a psychiatric
diagnosis which is also kind of a You know, it's sort of a euphemism for saying that they're bad.
Yeah. I mean, emotionally, you feel like you're saying something awful about them when you give
them a diagnosis like that. And I was just trying to describe in as kind.
and yet accurate a way as I could what this kind of behavior was all about.
And what it's all about is that the person never got the chance or never had the capacity to be
mature enough to think about other people and to imagine what the experience of other people was
like and have that govern their behavior. So yeah, I was trying to trying to get at this thing that
I knew people knew about and yet did not have the language for it yet.
It's so powerful. Before we segue into how we raise emotionally mature kids,
can you give us just an overview of what are these qualities of an emotionally immature parent?
Because that's essentially with this second book we're trying. to figure out how to be emotionally
mature as a parent. So our children can be emotionally mature. So what is it?
How do you see it at a high level, an emotionally immature parent?
Yeah, no, what you said was very interesting because if you are trying to raise an emotionally
mature child and that's your mindset, you actually are going to be emotionally maturing yourself.
It's like the hidden benefit. You can't do these things that encourage emotional maturity in your
child if you're not also simultaneously working on this within yourself.
You don't have to be doing that consciously. It can happen indirectly as part of the process of
trying to help your child attain maturity. It's kind of a cool twofer thing.
It's an added benefit of trying to approach your child in this way. You will actually be increasing
your own maturity. But to go into the qualities of emotional immaturity,
we recognize this. all day, every day,
whenever we have an unpleasant interaction with somebody.
And it's that the other person is...
Basically, they're egocentric. Their focus is necessarily on themselves because they have never
psychologically developed to the point where in their inner world,
there is a place for the inner subjective experience of another human being. They're like big four
-year-olds. They've got language. It looks like you should be able to reason with them because
they can talk now.
But emotionally, they just can't imagine that there's anybody else in the world but them that
counts. And so they're very self-preoccupied.
All roads lead to them. And they have very low empathy. They have some empathy.
You know, if they're not stressed, if they're not tired or, you know,
maybe feeling under the weather. Yeah, if they're in peak form. they have the capacity to show some
empathy and that's what confuses people because they they think well there was that time when i was
sick and mom brought me the stuffed animal or you know i remember when dad um you know took me out
for pizza and they have empathy but they're so self-absorbed yeah that they can't tune into that
unless they're so well resourced that they've got plenty of extra energy.
They also don't have the capacity for self-reflection usually. Again,
things are going great. They can sit back and maybe self-reflect, but it doesn't go very far and
it doesn't last very long. They don't ask themselves, you know, gee, maybe it was something I said,
or maybe I could have handled that differently. Or, wow, I'm really sorry, you know,
seeing the look on my child's face that I said that. I need to apologize. That is so upsetting to
them that they just stay away from it. And then the last two things are emotional intimacy is very
hard for them. They like to keep things simple and they like to keep things on the surface. I
described it with one of my clients as... You know, could you think of yourself as 3D and maybe
your mom as 2D? And would that help you to understand how she experiences life and why it's so
unsatisfying to you as a 3D person? And that really helped her.
And then the last thing is that their relationship to reality,
how they see the world, how they think things work,
optional they dismiss deny distort reality in whatever way that will make them feel good about
themselves and make them feel less stressed so that that really you know opens wide the floodgates
for misunderstanding because if you try to talk with them about something or communicate something
about the relationship You know, A, they're terrified of the emotional intimacy of that. They don't
want to get close to that meaningful stuff. And, you know, secondly, they will just say that didn't
happen or I didn't mean that or you're way too sensitive. They'll shut it down by distorting the
reality that you thought, you know, was something that you shared together because you were there.
But that doesn't hold them back from rearranging things to make it feel better to them.
Yeah. And what is then, if we're thinking again, if you're raised by someone who has this kind of
emotional capacity, and I always think to myself, you know, if your parent had the emotional
intelligence of maybe a five, six-year-old up through five or six of your own life,
that might have been fine. But then as you develop, what is the impact? And especially as you
become an adult, how does that affect us? How does that affect our own ability to form emotional
intimacy and empathy and have these skills? Yeah,
well, first of all, it's going to make you feel very lonely. Because if you as a little child
person have a deep need for emotional intimacy,
meaning you want to share your inside world with someone else and you want to hear theirs back and
you want to have that meaningful, deep connection at that profound level. And you can't connect up
with this incredibly important person in your life, the basis of your security,
and you can't find or form a bridge to them. You're going to feel very emotionally lonely.
And of course, for a child, you know, because everything to them feels like they caused it or
they're the root of it. There's that nice egocentrism again of the very young. They're going to
feel like there must be something in the matter with them. Yeah. And so maybe it would be better to
kind of keep all of this stuff secret and don't share it with other people because their experience
with an emotionally immature parent is that the parent actually. you know draws back and you know
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Lindsay, it's so powerful. You talk about the work of parenting to segue into this new book as the
psychological construction of another human being. You're providing the atmosphere.
And I love what you just said. It's so interesting. It's kind of touching me personally because I
wrote a little bit about the process of moving toward the parts of my own self that felt so lonely
and unseen in this new book, right? They always needed that.
These parts of me always needed that presence. And I had to find for me other ways of getting it
for myself and from God, you know, from that sense of almost that withness that we just need.
And there are ways, you know, I know part of why I love as we were talking before we record this
inner work is, is it sort of like, because what do I do? You can't change what you got as a parent,
right? So how do you find a way to bring that kind of loving presence into those parts of us?
I wonder about, and I'm sure you get this question all the time,
right? So we're aware of that, how important that is. And then we become parents.
And so we're trying to figure out how to not create that gap. that loneliness gap,
that gap of being unseen with our own, you know, and you speak about this so well in the new book.
And so I kind of want to pivot there to, you know, for the listener who's kind of hooked on what we
just talked about, please check out, if you haven't already, about your own parents, the, you know,
what sort of the residual effects of having an emotionally... immature parent, but now pivoting to,
gosh, now I know this. I've seen in my own self how valuable and important that withness is.
It can be kind of terrifying. How do we begin to think about our own children without sort of
collapsing into fear and pressure, but also recognizing how important that role of...
kind of creating that emotional atmosphere for this little being, this little soul that's getting
formed. Yes. Well, you know, what just occurred to me when you said that was,
if you have been doing any kind of self work at all, and I would imagine that probably a lot of
your audience has already been engaged in that. You are already doing that with yourself.
In other words, you are, instead of allowing yourself to remain unseen to yourself and just sort
of, you know, heaping blame on yourself, like there must be something wrong with me or maybe I'm
the crazy one or I want too much or something like that. If you're engaged in any kind of self
-discovery, you are already putting yourself in the mindset of that withness and that presence.
with yourself, okay, with whatever that spark is within us that we recognize as me,
myself, who I am. If we are already engaged in that process of being in communication with that,
we are set up perfectly for doing that with our child.
It's really only when, you know, for people who are very emotionally immature,
They just don't turn inward. Inward is a scary place. They construct a kind of a facade in order to
shore up their self-esteem and to keep themselves emotionally and socially stable. So they live
kind of from the outside in. But if you have any interest in what's going on inside you,
and you've been working on it at all, or reading interesting books on that subject,
then you already know implicitly the right attitude to have toward your child in order for your
child to grow up with the best chance for emotional maturity. And let me tell you how this works.
So when I wrote this book, I thought... are a million books out there, really good books,
that will tell you what to do when your child has a tantrum, that will tell you how to do illogical
consequences or how not to do consequences, how just to be collaborative with your child. I have
such respect for that. I have a whole section in the back of the book about resources for those
very books.
I didn't want to write a book that would just be about addressing specific behaviors.
I really wanted to write a book that would be a sort of a, to use your language,
Allison, a soul orientation. Okay. How are you going to orient your beingness toward your child in
such a way that you will create the best possible uh soil or her ground for them to grow in and
that is your mindset that is your your attitude toward your child and this goes back to that part
about also doing self-discovery and work on the self because if you approach your child as someone
who is real inside The inside world is as real as the outside world.
If you approach your child with that attitude and you approach yourself with that attitude, now you
are positioned for really deep, true emotional intimacy because that's where it resides.
It's not in your communication skills. It's not in how you phrase your questions or how many times
you ask. It's this... It's this orientation,
this attitude that says, I know that you're real inside. I'm very interested in what's going on
inside there. And I am going to attend to you in such a way that you and I both learn together who
you are as an individual, how you feel, and I'm going to help you find the words.
to be able to express that so we can communicate about it. And I'm going to take your emotional
needs completely seriously. I don't care if you're 2 or 12 or 17.
I'm going to treat your inner world like something that is as essential and important as anything
in the outside world that our culture values. You are precious to me for who you really are.
And I'm going to get to know you at that level. And we're going to delight in each other.
That's powerful. If you get that going, you are going to do just fine.
That's so encouraging. It's such a paradox in many ways that listening to you,
the more we cultivate that soil in our own soul, that's what spills.
out. You know, that's what spills out. That's what's our kids. And I'm aware of that.
The more I'm with myself, I kind of figure out what I actually need from me, from, you know, from
even I think spiritually for me, like kind of learning that's what it means, God with us, you know,
rarely to be fixed, rarely to be lectured, sometimes a boundary, sure.
Always with understanding. That's how I then approach my own kids.
Yes, it absolutely is then. Oh, I get it now. Oh, that's what you want in this moment.
Exactly. Yeah. And it's and it's basically this recognition that comes across.
We can you can tell you can tell how someone attends to you,
whether they think that you're really inside there. That there's really something inside you that
they're connecting with. That comes across, you know, in a crowded room.
You meet the eyes of someone who can do that, who can recognize the realness inside you.
And you instantly feel like you want to gravitate toward that because you know it's going to be
kind. You know it's going to take you seriously. You know that you have the feeling that you could
tell this person anything and they would just be curious. you know, about you. They wouldn't judge
you or reject you. It's a very particular kind of energy. But what I think is so cool,
because it's amazing it works this way, it's so cool that when we show curiosity toward ourselves
and our own development, how we got to be the way we are, that's going to translate. to our
relationships, and also to our parenting with our child. It's to your point at the beginning, it
really is, the more we try to be better parents, we are going to become better people.
And it's very beautiful. You talk about this concept that I love from Winnicott.
I think it's from Winnicott, the good enough parent. I kind of want to bring that in because we
also... I think part of that balance and that paradox is we make mistakes.
We have bad days. We miss things, you know. So tell me how you encourage parents through that in
this book because you really are. It's not a quick fix how-to. It's more of a who you are.
So what's this idea of a good enough parent and how do we think about it in our own process?
Yeah.
Well, in a way, it's sort of the counterbalance to the implicit message in some books,
which is, let me tell you how to be a more perfect parent, or let me help you perfect yourself.
Or step down from that is, let me show you how to do the skills.
Let me show you the steps for how you do this. But this is really about,
and I think Winnicott was getting at this too, it's an orientation. It's a way of seeing the world
or this other person where you are sensitive enough,
you're attuned enough, you're interested enough in the experience of that little baby,
that toddler, that middle schooler. where you will turn toward them with interest and curiosity and
maybe concern when you sense that there is something going on inside them that is not being
expressed, that maybe needs to be expressed or is in the process of trying to form into something
that can be communicated. So the good enough parent is the person who knows their child has an
inner world and they're sensitive and responsive to that at an emotional level.
It's that, I think you called it the withness, you know,
being with the person. And that kind of attentiveness it turns out,
does not have to be done 100% of the time every day. There you go.
This is the big relief.
Load off your mind. And the infancy researcher, Ed Tronick,
actually set out and did the experiment to find out, okay,
let's operationalize this. How much time do you have to be perfectly attuned to your child in order
to be a good enough parent? I need some parameters here. Don't just tell me to be good enough.
And he found that approximately a third of the time, maybe I think his actual number was 30%.
If you are attuned to and attending to your child at a emotional level of being present with them
and sensitive to them yeah if you're doing that about a third of the time now this we're talking
interspersed yeah right you're not with your child presumably all day long so the third of the time
you're with them yeah yes because he you know he recorded wow you know when at whenever the parent
tuned in to the child and made that resonant right brain to right brain kind of connection with the
child. And he found that that's really all it took for the child to apparently feel safe,
soothed, and kind of ready to meet the day again.
It was not necessary to try to be perfectly attuned and always there.
That gets us into helicopter parent territory. But that we can have peaceful coexistence with our
child, except when they begin to show us that they need more engagement,
which they will reliably do by fussing or crying or trying to get attention. They'll always tell us
what we need to do. That's so good. I noticed as your kids get older,
too. when you've learned when you know when you've been present or not present as they get older
because they know you can name it you know I will say to my daughter I am so distracted I'm just
not here you know or I'll circle back and say I'm present now I'm sorry I wasn't earlier right
which is that yeah you build that trust they don't expect perfection because that's not real life
but you build that trust over time as you kind of Learn. It's not to beat yourself up.
Oh, man, I'm not present right now. It's I noticed that I'm not. Oh, wow. What a win.
You know that I know the difference. It's self-reflection. Yeah. Awareness.
Yeah. Yes. So when we can go back in and reconnect like that deliberately and also.
to confirm your child's experience to validate their experience by saying i wasn't present earlier
or i was distracted or i couldn't listen that you know at that point um it it confirms to them oh
i'm not crazy uh this really did happen right and that goes into their model of life in interacting
with other people i mean they They then understand and they're not,
you know, thrown by someone who is distracted at times.
They now know that's a thing that happens between people. They don't need perfect attention all the
time because they've learned that from you. And they also have more trust in the world because,
like, who would you trust more? The friend who...
never ever ever uh had any and created any problems between you or the friend who when there was a
problem they noticed they circled back like you said they say hey you know i really missed the boat
on that one i don't think i'd listen to you very well could we talk about that again at some point
because i was really distracted you have Better trust for that person because you know they're
watching, they're monitoring themselves in the relationship. And I can count on them to feel
something, feel off about the interaction too. They're going to feel it too.
And if they come back to me, I'm going to trust them more than if we had never had a breach.
That's a good point. It actually feels, in any kind of relationship, that's such a beautiful
feeling when you realize we both got that we disconnected. Yes. And we can repair it. That's
powerful. Yeah, and that idea about that actually strengthening trust and hope,
that's from Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold in their book, The Power of Discord, which just turns
upside down this idea that we have to be perfect all the time. Yeah, perfection is not the goal,
actually. That's so good. So what, Lindsay, so we're kind of doing this work ourselves.
What does emotional maturity look like in a child? Yeah.
Right? Because when you were describing the emotionally immature parent as a four or five-year
-old or whatever age, I thought to myself, I was thinking, right, a four-year-old or a five-year
-old can show these moments of empathy. And it's really cool. And you're so excited about it. But
it's not stable. So what are some, you know,
signs of real inner development, real inner emotional maturity that we can look for in our kids?
Yes, and the way you just said that was beautiful because it really is signs of a becoming.
You know, it's not something that has already happened,
of course, because there are only, you know, three or six or, you know. whatever we're not going to
see emotional maturity in the way we mean it for an adult but what we what we really mean is that
according to what they need to be doing at different stages of life this is why i i went from birth
to young adulthood in the book because i wanted people to know what these developmental challenges
are for each age And they're all different. We're working on different things.
So if we're meeting the developmental challenge of our age, like for the two-year-old,
it's autonomy versus shame and self-doubt. If they're learning how to be autonomous and they're
learning to do that in a way that shows confidence and yet connection with other people,
then they are showing their maturation that's appropriate at that age.
Same thing with a teenager who is looking for their identity. The ways that they try to find their
identity may be through artists or music idols or maybe the upperclassmen of the sports character.
They're looking for their identity. So we would say, Right on track. That child is maturing into
it. Also with teenagers, of course, if they're giving us a hard time, if they're not telling us
everything, if they're needing time alone, we might say, right on track.
They're developing their autonomous and their independent identity.
What is going to be the sign of maturation is going to depend on their developmental challenge of
the moment. But in general, if you're looking for, is my child emotionally maturing okay?
You're basically wanting to look at, is my child in a state of emotional connection with me and the
other important people in their life? Interesting. yeah because are they are they turning to me and
i i say me but it could be no are they turning to dad are they turning to their grandparent when
they have something that they are excited about do they come and show um do they ask look at me do
they engage like that or are they do they make eye contact are they showing that desire to be close
with another person that's that's a hallmark and then you know once in a while are they showing
some signs of empathy you know you know in a two-year-old it's going to be pretty brief but are
they are they able to you know momentarily even sort of think about the other person or the
situation in a way that shows some kind of beginning wisdom.
We want to see that. And then are they trying to communicate what it is that they want and who it
is that they are, which includes saying no. Yeah. a sign of emotional maturation in a two-year
-old may very well be a tantrum. That doesn't look very mature, but if it's them beginning to
exercise their independence and their ability to be their own person,
that's a step on. road to emotional maturity it's so good it's again so paradoxical in a way and i
think as as parents right it's that that nuance of right i don't love the tantrums but the tantrums
are actually my child um showing us a cue and again it always i always take it back to the the
inner work similarly if i do something i don't love it is a part of me giving me a signal that I
need to pay attention to you know same same with with our kiddos you know there's something there
that that we want to we don't want to squash that because this is part of their becoming not that
we're saying have tantrums every day but that we're saying okay I oh to use your words I'm learning
something about your inner world here yes I'm learning something about you Yes.
I've got to help shepherd you through that so that you can function in society, but you're telling
me something about you. That's important. It is important, and it's also you telling the child,
I understand that you're overwhelmed. Yeah. I know what this is like. I've been there.
Maybe I was there yesterday. I know what this feels like. I'm here for you.
You're having a moment where you're telling me how bad it is for you inside right now and I'm right
here and I'm going to be here and we're going to sit this out or we're going to go through this and
I will be there on the other side. That's kind of the message that you're communicating to them
through your attitude of interest. you know essentially forbearance you're you're living through it
with them and you're able to give them that feeling that i'm being understood i'm not being judged
my parent is not in a panic because i'm having a tantrum and that's a really bad sign my parent has
a wide enough perspective that they're putting this in context about me and it's okay yeah there's
safety at this point this is okay and that feels selfish that creates self-acceptance yeah okay so
that when they feel overwhelmed as an adult you know 20 30 years down the road they're not going to
launch into deep shame over the fact that they lost it or that they you know they became
incapacitated by some feeling of failure or whatever it is they kind of remember that This is part
of the process of life. And we get through these things. But the parent is who shows them that in
the first place. Yeah. This is so good. One last kind of deeper topic I want to touch on.
You touch on in the book this idea of kind of letting our kids have their own unique individual
selves. Kind of this, we talk on the podcast sometimes, enmeshment. Versus differentiation.
And when you were describing these hallmarks, I was thinking, as a parent, it feels wonderful when
your child, especially as they get older, come to you with things.
I'm very aware there's a difference between feeling excited about that because I'm the center of
their universe, right? In that sort of coercive way. And you kind of, I can tell you were kind of
like, it's not about that. It's more. what you the the healthy thing is oh my gosh I I have become
safe for them and they are now able to use deploy that skill of asking for help asking for support
right it's it's always that dance right because we are human and we want that closeness and also
we're always holding that with that dance of autonomy of mostly what's really you know of course
the human part of me is like you know and even sometimes with my husband I'll be like oh she came
to me that feels so good and And then I also am aware with the other side of me, this is mostly
good for her because she's now got this skill that she can deploy when she's hurting to ask for
help, right? It's such a dance. And you talk about it in the book of the importance of honoring
their autonomy and just that human pull. I think we want our kids to...
We want our advice, you know, or want our opinions. We want our kids, and you talk about this,
sometimes we're delighted if it turns out that they actually like some of the things we do.
That's okay. It's not that that's not, but we always have to be kind of monitoring that mostly this
needs to be about their autonomy. Can you tease that out for us a little bit?
I think you do a really great job of that in the book. Yeah, well, all you have to do is think
about your adult relationships or think about yourself in an adult relationship.
If somebody respects your autonomy and they respect that you know more about your inner experience
than they do, and they are cognizant that you are...
an adult who is going to make her own decisions, you know, with input, but you are your own person,
if they have that attitude toward you, won't that make you feel like going toward them the next
time you have an issue or a problem or you need some help, right? Totally.
I mean, children and adults are so similar at an emotional level.
not intellectually, not experientially, not in terms of wisdom, but they are so identical in the
way that things affect them. So if we are to go toward our children with a kind of...
um let me tell you what i think about that or let me uh let me make that all better for you i'm i'm
the center of your feel good feelings come to mommy come to daddy and there's that kind of push for
enmeshment the the child automatically backs up from that fascinating yeah to to protect their hard
-won autonomy, their sense of self that has begun to develop as an individual,
that differentiation from the parent or from the family,
you know, sort of the family, one person called it the family ego mass, the conglomeration of
people, not individuals interacting. Yeah, so when you are doing that,
dance of I'm respecting you as an individual person.
I love it when you come to me. When you need me,
I love to be needed. I mean, that's one of the great benefits of parenthood as far as I'm concerned
is when your child needs you, they really need you. And there's no flattery or fakery about it.
You are essential. As they say in Pinocchio, you are crucial to them being able to get re
-regulated and feel better. into a sense of balance.
So that feels wonderful and we enjoy it when it occurs. And then we feel the pang and the little
bit of hurt and the distance when they move out from us and go about there. business like they
never, you know, gave us a second thought. That is, you know, that is the gift that we give them.
Yes, it's lovely to be needed, but I as a parent don't mind having the pangs when you have to go
out and do things on your own or, you know, make up your own mind. I, as a parent,
am learning to live with that. That then takes us back to our own self-discovery,
doesn't it? Because where do those pangs come from? It comes from our childhood and whatever
experiences we had about being left behind or feeling suddenly not as important as we were a moment
before. It's so good. It's such a back and forth, such a dance of...
I always think about it like the dances in the old...
old like Pride and Prejudice, you know, where the dance wasn't clinging to each other in a slow
dance. They're moving in and out, right? I never thought about that before.
That's really true. And sometimes even in those dances, they're with other people.
And, you know, again, that's a romantic picture, which I think is a good one for romance too.
It's dance, you know. It's a great visual. It really is. And yet,
like you say, our romantic ideal is two people clinging together like kittens on a raft.
Exactly. And that's our ideal of romantic love. Yeah.
And it lacks that rhythm. Yes. that felt rhythm of the back and forth and the separating and the
coming back together. That's something that, I mean, gosh,
the whole world operates on that kind of rhythm. Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that.
What, just kind of as we're winding down, for the parent who's listening, we're going into summer.
It's a great time for this. What are a couple of, you know, just... So practical shifts that,
you know, the book is both deep and practical. I love that about what you do. What are just some
practical shifts kind of, because again, some of what we're talking about, even thinking about that
dance, there's got to be some inner stability, you know, especially heading into the chaos of
summer. What are some practical things we can do that to just implement a little more of this kind
of into our day to day? Yeah, well, because we usually have more time with our children in the
summer and things feel a little less hectic, at least because you've had the school schedule taken
out. There is much more of an opportunity for you to do that stepping back and sort of just
noticing. And having that feeling that your child is a separate individual with their own inner
world that is unique and special to them. And that they have these needs that are going to be
coming up. And your job as a parent is to give a little bit of reflection or thought to what is it
that they need most from me at this moment. And that can be,
you know, do they need to be protected? Do they need nurturing? Do they need some guidance?
Or do I need to just put a limit down here? I mean, to be aware of those four parental functions as
creating the container for the growth of this little special,
unique individual that you have created.
And you are now nurturing into becoming a fully complex person who can think beyond black and white
and who doesn't oversimplify life, but is able to greet difficult situations with some thought and
some forethought, who doesn't indulge their impulses so as to make things worse instead of better
with their next move. But I think the most important and probably the easiest thing to do for the
summer is to, from time to time, step back and just sort of behold the fact that your child is real
inside.
And if you do that, you're going to find yourself taking them seriously, even if it seems like a
silly little fear or, you know, why are they so excited about that or, you know.
But when you really experience them as real inside,
you move into the position of being able to be a parent who actualizes who it is that they're
becoming. And that's one of the greatest rides of all in parenting, even if they're not turning to
you specifically or needing you. You're not getting that.
that kind of that sugar high hit from that attention from your child.
But you will feel yourself part of this larger mission,
this more meaningful endeavor that you're engaged with in being kind of the neuro architect of your
child's emotional development. And that all starts with that view of,
I see you. You're really there inside. I got you.
I love that. That is beautiful. That behold, you are real inside.
And that's really profound. That's a profound statement of the value of that human soul.
And just as you said that, again, it's that profound understanding of each of our souls is that
worthy of that beholding and the beauty. Yes, and if you take the time,
if you step out of your goal-driven left brain for half a second,
it's there. It's ready. It's ready to go. It's ready to engage.
And we can be pulled into it by any kind of emotional distress or maybe an urgent situation.
We can return to that presence and that awareness of the other person. hey,
this summer, let's try to do that on purpose and see how it begins to change how we approach our
child and then how we feel about the child within ourselves, how we're regarding ourselves as well.
That's so good. That's so good. Well, the book is out. When is it out,
Lindsay? It came out on Tuesday. Oh, it's out this week. How to Raise an Emotionally.
mature child. It's so good. You're just such a gift.
I feel like you've somehow taken your own wisdom and not only parented,
and I use that word in quotes, but just a generation of us, you know,
just out of your own. the beauty of your own spirit and really,
really grateful just for your time and for your wisdom. I know a lot goes into it and internally,
right? I'm sure a lot has gone into your own inner workings to be able to spill forth what you
have. And I'm just so grateful. Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm just so delighted to
have the opportunity to talk to you and your people because This is at the heart of everything that
matters most to us. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to be with 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, YouTube, or wherever you listen to or watch podcasts and
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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.
What if getting “triggered” isn’t the problem… but a signal?
We all have moments where our body reacts fast—your heart races, your defenses go up, and suddenly you’re not responding from your wisest self.
In this episode, Dr. Alison sits down with Dr. Kelly Flanagan to explore what’s really happening in those moments—and how to respond with more clarity, connection, and intention.
Together, they unpack what’s happening behind reactivity and what it looks like to interrupt that cycle in real time.
You’ll learn:
- Why being triggered is a normal nervous system response
- How to notice your reactions before they take over
- The difference between protection mode and connection mode
- How to set boundaries without escalating conflict
- Why an open heart leads to wiser—not weaker—boundaries
If you’ve ever felt stuck in reactive patterns in your relationships, this conversation offers a grounded, compassionate way forward.
More Resources:
Order Dr. Kelly Flanagan’s new book, The Road Less Triggered.
You can preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 203: Staying Close When Connection Feels Hard: The Relationship Skills No One Has Taught You
Episode 180: When People Push Your Buttons — The Power of Curiosity Over Control
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
The first step is that our nervous system activates. That's the physical response. The second step
is that our heart closes to what's happening. We enter a state of resistance and defensiveness
about what's going on. And then the third stage of being triggered is that we choose to let that
happen. And usually when that happens, we actually escalate the entire cycle, the entire pattern,
and the entire response. The practice of open-heartedness was changing the people around me even
when they didn't know I was practicing it. What I say now is that you don't have any power over
your people, but you have tremendous... around your people.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of the best of you. I'm Dr.
Allison, and I'm so glad you're here with me today. This conversation is such a good one.
I thought about it for days after we recorded. We both stumbled on a couple of just wise truths
that really will stick with you. We're talking about what happens in those moments when something
in you gets activated fast. We all know what it feels like when your nervous system takes over,
your heart starts to raise, and suddenly you're not responding from your wisest self anymore,
right? You're reacting, you're defending, you're shutting down, you're over-explaining. Maybe you
start to rage clean. Maybe you start to rage bike, as you'll hear in this episode as my guest
shares it didn't go so well for him. And this is why I love today's conversation,
because it takes a word that gets used a lot, we see it all the time, the word triggered,
and brings it back into a grounded, clinically wise, deeply human conversation.
Because yes, we all get triggered at times. There are triggers that are rooted in deep trauma.
And also there are just those everyday moments when our nervous system interprets something
relational as danger. Maybe your spouse makes a comment. Maybe your teenager rolls their eyes.
Maybe a friend asks for one thing. more. And suddenly you find that your body is on high alert.
So the question we're dealing with today isn't how do I become a person who never reacts because
it's not realistic. And I love that about today's guest. The question for all of us is how do I
begin to notice what's happening inside of me sooner so that I give myself a better chance of
responding with more wisdom, more clarity, and more love. and by the way several of you had emailed
me asking for an episode on what to do when you're triggered especially in the context of marriage
so this episode is for you if you find it helpful i hope you'll share it with a friend or with
other people because this is the kind of information that the more we all understand it the better
we'll be in our families and our friend groups in our communities when we give each other a little
grace as we're working through these very normal moments of reactivity today Today's guest is Dr.
Kelly Flanagan. Kelly is a clinical psychologist, author, speaker, and a thoughtful guide at the
intersection of emotional health, relationships, and spiritual growth. He's the author of several
books, including his brand new book. It's called The Road Less Triggered. I love that title.
It explores how to move from protection mode back into connection mode in the moments that matter
most. Kelly also hosts an online community. It's called The Less Triggered tribe and he'll share
with us at the end of the episode if you want to join that community how to be a member of that
where you practice these principles in real life what i appreciated so much about kelly is that he
doesn't just speak as someone kind of with his own expertise he brings his own life to the story he
shares with us some of his own moments of being triggered, right? And what happens inside the body.
He uses his own self, his own nervous system as a case study for us to kind of walk through this
three-step process that happens so fast inside all of us when we get triggered.
And the framework alone that he lays out is so helpful. But we also got into some deeper questions
that so many of us wrestle with. I kept asking him the same kinds of questions over and over. How
do I stay? open-hearted, which is a big thing Kelly talks about without becoming a doormat?
How do I set boundaries? We have a great conversation about boundaries without turning them into
battles, right? And what if someone else really is behaving badly? What do I do then?
Is it still my job to work on my own response? One of my favorite lines from Kelly in this episode
is this. He says, an open heart doesn't make your boundaries weaker. It makes your boundaries
wiser. I love that because so many of us were taught to think in these binaries,
right? Either I stay quiet and keep the peace or I speak up and risk disconnection.
Either I'm loving or I have limits. Either I'm compassionate or I'm strong. But what Kelly helps us
see is that true emotional and spiritual maturity holds these things together.
Such a great conversation. I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Dr.
Kelly Flanagan.
Kelly, I'm super excited to have this conversation with you. We have so many overlaps in our work.
I want to start with your own journey through working through triggers.
You share quite personally. in this new book about your own experiences of being triggered.
I think it's really interesting that you are a clinical psychologist and you are married to a
clinical psychologist. And it does not make one immune from this work.
So share with us a little bit about how your own journey has unfolded through this work.
Yeah, absolutely. It is amazing that no matter how much information you have,
And no matter how many tools you have, we still can get hijacked in that moment in relationships
and in life, right? That moment where the nervous system takes over, we switch from connection mode
into protection mode. And now we're on the defense rather than really sort of drawing upon our best
tools to be together. And certainly was the case for me.
I mean, I started off that year not on a good footing. I was in a difficult business partnership
with my best friend, did not handle it well, was getting triggered, blew up that business
partnership and blew up the friendship in the process. So I was sort of like... coming into COVID
with the landing gear up already. And then the kids are schooling from home and becoming zombies,
as I like to say. And I was just getting triggered left and right. And for me, it sort of
culminated on a Sunday afternoon that morning. My wife had convinced me to go ahead and put in an
above ground pool. Like, you know, all the pools in the area are going to be closed. So we got to
get that above ground pool finally. All right, let's do it. So she goes out on a Sunday morning and
hangs the hose over the side of the pool, the garden hose, to fill it up, and she puts a rock there
to anchor it. But the rock wasn't heavy enough, and we didn't go back for five hours to check it.
And when I went out in the afternoon, the pool was bone dry, and the backyard was just a muddy
lake. And I recognized that moment, right? Like, I'm triggered, right?
And I'm going to say and do things that sets my relationship back. tremendously and so i was like i
got to get out of here and blow off the steam and so i need to take a bike ride today so i hopped
on my bike not the wisest thing to do to cycle at 35 miles per hour on asphalt when you're not
really paying attention because you're frustrated and i went over the handlebars and i broke my
collarbone in two places on the asphalt road. And the bones did not heal stronger in the broken
places. I wound up with a couple hinges in that collarbone. They're called fibrous tissue non
-union fractures made for a really long and painful recovery for the rest of that first COVID year.
And I got to New Year's Eve going into 2021. And I was literally looking for fitness resolutions
for the new year. And I came across this incredible quote by Michael Singer. Don't let anything in
your life be important enough that you're willing to close your heart over it. And that quote sort
of hit me harder than the asphalt road had. It was like, wait a second. It really isn't the
situations in my life that are creating my suffering. It's my reaction to the situations in my
life. Despite all my training, despite all my knowledge, something's taking over in that moment.
And it's creating a lot of suffering for me. And so I set a New Year's resolution going into 2021
that moment to moment, I'm going to notice my heart closing and try to open it back up.
And that was easier said than done. And it launched me on a bit of a journey, both personally and
professionally, to learn what happens in that moment to us and how do we learn to keep our hearts
open so that we have access to all of our best communication skills and all of our best connective
capacities. And that ultimately culminated in this book I've written. Wow.
What a story, right? There are consequences to how we behave when we're triggered,
as you learned in a very profound way, right? Help me understand this,
Kelly. Is it normal? And I kind of know these answers clinically, but to this day,
I still find myself in these positions. I know my listeners find ourselves in these positions. Is
it normal to have that immediate reaction, right? You see the flooded yard. To me,
that's a normal, like, of course there's a feeling in that moment. So walk us through that.
Give me some examples. Before we hit record,
you started talking about different examples of this. It's not just marriage. It's with our kids.
It's with our friends. These are normal, everyday moments. First of all, give us some examples.
Does everybody have these moments of... we call triggered,
you know, that moment. And then let's get into how can we begin to change that so we're not rage
biking and hurting ourselves. Rage biking. That's such a great term. I love that.
I'm going to steal that. That was great. I sometimes rage clean, you know, I might be cleaning the
dishes, but really I'm, you know. Yes. Rage biking was one of the unwisest things I've ever done.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question. And what I've discovered is that when you put the word triggered
on the cover of a book, it's triggering to people because the word triggered has a lot of baggage
attached to it. And one of the things I address in the book is that from a clinical perspective, as
you and I know, triggered is something we associate with a serious psychological disorder called
PTSD in which people have a very specific traumatic experience and certain present day experiences
trigger them to feel like they're back in that. that past experience so in that sense it's a sort
of a rare phenomenon that happens to a very specific set of people but on the other side of it you
know it's sort of that's a word that's been sort of taken over by popular culture and you can you
get like a tiktok influencer who gets the wrong kind of cold foam at starbucks and suddenly they're
telling you know a million online followers that they're triggered and in that sense it doesn't
really mean like much of anything so i think it is important to be clear about what i mean by that
yeah And I think of being triggered as essentially like a three-stage process. And the first step
of the process is that our nervous system activates. If your nervous system doesn't activate,
you're probably not triggered. You're probably just having a response. But the first step is that
our nervous system activates. That's the physical response. And you really can't do a whole lot
about that. The nervous system is designed to activate. We wouldn't be here if it didn't activate
voluntarily. If you are walking through a dark parking garage in the middle of the night and you
hear footsteps coming up behind you, you want your nervous system to activate. If your child steps
out in front of traffic, you want your nervous system to activate.
But if you tell your teenager to please do the dishes... And they look at you like you've just made
the most unreasonable request in the world and roll their eyes at you and your nervous system
activates. It's a different story, right? Your nervous system is specifically designed to activate
when you're in mortal danger. And so something about this moment with your teenager just made your
nervous system interpret it as mortal danger. So we need to start to slow down around that moment a
little more. So the first step is that nervous system activates. The second step is that our heart
closes to what's happening in that moment. We enter a state of resistance and defensiveness about
what's going on. My nervous system is telling me this is dangerous. I don't want to participate in
it anymore, and now I'm in a state of resistance against it. And then the third stage of being
triggered is that we choose to let that happen. We choose to let our heart closed. We choose to let
ourselves stay in a state of resistance against this. And usually when that happens, we actually...
escalate the entire cycle the entire pattern and the entire response so what we want to do is we
want to help people not not somehow like surgically remove their nervous system they're never going
to do that they're also never going to be able to eliminate their heart closing because god has
given us a heart that can close if we've got more than we can handle in the moment that can kind of
go nope i don't want to participate in this but we do want to restore people's sense of choice and
empower them to be able to open their heart back up and participate with what's going on in the
wisest way possible, right? Which doesn't mean necessarily being passive. It doesn't mean being
weak, so to speak. I often say an open heart doesn't make your boundaries weaker. It makes your
boundaries wiser. With an open heart, you're sort of able to show up to the moment with all of the
things you've been gifted with. So we want to restore people's ability to do that. And when you
really start to pay attention to your heart closing, you realize, yeah, it definitely happens a lot
oftentimes in the marital relationship because there are things you're expecting from that
attachment that you're not expecting in other attachments in your life, and so that one can become
a really triggering one. It happens all the time with your kids.
Bedtime's a classic. You think you're finally to the finish line of your day, and you're going to
get a little bit of time for yourself, and then they keep pushing that bedtime later, super
triggering for a lot of parents. Teenagers are particularly triggering. I think it's their job.
But our family of origin relationships with siblings, with our parents,
with bosses, these are all situations in which we can sense that our heart is starting to close to
what's happening. And if we can be empowered to keep our heart open, we'll engage it in the wisest
way possible. Wow. That's a really helpful overview.
And I love how you're painting that picture of it's not quite what we see on TikTok. It's also not
always in this category of PTSD. But somewhere in the middle,
we do have these nervous system responses. And especially I love how that list of relationships
makes a lot of sense, where there's some hot button. wiring that's going to inevitably go on.
That's right. And how we, I love what you said. I want you to repeat it, that it's not that we
don't have boundaries in those moments, especially when you give the example of the teen, right?
It's not that we're, it's not, and again, that would be a flight response or a fawn response. It's
not. what we're after, we're after a wiser response. I love that. You know,
parents ask me all the time, for instance, like, so when my teen's acting out, do I have empathy
for them or do I set boundaries with them? And it reveals that we sort of assume those two things
can't go together, that we can't have an open heart and boundaries at the same time. And my answer
is, oh, you have to do both all the time. You know, like that if you try to set boundaries without
empathy, you'll set those boundaries aggressively and in a controlling way usually that will just
sort of set the relationship up for a battle. But if you think that having an open heart doesn't
mean that you can't have, that it means you can't have limits, you can't have expectations, you
can't have boundaries, you can't have things you want, then you essentially become a doormat. And
what we're aiming for here is the capacity to be able to regularly express your boundaries,
your wants, and your needs with an open heart rather than shutting down. That's so good. So this
leads me to my next question. You make this distinction between connection mode and protection
mode. And what you're saying there reminds me of this because that flip of the switch happens
quick.
Usually, it's not like we're consciously, it's just the flip switches. And in that moment,
in that quickness of that moment, we want to reach for connection mode, not protection mode.
Once that reaction becomes more obvious, like, okay, I am triggered or I am having a moment.
I don't want to flip into protective mode. I want to flip into connection mode. How do we bridge
that? Yeah. One of the first things I address and that what I realized early on was that if my
nervous system was dysregulated, I couldn't switch back into protection or to connection mode.
Right. Like your nervous system will override your higher mind. which will go,
oh, wait a second, I don't need to be protecting here. Everything's okay. You actually have to
train your nervous system to know it's okay again before you can make that switch back into
connection mode. And so one of the first things I recommend in the book is,
number one, is really starting to tap into what's really a superpower.
It's your sixth sense. It's called interoception. It's the sixth of the senses.
And interoception is the capacity to tune into your body and to notice your body sensations. So
everyone who's listening has already done that dozens of times today when they thought, I'm hungry,
or I have to go to the bathroom, or man, I'm really more tired today than usual, or I could use
another cup of coffee. You're tuning into your bodily sensations and making sense of them. But we
do it unconsciously. And we don't slow down to actually go, wait a second, I could use that
superpower to start to notice when I'm getting triggered. Because the reality is, we think of
triggers as happening instantaneously and dramatically. When you really start to tune into the
subtleties of your body, you realize that your nervous system functions a little bit more like a
furnace, where the pilot light kicks on. Right. And then you start to hear the starts to rumble a
little bit as it heats up. And then eventually the furnace kicks on on full blast. So one of the
first things we encourage people to do is actually start to tune into your body first. That's going
to give you an 80 percent, according to the data, an 80 percent earlier warning that your heart's
about to close and you're going to shift into defense mode. So if you can notice it sooner.
You might actually be able to make a choice of like, I don't want to do the defensive thing. Can I
give you an example from this morning? Oh, my goodness. My wife and I, I will admit,
I'm neurotic about my first cup of coffee in the morning. I like to pour the first cup out of the
pot. I've got it all set up. There's no question I'm neurotic about it. Well, this morning I see my
wife grab a mug from the counter, and I immediately hop up and I go pour my cup of coffee.
And she says to me, you always got to be in control and have it your way, don't you? I could feel
the tightening in my chest, right? Now, I know that that tightening is a sign that I'm about to
close my heart and go into defense mode. About a cup of coffee here, let's remember. And so the
temptation in that moment is just to allow it and to allow it to happen and to switch into defense
mode. But because I've noticed my body tighten, I've got... little bit more warning to go, do I
really want to start to act offensively? Because if I start to act offensively, what I'm about to
do is I'm about to list all of the things that I do for her and my family that I don't want to do
and try to make the case that I'm not quite as selfish as she just suggested.
And escalate something that isn't worth an escalation. No,
over a cup of coffee. And so... But what I've got to do in that moment,
if I'm not going to close my heart and shift into defense mode, is I've got to get that body
regulated. I've got to get the nervous system regulated and go, okay, you're in your kitchen. This
is just a cup of coffee, and you're not being chased by a tiger on the Serengeti. You're good. You
do a little bit of breathing. And then I have a choice about whether or not I want to get
defensive. And the temptation will be to jump into defense mode. And so one of the challenges is
just to sort of watch the thoughts and the urges starting to come up, you know, rather than acting
on them. We say watch them instead of wielding them. And so I watched all those urges to defend
myself come up. And I asked myself in that moment, what would it look like instead to set an open
-hearted boundary in this moment? Like, what would that look like to not just shut down and
disconnect? And the answer was to say, I don't think that's totally true about me.
I wonder if you could come up with any situations in which I have not gotten what I wanted and made
some sacrifice. In other words, instead of defending myself, invite her into sort of joining me in
seeing me as a more whole person than I was just characterized as. And she was willing to sort of
step into that. And so really just looking.
For the bodily sign, you're about to close, you're about to get defensive, telling the body that
you're safe, teaching the body that you're safe, and then looking for that opportunity to open back
up and find a different way to move forward.
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this episode.
That is such a great example. It leads me because I wanted to go right into a question that I got
from a reader that I thought would be perfect to ask you because of the topic of your book. But
that's such a great example. If you did speak up for yourself, you weren't a doormat,
but it was from a different place. And I think that's the... that we go into these binaries.
It's either I don't say anything and then I'm a doormat or I defend myself and it doesn't really
help. And that's such a beautiful, you noticed, which allowed you to make a wiser response.
And I'll notice for myself, over the years,
my husband and I will find kind of almost humorous ways. But again, shows the regulation.
So I'll say something like, you know, once I'm able to, and it's not coming out sideways and it's
not, it's genuinely coming from a more regulated place. I'll say, oh, you know,
just, just sort of a, oh, you know, and then, which is a cue for him to go, oh, I, I didn't, or,
you know, or he'll, he'll do it to me. Like, and it, it just is that cue of, um,
I'm not defending myself, but I'm letting you know. Right. that didn't feel fair,
you know, just those normal everyday moments. I, but I love that where you said,
I don't think that's completely true, you know, and then inviting it's inviting connection.
Yeah. Yeah. What all that's a great example. I like, I'll often say to people, you may,
you'll be less reactive, but you won't be less responsive. Yeah. Right. So you may pause for a
little bit. Yes. But that pause you eventually hit play on and then you show up with a more open
hearted, wiser way of addressing it like you did. Like, ouch, like you're basically instead of,
you know, instead of responding with your protections, you're being vulnerable about your pain.
Yeah. Right. That's a wiser, more open hearted way to respond. I think of a time like I was driving
my middle guy. He's 18 now. So this was probably a few years ago and he was he was 15 at the time
because I was driving him around. He was just. he was hitting me with both teenage barrels, you
know, and sometimes I'll say to my kids, like, all right, it's enough teenager for now. And that's,
you know, that's enough for today. But in this case, I remember I said to him, I go,
dude, I love you unconditionally, but I don't drive you unconditionally.
And I'm going to give you a choice. Like if you want to start to treat me differently, like we
could be good, but if you don't, I think you're walking the rest of the way, you know? And I think
there was no doubt in his mind that I do love him and that I was just simply setting a boundary on
how I'm going to allow myself to be treated. And so we're trying to find that sweet spot where
those two things can go together. That's so good. And there's power in that. And I think that even
when we think like scripturally, right, it's not about being a doormat. It's about that there's
more strength that especially our teenagers, but anybody kind of picks up on from that.
Like, oh, they mean it. They're not. There's a grounded response to my button pushing that,
oh, even if they don't change instantly, they sense that, the people around us.
It's powerful. And true strength feels safe to people, right?
I think in that moment there was a boundary, but my son didn't. feel unsafe in the midst of that
boundary. There was clear structure to it. You have a choice. Here's your options. And so what we
discover is that when we can show up openheartedly in those triggered moments, we actually create a
greater sense of safety. Even as we show up fully, we're creating a greater sense of safety for our
people, which actually, the thing that causes you to close your heart is that you feel unsafe.
So as we're showing up in that way and creating a sense of safety for our people, we're actually
inviting them to open up as well. So I want to read this reader question because it gets at that.
I love how you said we're inviting them to open up. There's more of an invitation.
Here's the question that one of my listeners wrote in.
When I'm the one who gets triggered, especially with a spouse, is the right move always to work on
my own response? Or should my partner also be working on not triggering me in the first place?
In other words, whose work is this? And your example is a good example of that, right?
So I thought that was kind of an interesting question. It's a great question.
It's on all of our minds. Right? Like, you shouldn't trigger me. You know this is a trigger,
you know? So how do we navigate that? You know, one of the things I like to say is that in a
situation like that, Yes, you have actually 100% ownership of how you respond to that triggering
moment. And they have 100% ownership of how they showed up that triggered you.
And that sort of undoes the whole process of who should be working on themselves more in this
moment. That the only thing we can ultimately control is ourselves.
And so we might as well invest our time and energy in working on that. And I'll say a couple things
about that.
The reason I feel so strongly about that is the example I often give.
Last summer we were here in the upper Midwest, heat wave, humid. I was sitting here in this very
chair one afternoon, and I could feel the heat rising in my office. I'm like, what's going on? Air
conditioning's not kicking on. I went into the furnace room, and it was sort of rapid cycling,
going on and off real quickly, so it wasn't working. And so what I did for the rest of the week is
instead of calling the HVAC guy, I just brainstormed ways to cool it down outside instead of
cooling it down here in the house. It's just a joke, of course. I would never do that. But that's
actually where we spend a lot of space in relationships. How do I get the weather to change? How do
I get the weather to change versus going to the control board? dealing with what's going on there
in the control board, calling the HVAC guy, calling the therapist or the coach or your pastor,
whoever you need to help you kind of deal with that control board. We spend a lot of time trying to
control the weather, the behaviors, the thoughts, and the feelings of our people, which is entirely
out of our control. So that, to me, is just an example, a metaphor that helps us realize that that
energy we put in trying to get the other person to change is wasted energy, and we can redirect it
at ourselves. Having said that, one of the most powerful learnings for me in this whole process
happened actually a year to the day after I made that original New Year's resolution.
We had just returned from a Christmas vacation in Mexico as a family. It was the second COVID
Christmas, and we're like, I don't know if we'll be able to get together with families. Let's just
get out of Dodge and do something different.
triggered travel I don't I don't travel well I don't I don't mind the whole flying and potentially
crashing like for some reason it's getting to the airport late and then finding my way to the hotel
you know it just all stresses me out and I get triggered but I was almost a year into the practice
of open-heartedness and and my my only sort of intention going into that trip was no matter what
happens I'm gonna gonna keep my heart open to what's going on And so we get back from Mexico,
and we're sitting around the dining room table, and we're setting our intentions for the next year
as a family. And my wife says, hey, why don't you tell the kids what you've been practicing for the
last year, this open-heartedness thing? And so I shared with them a little bit of what we're
talking about today. And my daughter, who was 12 at the time, she looked at me, and she said,
that must be why every time something went wrong on the way to Mexico, I looked at you and I felt
calm.
The practice of open-heartedness was changing. people around me even when they didn't know i was
practicing it right what i say now is that you don't have any power over your people but you have
tremendous power around your people right that you can become the soothed nervous system that
soothes nervous system the calm soul that calms souls and the open heart that opens hearts and that
this is really the power that we wield is the way that we show up especially if we can show up calm
and open-hearted We are creating, now we're the weather, right?
That's powerful. Now we're the weather, right? That can influence the temperature inside of someone
else's house, so to speak. And so that's my encouragement to folks is that when you choose to fully
invest in owning your response to those triggered moments, not just to sort of like white knuckle
it and get through them, but to genuinely transform the way that you show up to those moments.
You are a powerful force for change in the system. You and I know this, right? Systems theory says
that when one component in the system changes, the rest of the system is forced to change to adapt
to it, right? So as you transform, you will be transforming the relationships that you're in. And
sometimes, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this, whether it's marriage or even with
parents, especially those, you know, or siblings.
And sometimes when we begin to change ourselves, other people in the system don't like it and can
get worse or come after us more to try to push those buttons.
Because there's something in that pattern that felt, you know,
wasn't healthy, but felt comfortable to that other person. What would you say to folks?
How do you deal with that in your practice and with folks where that? is the result, where you're
doing your own work, and maybe it reveals more toxicity or even more pathology than maybe you were
even aware of as you're pulling out of that unhealthy dynamic. Yeah, oh, absolutely.
And we also know from systems theory that... first the rest of the system tries to maintain what's
called homeostasis, right? It doesn't like the fact that that one part of the system is changing.
So it tries to tug it back, back into place. Um, and one of the things that you discover in the
process is that, um, you sort of, you resolve to yourself here,
you know, this is, this is my personal growth. I'm going to learn how to navigate these triggered
moments with a more open heart, show up more open heartedly. And that's going to be enough for me.
And then you do it and nobody changes or they get worse. And now you're frustrated and your heart's
closing. And you start to realize that your open heart was just a closed heart and subtle disguise.
You were hoping that you could have some control over them. by opening up,
showing up differently. And I think a lot of your listeners will notice that a lot of what looks
like personal growth is secretly just a hope that our change will change our people in the
direction that we want them to change. And so what you're really starting to surrender to here is
the reality that you don't ultimately have control over the most valuable things in your life.
You don't have control over it, right? You have control over how you show up to those things and
you're learning how to live through because a lot of, Michael Singer also says,
if you want to know why you do what you do, don't do it and then watch what happens inside of you,
right? And so what happens is we try to take control of the people in our life in subtle and not so
subtle ways in order to calm it down inside here. If we can be in control of this situation or get
them to change in this way or get this reaction from them, it'll be calm in here. But we develop a
tremendous amount of resilience and power when we can endure that unpleasant feeling in here,
get through it without having to assert control. We're actually much more powerful at that point
than if we were trying to control them. Yeah, go ahead.
This is, I think, where our spiritual grounding can help because I want to know you're not saying,
and this was actually my next question, don't set boundaries. No. Because what's so nuanced about
what you're saying is someone could hear this as...
Just let it go. Let somebody mistreat you. Let somebody walk all over you.
And I know that, right, but what I- I thank you for naming that, yeah. Yeah, so keep, so right,
it's, and you've kind of already, let's drill back down on it. It's, I cannot, and that's,
there's a grief in that. I cannot. And actually, there are millions of ways every single day we're
actually trying to control the people around us, our kids, our spouse. And when we start to really
let go of that, it is a spiritual journey of like, wow. And it doesn't mean we are at other
people's mercy either. So keep going with this. This is incredibly profound.
Yeah, I love the way that you're digging into this. To me, this is fundamental.
We have to break through this. dilemma in order to get into really healthy territory and
relationships. And so one of the ways of breaking through it is to recognize that oftentimes when
we don't set a boundary with our people, that's our way of trying to control them. We're not
setting a boundary because we don't want them to get upset. So we're trying to keep them calm. We
don't set a boundary because we're afraid they won't like it. And they'll distance from us or they
might even threaten the relationship. So that's our way of staying sort of stable in the
relationship, right? Someone asked me recently, like, what's the hardest boundary to set in
relationship? And my answer was the one that you think will cost you the relationship. The one that
you think will create more separation if you said it, right? We're always afraid of that
abandonment and loneliness and rejection. And so the hardest boundary is always the one that you
don't think someone will like and will cause them to distance from you. And so it's really powerful
to recognize that when I'm staying quiet and not expressing myself and not setting a boundary,
that's actually, I say, I'm not a control freak, but I'm a control sneak. I'm a terrible control
sneak. And that's a control sneak. It's a way of maintaining. some steadiness and stability in the
relationship by staying quiet. So ironically, this is wild. Like when you show up open-heartedly
with a boundary, and by the way, in the book, I talk about how boundaries are the third stage of a
process. The first stage is actually just saying what you want. And when you open-heartedly
express what you want, you'll be surprised how often people help you get it. If they don't,
you can decide to escalate it to a need. And once they realize, oh, it's that important to you,
they will also be more likely to help you get what you need. But then if that doesn't happen, then
you express it as an open-hearted boundary.
That's actually a step into surrender and not controlling,
ironically, when you set a boundary. Because as soon as you put yourself out there and you express
yourself, they're free to respond however they want, right? And how they want could hurt. And now
we have to learn how to stay open-hearted through the lack of support, right?
I often say that the one thing we're always trying to avoid in relationships is the experience of
loneliness. And loneliness has three pillars, feeling unseen, misunderstood, and unsupported.
So when you tell somebody you want something, when you set a boundary around it and they don't
support you in it, that feels really lonely, right? And so it's quite the opposite of what we
think, that actually you're surrendering control when you set a boundary because you're allowing
them to respond however they want. And then you're saying, if you continue to respond that way,
I might have to do this. Right. Um, that's a totally different, that's a totally different thing.
You're not telling them what they have to do. You're letting them know, like I did with my son,
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Yeah, I will be driving alone if you continue to. I don't want to. Yeah, it's not something you're
trying to get them to do again, which is the control. So this, yes, you're right. So this is
chapter seven for the listener. It's called set boundaries without. battles.
It's not a power play in that traditional sense. It's actually a move of strength. What is a shift,
just as we're winding down here, kind of a nugget that... a boundary boundaries i think are another
one of those things i've written a lot about boundaries they're so misunderstood on the tiktok
culture the therapy culture right um but they're so powerful um when you really understand them and
i like how you cast it as the shift that makes a boundary feel like an act of love instead of an
act of war it's really an act of and and i would say that love is All three of the loves Jesus
commands, love of God, love of other, and love of self. Absolutely. It's real love. It's not
pleasing love. It's the love of, there's too much truth and love here for me to,
it's a grounded strength. How do we make that shift, Kelly? Help us all.
That's a good question. And a lot of it has to do with the sequence of how this all tends to play
out. So what often happens is that you stay quiet. trying to be loving right when really you're
maybe being a little controlling ironically but you're staying quiet staying quiet but what happens
is i often say a resent resentment today is a boundary you didn't set yesterday right But
resentment is the emotional experience that goes along with not setting healthy boundaries. And so
you stay quiet, you stay quiet, you stay quiet, but your heart's closing all the time. You're
getting more and more resentful, more and more frustrated, feeling more and more mistreated. And
then what happens is your heart closes all the way and then you set the boundary. So it comes out
aggressively, it comes out in controlling ways. And so you've sort of set up the situation for a
battle. I often say, if you wear gloves to church, a boxing match will break out.
And so if you set a boundary with a closed heart, you're going to end up in a battle, not a
collaboration. What we want to see you do is we want to see you not close your heart and then sort
of set a reactive boundary. We want to see you set a boundary in order to keep your heart open.
When you feel like you can't keep your heart open unless you set a boundary, that's the time to set
it. You actually don't get to decide, ironically, where your boundaries are at.
Your heart decides that for you. If I can't keep my heart open without setting a boundary, I guess
I've got to set one. I'll give you an example.
Back when I was doing traditional outpatient mental health and clients would no show for a session,
it would mean that their insurance doesn't pay and they're going to have to pay the full. the full
fee out of their pocket which is never never very pleasant so they would come into the next session
and i would hand them an invoice for the full fee and almost invariably they'd look at it and
they'd be like oh you must be really mad at me if you're charging me the full fee and i would say
to them no i'm charging you the full fee so that i don't get mad at you right i'm setting the
boundary so that my heart doesn't close to you i didn't give you that invoice Good.
Right? If I didn't give you that invoice, you'd walk out of here today and I'd be resenting you a
little bit. And I'd be disconnecting from you with my closed heart. This invoice is keeping me
connected to you right now. Wow. Oh, okay, I get that. And then they'd happily pay it because it's
a symbol of relationality rather than penalty, right? That's a great...
Way to look at it. I could see that. And you really have to buy into that. But I could see that
with even a friend you love. You know, I if I don't say no now or if I don't do this now,
I will. Yeah, that's boy, that is nuanced. But that's a great example. A friend asks you to to do
one thing and you gladly do it. Right. And then they're like, oh, yeah. And next week,
can you buy a $200 ticket for our table at the fundraiser? And if you sense that your heart will
close to that, that you're going to be at that fundraiser silently resenting it,
you need to set a boundary now so your heart doesn't close. Actually, I can't do that one. And now
we're still in open-hearted relationship.
That'll preach. I want every listener to think about that for a second, right? How are we not?
I mean, that hits me. And I've been talking about this stuff for years and it's because it's so
hard. Those hardwired. And I love how you're naming the quiet ways.
we, oh, I just don't want to have the conflict or I just don't want to make the person mad or I
just don't want this to be uncomfortable. Yes. That's all about control. It's, it's, it is.
Yeah. I mean, it's not, I mean, sometimes we're just being a nice person or we're tired or
whatever, but, but often those patterns are every, the more we make those decisions,
the more I, that's, that's when that heart suddenly will start to go. I'm just kind of done with
this person or I'm kind of done with this volunteering. And that could be prevented by our own
honoring of the open heart. Exactly. The irony being that what we're mostly walking around doing in
relationships is trying not to end up lonely. For the human being, that's about as painful as it
gets. And so we don't set boundaries.
Because we fear that a boundary will leave us separate and alone. But then what happens is our
heart starts to close down and now we're separating anyways. Now we're sort of trapped inside of
the aloneness we create with our own heart. So we actually, boundaries are this sort of
foundational, they form the foundation for the capacity to stay in connection and to not be lonely,
essentially. And the people you belong to will be the people who really appreciate you setting
boundaries. And those that don't, won't. Stick around. Yeah. And that's part of the discerning in
real time. And it is vulnerable. I mean, this is ongoing work. I know you say in the book, this is,
we're in, I feel so much in process with all this. There's so many different iterations with
different seasons of life. And I'm in a new season of kind of figuring this out and I'm in a new
community. And it is vulnerable, right? To sit with that. Okay,
someone. may not appreciate this, even though I know, like even a client or,
you know, in your situation, a client, I don't like this, but that's okay. I know, I know what's
going on here. I know this is about keeping my heart open and God knows, you know, that's that
spiritual piece. Like I can anchor in that and I'll be disappointed and sad if the other person
doesn't respond well, but I have to let that go. I can't control that outcome.
That's so powerful. And my encouragement to listeners is, as you are pointing out over and over
again, it's so much easier said than done. And if that's the case,
if you find yourself in a situation where this conversation leads to that awareness of,
oh, this is one of those moments. My heart will close if I don't set a boundary. And you find
yourself unable to do it anyways.
Because... afraid that that boundary will lead to separation and disconnection and loneliness
usually.
My encouragement to listeners is to just sort of in that moment, there's an opportunity.
Because the reality is for us adults, loneliness isn't terribly threatening. Like, you know,
if friend A rejects you, you have 100, you can text or 1,000 people you can get to on Facebook.
And there's just all sorts of ways to mitigate loneliness as an adult. But there wasn't when we
were kids. And so if there's this part of you that is just going, I can't tolerate the threat of
loneliness and rejection in this moment, probably isn't an adult part. It's probably a younger part
of you that couldn't handle loneliness, that didn't have the freedom to manage it in adult ways
when they were young. And so it's just an opportunity. If you can't set a boundary, if you just
can't bring yourself to do it, cool. like don't don't hammer yourself for that get tender with the
part of you that is feeling really threatened by the fear of separation and and show that part of
you some love and help that part of you be a little bit less lonely in the moment i love that
that's great because i i agree with you i yeah that's a great um a great word to just be gentle
with the part be aware of it that this is a part of me But be gentle with that part of you because
it's there for a reason. And it's got data from the past. And you do go into that in the book,
those past strongholds. Tell my listeners where they can find you, Kelly, where they can find your
book and all the things you're doing out in the world and the goodness you're providing. If you
want to find out more about the book, you can go to roadlesstriggered.com. It's also just
available anywhere where books are sold in paperback and digital and audio. I'm very excited to
announce it hit the USA Today bestseller list recently, and we're very excited about that. It was
out of stock for a while once the first print run was sold, but it's back in stock, which is very
exciting. So you can get it anywhere. I also host an online community on Substack called the Less
Triggered Tribe, where we're actually taking the principles from the book, and we're actually
like... going through the journey together on a weekly and monthly basis. Yeah. So drkellyflanagan
.substack.com is where you can find the Less Triggered Tribe and you can join for free and join us
there. And then my website is drkellyflanagan.com. Okay. So we'll link to that in the show notes,
but that sounds like a great resource for folks who are really trying to apply this in real time.
It takes practice. It's not magic. I love that you're doing that. That's beautiful. We have a
group. sort of coaching community call the third Friday of every month. And literally this topic
comes up every time because we just have such a bunch of gentle souls in our community, right? And
they're like, they're wanting to show up more fully and they're wanting to show up with healthier
boundaries and they're working through all these questions. So you'll fit right in. I love it. I
love it. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and with so many others. It was great to
be here, Alison. Thank you so much. You too. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of
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The Best of You Every Day offers short, daily reflections on Scripture through the lens of emotional health—helping you stay steady, connected, and rooted in love.
