episode
40
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Emotions

5 Steps to Healing Painful Emotions & Why Parts of Us Get Stuck in the Past

Episode Notes

Do you ever feel like a part of your soul is trapped in the past, holding you back from fully embracing the present and moving forward? Pain, fear, worry, or even bitterness can weigh heavy on our hearts and minds. This is a common experience for all of us at times. In today's episode, I guide you through a 5 step process of healing and growth. We'll discuss how to mend the parts of your soul that are causing you distress.

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Here's what we cover:

1. 5 Steps to healing painful emotions

2. How to overcome criticism, shame, and judgment

3. 4 Questions to grow in self-discovery

4. A surprising way to pray throughout the day

5. Why parts of us struggle to experience God's love

Remember, this journey is a process, not a one-time event. With the right tools and guidance, you can learn to make peace with the parts of yourself.

Be sure to pick up your 3 free Boundaries for Your Soul resources here.

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Thanks to our sponsors:

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

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

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Resources

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Transcript

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Alison: So last week, in episode 39, I walked you through a map of the soul. And we talked about how parts of the soul, any one of these three categories, whether it's your manager parts that won't stop working, won't stop pleasing, won't stop perfecting. Or if it's your firefighter parts that won't stop shutting down or numbing. 

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Or if it's these exiled parts, these more painful emotions right. If you're noticing in any one of these categories and don't worry too much about the technical terms. 

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We talked about what happens when any one part of you gets out of balance. When any one part of you starts to take you over in a way that is leading to behaviors, or feelings, or relationship patterns that aren't good for you. 

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And, so, today, I'm going to walk you through a five-step process of getting curious about the parts of your soul. This is a way of becoming your own inner detective. And just as you care for your own children, if you have children. Where sometimes you have to just really pay attention. You go, "There's something going on with my child. I don't really understand what it is, but they're not behaving as they usually do or they seem off emotionally."

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And you have to become a detective; you have to start paying attention, asking questions, showing curiosity. You don't want your child to shut you out or push you away if you go in too hard, especially if they're older. If you're parenting young adult children, you have to be really tenuous in how you get curious about behaviors or emotions that you see that are concerning to you. But you just start paying attention, and you're trying to find your way in. You're trying to get to the root of what's going on. And it's the same process inside your own soul. 

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These parts of you need you to attune to them just as your children, in your real life, need your attunement. And, so, there are two keywords I want you to think about, as we walk through these five steps today. 

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Number one is getting curious. Showing curiosity toward yourself, and it's curiosity versus criticism. "I wonder why I just lashed out at that person."

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"I wonder what's going on, that I'm still feeling the pain of that interaction."

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"I wonder what causes me to always say yes when what I really want to say is, 'No, thank you'". Do you hear the tone of that curiosity? Versus how we typically talk to ourselves which is, "What is wrong with me? I'm so stupid."

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Or "Why did I just do that again?" And you can almost feel the tension when you start to come down on yourself. Your whole body gets tense, and your nervous system, then, gets activated. But when you show curiosity. It's asking a question; "I'm curious, I wonder what happened? There's no shame, it is what it is. I may have to go back and apologize, sure. But really, I'm just curious about what was going on inside of me." It's such a powerful way to be with yourself. 

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And then the second word is Compassion. To show compassion toward yourself. Sometimes that can be a little harder for people, especially, if you're doing things or behaving in ways or feeling things you wish that you didn't. It's like, "Really, I'm supposed to be compassionate toward myself?" But the truth is this we heal in the context of compassion, not in the context of criticism, shame, and self-judgment. 

And, so, those are two words I want you to think about throughout this episode. Get curious about what you notice inside yourself. Even as I'm talking, even as you're listening to this episode, just get curious. And also consider showing yourself compassion. 

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Here are the five steps. These are based, again, on that model of therapy called the Internal Family Systems Model of Therapy. They're a condensed, consolidated version that my co-author Kimberly Miller and I came up with for our book Boundaries for Your Soul, number one is focus. Now, this may sound counterintuitive to most of you. "Why would I want to focus on a negative or a painful emotion? Don't I want to not focus on it?" 

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But here's the thing, when you focus on an emotion, an unwanted feeling, a negative thought, about somebody else or about yourself. What you're doing is what psychologists call differentiating from it. When you become aware of an emotion and you name it, it's almost as if you bring it out in front of you. You get some distance from it. Instead of that emotion just taking you over and being what you feel. 

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So if you're noticing envy, for example, it's an uncomfortable feeling. And the minute you go, "Oh, my gosh, I'm dealing with envy right now. I don't like it, but that's what that is." You've just named it, and you've got a little distance from it. 

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When you differentiate from an emotion, you move into a different part of your brain. There's an actual, really, interesting neuroscience to this. Where your prefrontal cortex comes online and you begin to observe the emotion that you're having. So suddenly you're in two parts of your brain. You're not just in your amygdala, having all the feelings without that prefrontal cortex online to observe it. 

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So suddenly you're in two parts of your brain. You're observing, you're witnessing the emotion you're having. "Oh, my gosh, I'm angry." But that anger is now out in front of you, it's not taking you over. 

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"I think I'm sad. There's a little bit of loneliness there." Again, notice that curiosity, "I am aware that this thing is going on." Suddenly, it's inside of your conscious awareness, which is such a healthier place to be when it comes to your emotions. 

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When you're not aware that you're having that feeling, those emotions are operating. They're just operating outside of your conscious awareness. And who knows what you're going to do out of that emotion because they're there, but you're not in charge of them. But the minute you focus on the emotion. You name it, you bring it out in front of you. You might write it down, you might visualize it, and that's part of that guided audio reflection. 

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If you download that from my website, it's a process of sometimes people visualize the emotion, whatever it is. Whether you just name it, or write it down, you are becoming aware of it. And that awareness is key, suddenly, you're in charge of that emotion, not the other way around. You can see it more clearly. 

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When you focus on a painful emotion or a negative thought and get curious about it, you can give that part of you the leadership, the wisdom, or the care that it needs. And if you think about a doctor or a surgeon who's working to heal a wound. How can she heal that wound, that's acting out in some way, or causing pain in some way, without first finding it, focusing on it, and seeing it clearly? 

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So this step of focusing, not to hyper-focus on it, but to put your attention on that uncomfortable, that negative emotion, or that thought that's causing you frustration. "Oh, that's what that is." We're just naming it, no shame, no judgment, just naming. "I cannot stop comparing myself."

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"I am worried. Worry has really gotten the best of me."

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"I'm angry. Anger is really close to me right now." This is all part of focusing. It's naming without shame the emotion or the thought that you're having. Now, if you're having trouble naming or focusing on the thought, or the feeling that's causing you a problem, or that's trying to get your attention, here are some questions to help you. 

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"Where am I feeling this emotion in my body?" For example, do you notice your mind feeling like it's going to explode? Or do you notice tension in your body? Do you notice it in your heart? Like your heart is aching. Do you notice it like a pit in your stomach? Just getting a cue of how you're experiencing this emotion or thought in your body, can help you identify it better. 

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Another question you can ask yourself is, "If this was an image, what would it look like?" For example, you might feel it's just like fire coming out of your brain. That's how I feel when I'm angry, it's just like my head feels on fire. Or you might notice swirling, spinning thoughts, just going, going, going. Like a tick, tick, tick that you can't stop. And that's a form of worry or a form of overthinking. 

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You might notice yourself just feeling blank inside, like a blank wall or a brick wall. There are all sorts of ways that God has gifted us with imagination. And this is where our right brain, creativity kicks in to help us understand what's happening in our hearts, minds, and bodies. 

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And, so, if you have that sense of the way that you experience that emotion, or that thought as an image, it's a super helpful way to get clearer about it. This is how God made us. We're creative, we're imaginative beings. And, so, don't shy away from using your imagination to capture how you feel. 

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Another way is to think, "Is there a thought or a belief that you can focus on?" So instead of it being an emotion or a feeling in your body, is there a word, or a thought, or a belief that is taking you over? Maybe it's a negative opinion about somebody else. Maybe it's your own inner critic that has a very clear phrase that it says to you, to try to beat you up or get you to do what it feels like you should do. 

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And then as you're focusing, consider if this is a familiar emotion. Has it been with you for a long time? Often these parts of us go all the way back. We store past events and our responses to them, our emotional responses, our physiological responses to them, in our implicit memory. 

And, so, you may not be consciously aware of why you are responding the way you are, in this current situation. But it's possible that a part of you is stuck in the past, and this situation is taking you back to an old memory, almost, outside of your conscious awareness. 

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And, so, it's very familiar to you. You're like, "Oh, yes, this is how I used to feel in 6th grade when this thing would happen." And that's great information to understand this part of you better. Becoming more aware of your thoughts and feelings is a skill you can practice every day. It leads to what psychologists call emotional regulation. As you can acknowledge and name what you feel, just as simple as "I feel angry."

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"I feel jealous."

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"I feel sad." Just that act of naming begins to soothe the brain's limbic system, and it helps you gain access to other regions of the brain. You can check out Dr. Curt Thompson's work in The Anatomy of the Soul or Dr. Dan Siegel's work in Mindsight if you're interested in the neuroscience of this. 

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But just naming what you're feeling and beginning to pay attention to it without shame, in and of itself can bring some relief. This is a practice. 

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Step number two is Befriend, you're going to befriend this part of you. This is the step that is really hard for some people, especially, if you have a really active inner critic. Because often when you give these parts of yourself this attention, you will notice that you don't like them. "I don't like that part of me."

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"I don't like feeling that way."

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"I wish I didn't have that."

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And, so, we have to address this internal resistance because, as we talked about, we don't heal in the context of criticism, including inside our own souls. So as you focus on this emotion, this thought, this part of you that you're working with. Ask yourself how am I feeling toward it. And if you notice that there's a lot of criticism, a lot of inner clamor, like, "Aah, that is just argh, we do not like that part of me." 

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Pay attention to that and turn your attention toward that other part of you, whether it's an inner critic, an inner skeptic, an inner naysayer, or whatever it is, or even maybe you feel sad. Maybe you've noticed that there's an angry part of you and then you feel sad about feeling angry. Just notice those other feelings and there's this really cool thing, and it sounds too good to be true. 

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But as you begin to do this work and you notice, "I really just need to get curious and try to understand this anger and beating myself up about it is not helping." And, so, you can ask that part of you, that part of you that is so used to beating you up, "Could you just give me some space?

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Could you just take a step back? 

I'm trying to get curious about this anger because, to be honest, if I can get curious and show myself some compassion, I'm going to be able to arrive at a better solution. So you begin to retrain the critical part of yourself, the skeptical part of yourself, whatever it is. To give you some space to lead yourself from that spirit-led place within. Where you can be present to yourself without judgment, without shame. 

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So this step involves extending compassion toward yourself. And this is a step that is so important to all of this work. You're beginning to retrain how you connect with yourself and beginning to notice those critical voices. 

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It's a process of noticing, and naming, and then pivoting to, "Can I be with this part of me, with this emotion, with this negative belief, with compassion? Is it possible that showing compassion to my anger, even to the parts of me that carry shame? To the parts of me that carry insecurities. To the parts of me that are fearful; is it possible that if I show compassion toward myself in this moment, it might actually lead to a better way?"

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These parts of us tend to soften in the context of compassion. And I want you to think, again, about parenting your own kids, if you have kids. And if you don't have kids think of a niece, or a nephew, or a child, they need you to connect with them before you can help them change. Connection precedes, change. 

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If you just walk into a room full of kids and start telling them what to do, they might do it in a minute, but they're not going to like it. But if you walk in and you connect, "I see you there, I know your name. I'm here with you. I'm not going to shame you. I need to understand you so that we can figure out a better way." You're authoritative, don't get me wrong, but you're not shaming, you're not judging, you're not criticizing. You are connecting before you try to change the action. 

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So this is the model for how we want to start to be with the parts of our own selves. "It's okay, I get that you are terrified. I'm not going to berate you for that any longer. We're going to take a deep breath. We're going to own it. We're terrified, this is going to be really hard. I don't even know if I can do it. It's okay, I see you. I see you, it's okay. You get to be here at this table. There are other parts of me that are a little bit braver and that are going to take over now. But I'm not going to shame you or berate you that you're scared." 

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And then suddenly you start to notice that part of you soften. "Oh, okay, if I can be a little bit afraid, then I won't take you over." And you start to create these healthy boundaries. "You can be here, fear, but I'm not going to let you drive. I'm not going to let you take me over." And you start to connect to yourself in a more compassionate way. 

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< Music >

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Step three, and this is for folks who have a faith background. You invite God to be with you and, especially, to be with this part of you. We are emotional, thinking, and spiritual beings, and there are tremendous spiritual resources available to us. But so often when we are in pain, when we are fearful, when we are angry, we feel like we have to solve that on our own. Instead of naming what's happening and inviting God to be with us in that. "God, I am angry. Can you be with me in that anger?"

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And, so, often, so many of us have been trained that we have to make that go away. That if God shows up, well, then we can't be angry. But I want you to consider Jesus and the different emotions that Jesus had. I'm not convinced that God is there to shoo those emotions away. What I believe is that God comes in and helps us gain clarity. "You know what? You're angry for a reason, and I get that."

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"I'm angry with you."

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"Let me carry some of that anger so that you don't go off and do something stupid. So that we can be wise in how we act on behalf of that anger, but I'm with you. I'm with you."

Or "I see that grief and I grieve with you, and I can carry some of that grief with you. I'm not here to take it away, or shame you, or tell you that you've got to spiritualize that grief. That somehow your grief is a sign that you don't have faith. Ah-ah, I'm here with you in it. I grieve, too, for those atrocities. They break my heart, too, and in fact, I can carry some of that grief with you so that it's not so heavy for you."

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This is what I think it means when Jesus says, "My burden is light." It doesn't mean we don't still carry some of that weight. But He comes along and He makes those burdens a little lighter because we're not alone in them any longer. We're not alone in those painful emotions. 

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So we invite God to carry some of that with us and help us be wise in those emotions. And this is where the heart of this work, as a spiritual practice, comes to light. In my own life, I often first take inventory of the parts of my own soul that need my attention. So in the morning, I might just make a list, "I'm tired, this morning."

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"I'm defeated."

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"I'm excited."

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"I really don't want to pray. I just want to get going with my day, today, because, I think, I can handle it today." 

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Whatever it is that I'm feeling I just make a note of it, and then I invite God into that experience. This is prayer. This is prayer, "God, I just wrote this down on a piece of paper. Would you come look at what I wrote down on this paper, too? Would you help me?" 

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Not so that I can shine it up and be all set, so God will be happy with me because that's what so many of us have been trained to do. But so, "God, this is just real right now. I'm fighting every instinct to just bypass my quiet time, today, and hit the ground running because I got so much to do and I'm just going to get it done on my own. So could you just own that with me and see that that's where we're at?"

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And God may not magically take that away, maybe that's the best you do for prayer that morning. But that was a prayer and God's now in it with you, and you're not alone. And these parts of us begin to trust God in a different way. "God, there is a part of me that is so worried about my child, about my spouse, about this friend, about this situation. I am so worried, God, I can't stop myself from worrying, and I'm not going to shame myself for that. 

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But, God, I know you see that worry and I'm going to lift that worried part of me up to you. And I'm going to ask you to help other parts of me that you've made. The parts of me that can just take a deep breath, the parts of me that can put one foot in front of the other, to be emboldened, to be strengthened. And I'm going to ask you to help me nurture that worried part of me that's actually getting in my way, but she's scared, God. 

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So come be with all of me, today. Here it is, I'm not hiding anything from you. I've just bared my soul open, you see it all, it's all there anyway. Here it is, it feels like a mess, this morning. 

Here it all is, God, let your light shine into every corner of my soul, you see it all. You see it all. I don't have to fix it to come to you, here it is, God. Here's my heart laid open bear."

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Right there is a little glimpse of hope. A little glimpse of you are not alone. A little glimpse of relief. A little glimpse of, paradoxically, wholeness. You're not hiding anything. And, so, this work becomes a form of prayer. It becomes a spiritual practice, and you start to pray for parts of yourself as you would pray for a close friend. 

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For example, maybe you're aware of the chronic people-pleasing part of you. This part of you that just sneaks in and you can't make it stop. And, so, you get a tiny little bit of differentiation from it. Just a tiny little ability to go, "Yes, when I go into this situation, I am just going to turn it on and I'm going to start pleasing everybody, and I'm not even going to be able to stop myself. 

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God, I just want to name that. I just want to name that. Would you help me take a deep breath and get just a little bit of space, some healthy distance, from that part of me? I'm not going to be able to solve it altogether. She's been with me a long time. But what if I could just take a deep breath, with your help, before I say any yeses, today. I'm just going to try to take a 10-second pause before I do any perfecting. When I worry, I'm going to just take a deep breath, God, and invite you to be with that part of my soul."

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Again, this isn't magic, this is a practice, but, over time, as you practice bringing each of these parts into your own conscious awareness, you begin to differentiate from them inside of your soul. You begin to name them; you begin to get curious about them. You begin to show compassion for yourself because there's a reason these parts of you are there, almost, always going all the way back to childhood, in ways that you've been conditioned by the past. 

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As you begin to get to know them, you begin to build trust with yourself. And in partnership with God's Spirit, these parts will begin to soften. They will begin to trust you to lead them, not the other way around. 

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Now, I want to talk briefly about steps four and steps five. We go into great detail in Boundaries for Your Soul. So if you want more resources, especially, on this unburdening part, I would refer you to chapter seven. There are a bunch of lists in chapter seven, of Boundaries for Your Soul, on a lot of the fears and burdens these different parts can have. So I'm going to just touch on this here. Those first three steps are really where I want you to focus because that's sort of the entry-level of this work. 

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But some of these parts of us carry burdens from the past, and these relate to these wounds from childhood. These burdens are extreme beliefs or feelings that parts of you have taken on, as a result of painful experiences. When you're a young child you can't process complex events. And, so, at some point, you interpret events in ways that maybe were not helpful. And, so, parts of your soul hold on to these beliefs all the way into adulthood. 

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So some examples are, these are common examples. Let's say your parents are divorced. "My parents got divorced, so I'm destined to get divorced, too." This is sort of a common belief burden that can lurk in the corners of our soul. 

Or "I have to take care of others to earn their approval, there's just no way around it." I talk a lot about this in The Best of You, in chapter two, this fawn response. Where a rational mind, in the present day, knows this isn't true. But parts of us really believe, all the way back in our implicit memory, there's this memory stored of, "I have to take care of other people otherwise I'm not worth anything."

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And, so, there's this weight, deep inside, that's really hard to change. And your rational brain won't, necessarily, change it. You might notice a vague sense of distrust of others, that goes back to childhood wounds, of being taken advantage of, of being hurt. You might notice deep-seated, self-doubt that doesn't really make sense anymore because you're doing okay in your life. You've figured some things out. But there's a part of you that's stuck back in childhood. 

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I see this all the time, those childhood years are really formative. Parts of us get stuck back there and they take up these burdens. And, so, again, rationally, you may understand that you don't need to feel this way anymore or think this way anymore. But this part of you still does get stuck back in childhood. And to further complicate matters, parts of us get mixed up about God, too. Developmentally, young parts of you don't know the difference between, say, a caregiver and God. 

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And, so, when a parent, or a church leader, or another adult disappoints you or misrepresents God, a young part of you picks up this idea that God is not trustworthy. That God does not care about you, that God has abandoned you, and it makes sense. Because those first initial caregivers are our first glimpse of what God is like and, so, there's this wound. 

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And, so, part of you is like, "I believe that God loves me. My theology tells me that's true. The Bible tells me that's true. I believe God is good, but there are parts of me that just cannot experience it." And whenever I hear that; I wonder, is there a wound? Is there a burden that goes all the way back, where somebody did not give you the care that you needed? That did not give you that lived experience in your body of what goodness, of what love, of what somebody being present to you feels like? 

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And, so, how could you know that when that part of you never got that? And, so, it can be frustrating because you're like, "I believe this. I wish I could experience this." And it's pretty common. And, so, if that's your experience, please know you're not alone. You might pick up beliefs like, "God is a harsh taskmaster who is there to punish me."

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Or "I have to be perfect to earn God's approval."

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These parts pick up these messages and they can go really deep. And, again, it can be frustrating when parts of you know this isn't true, but you just can't let go of it. And, so, this step of unburdening is all about connecting to these young parts of us, hearing their stories, where they picked up these ideas and inviting them to be in this new reality. Where you, and God, and a few safe other people can help them understand a different experience of love. 

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A different experience of whatever that mistaken belief or burden they've picked up. In this case, healing is experiential it's not just cognitive. There is a reparative experience that happens as you connect to a deep part of yourself, to a part of your story, that never got heard. 

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Henri Nouwen talks about going and bringing, home, parts of us that got left behind. And this is the work of deep healing. And this is work that I would encourage you not to do alone. You can do this in the safety of a therapist's office, especially, if you've got trauma or deep, unhealed pain. 

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You can do this with a small group, with safe people, where you learn to bear witness in a safe, healing way to each other's stories. But this is a really beautiful step. I want you to know about it because if you're someone who relates to what I'm saying, there is a way for you to repair that part of your story. 

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And then, lastly, finally, this fifth step of integration. I love this step because this is the step where these parts begin to take on new roles. And, so, you've begun to connect to each of these parts. We all have a lot of different parts, but we all have our go-to parts. In Boundaries for Your Soul I talk about three-key parts, for me, the people-pleasing part of me that just smiles and nods. And it's always, "Okay, oh, sure, I can help."

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"I can do whatever you need."

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"I'm good."

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"Never worry about me." This part of me that's just so familiar to me. I've had it forever and I work with her all the time. And then there's a numbing out part of me, an avoidant part of me, that is like a brick wall of avoidance, that just will not go to the painful places. And in my own journey of reclaiming long lost desires, long lost dreams, that I wasn't invisible, in fact. That I'm not always okay, and that I also have needs. 

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And, so, these are three of my go-to parts that I've gotten to know, I've gotten curious about. I've spent a lot of time showing compassion, understanding their stories. Doing this work with other people, and in the privacy of my own heart and with God. And this integration piece is so beautiful because it's where you start to see each of these parts take on their original God-made role.

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And, so, in my case, that part of me that just smiles, and nods, and is so pleasing, and makes everybody else happy, and just to a degree where I start hurting myself. There is a kindness to that part of me. There is a gentleness to that part of me who, very so genuinely, never wants to harm a soul. Who would, if she could, and was God, which she is not, take on the burdens of everybody around her. She is the highly empathetic part of me and these are good qualities. 

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But she has learned that she does not get to take charge of the controls of my soul because when she does, it is not healthy. She takes me way beyond my own limits. Which ends up causing harm to me and also causes harm to other people, when I can't follow through because I have human limits. And, so, empathy is a great example. 

Like joy, if you watch the Inside Out, a Pixar movie, which is good quality but cannot take over the seat of your soul because there's also got to be a place for sorrow. 

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In my case, I've had to learn to let her be kind but within healthy boundaries. And that means she has to make place for parts of me that are also suffering. Parts of me that need empathy. Parts of me that need to be seen by other people. 

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And, so, these parts of me have learned to take on new roles. They let me lead them. The part of me that is just a brick wall of avoidance. Sometimes that's helpful, when I do need to muscle my way through something because I'm on a deadline. But that part of me is no longer allowed to operate outside of my conscious awareness. 

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And, so, that part of me becomes the part of me that reminds me, "It's time to shut down in a healthy way."

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"It's time to play."

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"It's time to do something silly."

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"It's time to do something besides work." 

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Each of these parts is now reintegrated. They each play an important role, as I have, more deeply, more skillfully, more wisely, learned how to lead the parts of my soul and I would not be able to do this work apart from the God who made me. It's paying attention to each of these parts with the help of God's always kind, always present, always patient, always truthful presence to help guide me. 

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And as I become more whole, more of all of these things, and can lead myself wisely, I have expanded my capacity to show up for other people in healthy ways and within healthy boundaries. The two things go together. The healthier the boundary lines fall within my own soul, the healthier I show up with other people. This is a spiritual practice that leads to emotional, mental, and spiritual wholeness. We will never arrive at perfection. 

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Do not get me wrong, I still get out of balance. But so much more quickly, I know how to course correct, and I know what to do. I know how to find the part of my soul that needs attention, and I've built trust with these parts of myself. This is my prayer for you. Start by getting curious. Just getting curious, you don't have to fix anything. You don't have to heal anything. Just start getting curious about the parts of your own soul. 

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Start showing compassion for what you notice. Which might even mean starting by showing compassion for that inner critic, who works so hard to keep you in check. And, lastly, invite God into this process every single step of the way. The good shepherd who left the 99 to go find that one lost sheep, and who wants to do that very same thing inside your own soul, He cares about every hair on your head, and He cares about every lost, or wounded, or hurting part of your soul. 

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< Outro >

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Best of You. Be sure to check out the show notes for any resources and links mentioned in the show. You can find those on my website at dralisoncook.com. That's Alison with one L- cook.com.

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Before you forget, I hope you'll follow the show now so that you don't miss an episode. And I'd love it if you'd go ahead and leave a review, it helps so much to get the word out. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are you honor God, you heal others, and you stay true to your God-given self.

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