Full Transcript for Susan Carson: Learning Contemplative Healing from Julian of Norwich and Neuroscience

I think. 05:04.839 --> 05:08.941 [SPEAKER_02]: post-literate people are very easy to manipulate. 05:10.161 --> 05:13.702 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if I'm being critically about the ideas that are coming to you. 05:14.042 --> 05:14.402 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, go ahead. 05:14.763 --> 05:27.487 [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm being honest, if somebody sends me a long email or even a long text that is like, you know, like when you get like give to scroll to actually read the whole entire text, I'm like, oh, I think I'll do that later. 05:29.471 --> 05:37.557 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, sure, there's a sense in which the medium of texting has trained us to expect short texts. 05:38.077 --> 05:42.080 [SPEAKER_02]: And I really cannot read like long form books. 05:42.520 --> 05:43.601 [SPEAKER_02]: I really cannot read them. 05:44.542 --> 05:51.167 [SPEAKER_02]: Like I can do an e-reader, like a Kindle e-reader, but I can't, like if you send me your book as a PDF, 05:52.033 --> 05:56.356 [SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be really hard for me to just read on my computer screen, or on my phone. 05:56.516 --> 06:07.424 [SPEAKER_02]: I like I cannot do it, and so I need a codex, you know, the pages, yeah, or I need like an e-reader. 06:07.864 --> 06:11.186 [SPEAKER_02]: But I even prefer, I've stopped using my e-reader even because 06:12.147 --> 06:12.407 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. 06:12.447 --> 06:15.268 [SPEAKER_02]: I like the the feeling of making progress through a book. 06:15.928 --> 06:21.109 [SPEAKER_02]: I can look at where the bookmark is and feel for, okay, here's where I'm at in this book. 06:21.189 --> 06:29.492 [SPEAKER_02]: I can flip back pretty easily to a previous page and find like a highlight, whereas with an e-reader, I cannot, I can't do that easily. 06:29.512 --> 06:31.212 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's all digital. 06:31.312 --> 06:32.833 [SPEAKER_02]: It's virtual. 06:33.353 --> 06:34.533 [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't feel like it's there. 06:35.621 --> 06:54.413 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, in a funny sequence of things, we're talking about books and reading and all this kind of stuff, but I just this week had a dream about having a conversation with guests that were at my house about books that I was reading and I was telling them that I was reading all these different like, I read this like, 06:54.733 --> 07:04.997 [SPEAKER_01]: Jewish author and then I read this and like in my dream I was this very smart person It's for eating all these like amazing books and it just wasn't true. 07:05.097 --> 07:11.220 [SPEAKER_01]: I woke up and nope Nope, that's not really me Maybe what do you think that dream says though? 07:11.635 --> 07:13.115 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'm interested in things. 07:13.195 --> 07:18.337 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, maybe listen, or maybe you have a book to suggest to me to read and then I need you. 07:18.577 --> 07:19.157 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. 07:19.817 --> 07:27.099 [SPEAKER_02]: It was more, you know, my wife is at the end of her schooling to become a licensed mental health counselor. 07:27.739 --> 07:34.181 [SPEAKER_02]: And the last course that she took before she's working on her capstone now, but the last course that she took was on dreams. 07:34.901 --> 07:39.102 [SPEAKER_02]: Like dream interpretation, yeah, like young, young in our dream interpretation. 07:39.862 --> 07:54.488 [SPEAKER_02]: And she said it was utterly fascinating, and you would, you would, I don't know, it's really, it's a really interesting practice that I, I really didn't know much about, but it'd be interesting to analyze your dream. 07:54.828 --> 07:54.988 [SPEAKER_01]: Right. 07:55.008 --> 07:56.409 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't really know how to do it, but. 07:56.529 --> 07:56.769 [SPEAKER_02]: No. 07:57.781 --> 08:12.042 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just believing there's lots of interests I have and I don't know I have this desire to learn things which is probably true but just funny that I woke up and I was like I don't even know any like they weren't real books you know in my dream. 08:13.263 --> 08:25.911 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, anyway, I know there's symbols and that kind of thing that they talk about, but one of the things that stuck with me from what Deb told me about that course was that, dreams don't give us answers, they give us questions. 08:26.572 --> 08:26.792 [SPEAKER_02]: Ooh. 08:27.212 --> 08:38.860 [SPEAKER_02]: And so oftentimes, dreams are a helpful way for us to get at questions that we might be asking that are beneath the level of our consciousness. 08:40.140 --> 09:02.395 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they sort of emerge from the depths of our psyche's when our guard is down, so to speak, or sleep, and if we can look at those things and say, I wonder what this says about the questions I'm asking right now, or the desires that I have that maybe I'm not allowing myself to feel or know while I'm awake, and maybe I could learn something. 09:03.955 --> 09:06.978 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, talking about learning something. 09:07.479 --> 09:08.379 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, good. 09:08.420 --> 09:09.280 [SPEAKER_02]: I like that transition. 09:09.300 --> 09:09.761 [SPEAKER_02]: That was good. 09:10.381 --> 09:14.506 [SPEAKER_01]: We had a really good conversation that I probably could have talked about. 09:16.331 --> 09:17.192 [SPEAKER_01]: for a long time. 09:17.232 --> 09:33.324 [SPEAKER_01]: Like narrow science and attachment and intimacy with God and like those types of things, I struggled when I was getting my doctorate, what to write my whole dissertation on and all of those things were kind of coming to a point. 09:33.384 --> 09:42.971 [SPEAKER_01]: So the conversation that we are going to share today kind of merges all of those things along with church mothers and fathers and 09:46.332 --> 09:46.972 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah. 09:46.992 --> 09:48.573 [SPEAKER_02]: We're talking with Susan Carson today. 09:49.254 --> 09:59.179 [SPEAKER_02]: We've talked with her in the past about maybe one of her other books, but I really

appreciated this book in this conversation because I have sort of long been fascinated by the 10:00.526 --> 10:22.500 [SPEAKER_02]: I guess the similarities that I see, I don't do a ton of reading in neuroscience, but the stuff that I have seen and the stuff that I know, it really is interestingly, it overlaps really interestingly with a lot of what the ancient church, a lot of what mystical theologians have been saying for hundreds of years. 10:26.562 --> 10:48.656 [SPEAKER_02]: see a book that Susan wrote here that sort of merges those two things in a very practical way because this book is really about healing and it's about, you know, healing our trauma, healing our alienation and kind of looking at insights from both Julian of Norris and neuroscience to do that. 10:49.877 --> 10:58.166 [SPEAKER_02]: The book is called a canotic way of contemplative healing, Julian of Norwich, neuroscience and the centrality of safety in healing our trauma. 10:58.807 --> 11:09.559 [SPEAKER_02]: And Susan is, Susan Carson is the founder and executive director of Roots and Branches, which is a non-profit in Cincinnati, Ohio offering spiritual direction and contemplative healing. 11:10.480 --> 11:12.522 [SPEAKER_02]: Susan is a certified spiritual director. 11:12.642 --> 11:17.727 [SPEAKER_02]: She's an author, speaker, and the host of the rooted intentionally podcast. 11:17.927 --> 11:21.290 [SPEAKER_02]: She holds a master's in theology and culture from St. Stephen's University. 11:21.850 --> 11:28.076 [SPEAKER_02]: You can interact with her more and learn more about her at her website, which is just Susan Carson.net. 11:28.997 --> 11:30.058 [SPEAKER_02]: Let's get into this conversation. 11:49.293 --> 11:52.474 [SPEAKER_03]: Susan Carson, welcome back to the Gravity Commons podcast. 11:53.254 --> 11:54.214 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 11:54.334 --> 11:55.874 [SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, it's so good to be here. 11:55.955 --> 11:59.235 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for the invite to have a return visit. 11:59.575 --> 11:59.895 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 12:00.215 --> 12:04.256 [SPEAKER_03]: Let's go to see you again and good to hear from you about spiritual direction. 12:05.817 --> 12:09.538 [SPEAKER_03]: You said something in the intro of your book that caught my attention on that. 12:09.558 --> 12:10.778 [SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to hear more about it. 12:11.918 --> 12:22.730 [SPEAKER_03]: So now we have you here, you're captive, and so we get to ask you questions, but you describe in like a paragraph, you describe a shift in your spiritual direction, we could call it philosophy, right? 12:24.292 --> 12:33.501 [SPEAKER_03]: How your practice went from one way of doing spiritual direction, early on, to a different kind of spiritual direction now, 12:34.382 --> 12:42.108 [SPEAKER_03]: And I wonder if you could name how it's different, you know, draw some distinctions for us or differentiation. 12:42.769 --> 12:44.810 [SPEAKER_03]: And then how did you come to make those changes? 12:44.850 --> 12:46.051 [SPEAKER_03]: Was it intentional? 12:46.091 --> 12:46.972 [SPEAKER_03]: Was it organic? 12:47.512 --> 12:54.117 [SPEAKER_03]: Were there like key moments where you had realizations would love to hear about that journey? 12:55.518 --> 12:57.780 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks. 12:57.920 --> 12:59.782 [SPEAKER_00]: It was definitely a journey over time. 13:01.738 --> 13:14.525 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think over that period of about 10 to 12 years of just being in listening space with people, spiritual direction kinds of space with people. 13:15.745 --> 13:27.191 [SPEAKER_00]: And as my face, my theology was evolving in that same period, the two I can't really separate the two because what I was noticing with people, 13:29.270 --> 13:42.978 [SPEAKER_00]: informed just the way that my faith was kind of shifting and evolving, but I would also say the way my faith and theology were shifting and involving was unsure informing the way I was interacting with people. 13:43.078 --> 13:45.239 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll say more about that. 13:46.260 --> 13:58.087 [SPEAKER_00]: I think what I started to notice as I was just had the honor of being with people in spiritual direction kind of space was that 13:58.809 --> 14:22.881 [SPEAKER_00]: When we would leave space, when I would leave space for somebody to take a beat and listen to their own heart, and then listen to God, what my God have to have you to know about that, Jesus never interacted with people the way my theology sort of said we should interact with people. 14:24.428 --> 14:28.395 [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say I started with much more of a top-down. 14:29.296 --> 14:32.141 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm the person in the room who knows what needs to happen. 14:35.592 --> 14:44.839 [SPEAKER_00]: sort of borne out of a view of God and people of were sort of depraved and we can't really trust our hearts. 14:44.879 --> 14:51.364 [SPEAKER_00]: So you probably need me to help you figure this out. 14:51.384 --> 14:55.988 [SPEAKER_00]: And there might be some specific things that you need to do that I need to lead you through. 14:57.282 --> 15:21.281 [SPEAKER_00]: that will help you get some more freedom or insider understanding in your life and I wouldn't say that any of those things in and of themselves were bad but it was a very me-driven approach and what I noticed as I was opening space with people particularly in spaces 15:27.265 --> 15:50.868 [SPEAKER_00]: He really wanted to just be with people and in their suffering and speak truth and love to them in the kindest ways he didn't seem to show up with a you need to know how wicked your heart is and it was really just loving connection. 15:52.065 --> 16:02.271 [SPEAKER_00]: that space and I just started to wonder over time like maybe that's the point like what if I did less and what if I just made more space for that? 16:05.893 --> 16:17.599 [SPEAKER_00]: So I was sort of a big experiment over time really sort of peeling back like what if there's more space for

quiet what if I just do more listening 16:20.427 --> 16:44.311 [SPEAKER_00]: trying as a spiritual director to also ask good helpful questions, but really trusting the person and the chair across for me to know, like if I leave them space, they're truest self and Christ in them together, no way better than I do what they need. 16:45.507 --> 16:55.279 [SPEAKER_00]: They have the wisdom and so I become more of a follower on their journey as opposed to a leader as that makes sense. 16:56.104 --> 16:57.004 [SPEAKER_03]: it makes a lot of sense. 16:57.225 --> 17:05.328 [SPEAKER_03]: I bet Ben has some thoughts about this, you know, he's in spiritual direction school right now and learning all about this stuff. 17:06.309 --> 17:12.772 [SPEAKER_03]: But I'm, you know, Bradley Jerseyack, who's been on our show several times wrote the forward to your book. 17:13.532 --> 17:16.694 [SPEAKER_03]: It seems like you were in a program with him as well. 17:17.334 --> 17:18.635 [SPEAKER_03]: That was the Genesis of this book. 17:19.475 --> 17:22.157 [SPEAKER_03]: And several years ago, I'm tempted to say many. 17:23.197 --> 17:34.986 [SPEAKER_03]: But my memory is so bad that everything seems like many years ago, several years ago, Bradley said almost the exact same thing to us on this podcast about what changed his theology. 17:36.868 --> 17:37.869 [SPEAKER_03]: And Ben, I think you were there. 17:38.729 --> 17:51.279 [SPEAKER_03]: Chris, you can't remember if you were there, but he talked about how he was doing some counseling with people who had done the worst crimes against children, just awful, awful things. 17:52.260 --> 17:58.061 [SPEAKER_03]: And when he sat with them and asked them the same kind of question you're talking about, Susan, what does Jesus want you to know? 17:59.101 --> 18:07.663 [SPEAKER_03]: He was blown away by the amount of compassion that Christ showed what he considered to be the worst of sinners. 18:08.643 --> 18:09.763 [SPEAKER_03]: And it like opened his heart. 18:12.504 --> 18:12.844 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 18:12.944 --> 18:13.744 [SPEAKER_03]: Ben, do you remember that? 18:15.604 --> 18:15.964 [SPEAKER_02]: I do. 18:16.284 --> 18:18.985 [SPEAKER_02]: The vague outline of it as you're saying it. 18:21.998 --> 18:28.503 [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I remember it was very, um, I don't remember the contours of it though fully, but I think that was the outline. 18:30.165 --> 18:32.247 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 18:32.267 --> 18:32.867 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'll leave. 18:33.808 --> 18:34.148 [SPEAKER_02]: Go ahead. 18:34.348 --> 18:34.889 [SPEAKER_02]: Go ahead Susan. 18:35.269 --> 18:39.573 [SPEAKER_00]: No, just said Bradley and I have compared notes on that that separately. 18:39.613 --> 18:45.778 [SPEAKER_00]: We had very much the same journey in this and just seeing the kindness. 18:46.638 --> 18:51.222 [SPEAKER_00]: of God and the beauty of the human soul. 18:51.242 --> 18:57.448 [SPEAKER_00]: It kind of shifted everything for me. 18:59.977 --> 19:06.883 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like the program that I've been actually completed recently. 19:07.864 --> 19:17.974 [SPEAKER_02]: But that names, one of the main learnings for me, was just due less in a sense. 19:18.234 --> 19:21.637 [SPEAKER_02]: And there is a, like I did notice over the two years. 19:22.518 --> 19:43.044 [SPEAKER_02]: just an increased sense of what feels to me like emptiness that I come with, used to have a lot of, I don't know, resources would come to mind and exercises and, you know, theology, I love theology, you know, and that would come to mind and I end up doing too much. 19:44.304 --> 19:57.612 [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I just, I find now that I'm mostly feel empty and I'm more comfortable with silence and yeah, more, more seems to happen. 19:58.012 --> 19:58.872 [SPEAKER_02]: It's which is ironic. 19:59.052 --> 20:03.555 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like I went to school and learned that I'm doing too much. 20:04.135 --> 20:05.376 [SPEAKER_02]: I went to school and learned how to do less. 20:06.797 --> 20:06.997 [SPEAKER_02]: right. 20:07.578 --> 20:08.359 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a great. 20:08.759 --> 20:09.340 [SPEAKER_02]: It is great. 20:11.442 --> 20:14.625 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a big relief in one sense and a little frustrating in another sense, right? 20:14.745 --> 20:20.971 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like my project for being important at least for me anyway. 20:21.311 --> 20:22.052 [SPEAKER_02]: That was part of them. 20:23.556 --> 20:25.538 [SPEAKER_02]: the goodness of it for me anyway. 20:25.958 --> 20:30.441 [SPEAKER_02]: But it sounds like you've been in that kind of school for a while. 20:31.082 --> 20:36.326 [SPEAKER_02]: And I do just want to commend you for going on that journey. 20:36.826 --> 20:42.671 [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a lot of people that get locked into the initial way that they do ministry. 20:43.631 --> 20:46.914 [SPEAKER_02]: And they become a professional. 20:47.615 --> 20:48.735 [SPEAKER_02]: And they've got a job to do. 20:48.775 --> 20:49.576 [SPEAKER_02]: And they don't know how to do it. 20:51.057 --> 20:52.878 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's a comfort in that. 20:52.898 --> 21:01.720 [SPEAKER_02]: I understand that, but yeah, I commend you for going on this journey of kind of uncertainty and leading in. 21:02.861 --> 21:03.461 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks. 21:04.281 --> 21:16.345 [SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that I've learned over the last several years that I didn't know early on in ministry, it sounds like you did the same kind of learning based on your book was about trauma. 21:17.325 --> 21:34.830 [SPEAKER_02]: how trauma plays a role in our lives and I wonder if you can share a bit about what in what ways can spiritual directors like yourself treat trauma with dignity and compassion. 21:34.870 --> 21:38.472 [SPEAKER_02]: How does that play into some of the learning that you've done over the last few minutes? 21:40.032 --> 21:41.552 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a great question. 21:44.468 -->

21:50.953 [SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe we'll talk about safety and what does it mean to be to create a safe space? 21:51.233 --> 22:06.804 [SPEAKER_00]: Because for me, it became much more about in doing less I'm actually creating a space and being more of a safe presence and person for the people that I'm sitting with. 22:08.306 --> 22:11.608 [SPEAKER_00]: So safety is, I mean trauma, right? 22:12.990 --> 22:25.374 [SPEAKER_00]: We experience trauma when we're overwhelmed by a circumstance that we don't have the ability to react to get out of escape from and it's almost always experienced alone. 22:35.428 --> 22:43.714 [SPEAKER_00]: in a sense that part of us that traumatized part of us is alienated from ourselves, from God, from other people. 22:43.774 --> 22:53.922 [SPEAKER_00]: It's in hiding because it's not safe to come back out and it probably won't come back out. 22:54.383 --> 22:59.326 [SPEAKER_00]: Probably won't emerge for healing in a space that doesn't feel safe. 23:00.667 --> 23:19.171 [SPEAKER_00]: So the best way I can help create safe space for them as a safe, spurs person is to come with, first of all, enough of my own, maybe healing and the journey that I have an inner stability that I can sit with them and not 23:27.063 --> 23:32.565 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so again, I'm not the expert, Henry now and talks about us as wounded healers, right? 23:33.065 --> 23:37.286 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so we know our wounds, and we know our own journey. 23:37.306 --> 23:55.272 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I think it is Ben at the emptying of myself being willing to hold silence, being willing to empty myself of my own words, and my own need to speak and interject something. 23:56.478 --> 24:04.702 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, being willing to suspend my opinions or thoughts about what they need in that moment. 24:05.882 --> 24:16.607 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, certainly not bringing any kind of shame or judgment into the room has to be shame free space. 24:26.110 --> 24:27.951 [SPEAKER_00]: trauma right now. 24:28.192 --> 24:54.332 [SPEAKER_00]: So as I come in as hopefully a regulated emptied sort of presence, the people I sit with can actually experience that sense of safety, but also begin to co regulate with me, even with my nervous system, which I think is the coolest thing ever that were made 24:55.382 --> 25:00.708 [SPEAKER_00]: we're made to be together like this, to be able to co-regulate with one another. 25:00.728 --> 25:09.337 [SPEAKER_00]: And then if we think about meeting with Jesus, maybe we can even co-regulate with God. 25:10.378 --> 25:12.721 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's kind of cool. 25:14.049 --> 25:21.997 [SPEAKER_00]: and innately healing for trauma, right, to bring those disconnected, alienated, hiding parts out in the open. 25:23.418 --> 25:32.947 [SPEAKER_00]: So they can experience healing, connection, in love, in a loving presence. 25:33.147 --> 25:35.249 [SPEAKER_00]: That's where the healing starts to happen. 25:40.944 --> 25:58.672 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this names, again, I think one of my main learnings over the last couple of years of kind of leaning into spiritual direction is I think I had a narrative in my head that if I was silent and if I wasn't saying anything. 25:59.861 --> 26:02.623 [SPEAKER_02]: than I wasn't doing anything, right? 26:02.943 --> 26:10.188 [SPEAKER_02]: And there was this kind of anxiety to fix, sort of solve, or to give some steps, sort of, you know, give an assignment or something like that. 26:10.988 --> 26:19.834 [SPEAKER_02]: But it was a really big paradigm and an important paradigm shift to realize just what you're saying that, no, being there is doing something. 26:19.994 --> 26:22.036 [SPEAKER_02]: Listening is doing something. 26:22.356 --> 26:22.676 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. 26:22.956 --> 26:25.278 [SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that you're listening without, 26:25.838 --> 26:33.230 [SPEAKER_02]: judgment, the fact that you're listening with, you know, acceptance, the fact that you are, you know, co-regulating with someone. 26:34.091 --> 26:39.579 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's, that's doing a lot and maybe that's doing better work than I could do with my words anyway. 26:39.760 --> 26:39.960 [SPEAKER_02]: So. 26:41.897 --> 26:46.122 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's been my experience just seeing it over and over again. 26:46.142 --> 26:52.249 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, why, why would I continue to insert myself in this very unhelpful way? 26:53.591 --> 26:54.411 [SPEAKER_02]: It's very humbling. 26:55.032 --> 26:55.353 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 26:55.993 --> 27:01.740 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Susan, you discussed individual and communal trauma in your book. 27:02.899 --> 27:17.910 [SPEAKER_01]: And I've heard you say, creating a safe space, creating safety, giving space for people to listen to their bodies, to listen to like, they know themselves better than we know them, right? 27:19.411 --> 27:24.575 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, but I wonder if you could briefly share how trauma actually gets healed. 27:25.877 --> 27:30.400 [SPEAKER_01]: And how do we recover from the wounding of trauma? 27:33.112 --> 27:34.393 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a good question. 27:34.533 --> 27:40.777 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's probably more than I'm going to say right now. 27:41.538 --> 27:50.804 [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, they should read your book and probably more than my book. 27:52.745 --> 27:53.786 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 27:53.806 --> 27:59.410 [SPEAKER_00]: So trauma gets embedded in our bodies and our brains in this isolating kind of way. 28:03.575 --> 28:04.095 [SPEAKER_00]: memories. 28:06.017 --> 28:13.001 [SPEAKER_00]: So in safety, a memory can emerge a place of trauma that we experienced. 28:14.102 --> 28:24.088 [SPEAKER_00]: And the very cool thing is, as we are able to bring that memory out of isolation into relationship, 28:33.450 --> 28:33.930 [SPEAKER_00]: memory. 28:34.490 --> 28:47.574 [SPEAKER_00]: So every time we can pull a memory out of the filing cabinet of our brain, if we want to think of it that

way, it's refiled differently. 28:49.374 --> 29:03.158 [SPEAKER_00]: So as we, in safe space, as we encounter face to face, that that face to face embodied connection is central because our trauma is embodied. 29:05.003 --> 29:12.708 [SPEAKER_00]: So we're bringing our isolated embodied experience into relational embodied experience with co-suffering. 29:13.628 --> 29:17.170 [SPEAKER_00]: Love, with love that is with us. 29:17.490 --> 29:18.651 [SPEAKER_00]: We're no longer alone. 29:20.172 --> 29:27.876 [SPEAKER_00]: That love is with us in our suffering and in that process over time. 29:27.896 --> 29:32.539 [SPEAKER_00]: Not in a minute, usually, not in a session. 29:34.305 --> 29:38.246 [SPEAKER_00]: But over time, that trauma is healed. 29:40.466 --> 29:56.350 [SPEAKER_00]: And so all the things that triggered us before, those triggers are diminishing and diminishing and so we're able to live more consistently from that healed kind of space. 29:57.191 --> 29:57.291 [SPEAKER_03]: Mm. 30:00.891 --> 30:01.392 [SPEAKER_00]: Sign me up. 30:04.286 --> 30:05.353 [SPEAKER_03]: take all my money Susan. 30:08.539 --> 30:09.299 [SPEAKER_03]: I'll choose the side. 30:11.201 --> 30:14.764 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, humor is a trauma response if you didn't know that about me yet. 30:15.724 --> 30:30.296 [SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, Julia of Norwich, who you talk about in this book, had no DSM-5 categorization for what we call trauma today, right, and you interact with her divine revelations in your 30:37.681 --> 31:03.049 [SPEAKER_03]: uh, reckon with and and heal our trauma, um, can you share a bit about how you made those connections and particularly you mentioned co-suffering love and uh, you talk about Kenosis a lot to can can you share about how you came to find in her a resource, uh, an ancient resource for dealing with a modern pathology. 31:05.305 --> 31:07.746 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've come to love her. 31:07.766 --> 31:10.366 [SPEAKER_00]: She's a bit of a companion for me. 31:10.386 --> 31:20.369 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, and so Julian comes sort of into her experience of God through a very full body. 31:21.129 --> 31:28.871 [SPEAKER_00]: She thought she was on her deathbed, experience of a face-to-face experience of Christ on the cross, right? 31:29.011 --> 31:32.252 [SPEAKER_00]: Christ, emptying himself. 31:33.877 --> 31:46.603 [SPEAKER_00]: on the cross into death, and she has an experience of that with him in the very mystical kind of way that mystics do these things. 31:47.483 --> 31:51.125 [SPEAKER_00]: And then spends the next 20 plus years of 32:03.775 --> 32:14.180 [SPEAKER_00]: And she's having conversations with God, understanding from God of what this revelation of Christ on the cross meant. 32:14.560 --> 32:30.288 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things she writes over and over and over again is seek into the beholding, this beholding, for Julian was central, not just in her experience, but she would say it should be central. 32:31.556 --> 32:46.248 [SPEAKER_00]: in ours and by beholding, yes, she met seeing, right contemplating, gazing on Christ listening to God. 32:46.888 --> 32:54.595 [SPEAKER_00]: But she also, in that word, beholden is that sense of being held by God. 32:55.816 --> 32:58.338 [SPEAKER_00]: And that experience of being held by God 32:59.217 --> 33:26.945 [SPEAKER_00]: She's probably, well, she's probably most famous for a couple things, but one of them is her image of the hazelnut object that she sees in the hand, and that hazelnut object is she says everything, and the hand is the hand of God, and everything that is ever was or will be as held safely, she says, 33:28.147 --> 33:54.965 [SPEAKER_00]: in the hand of God, and so in that, in her contemplation, in her gazing and her face to face beholding, there she finds are becoming that we are becoming our truest self, the self that we are created in Christ, as we are in Christ 33:57.098 --> 34:03.763 [SPEAKER_00]: all held in the goodness and love of God, that this is what's truest about us. 34:04.664 --> 34:15.772 [SPEAKER_00]: And as we contemplate that gaze upon that interact with God in that place, in that safety of being held, and of beholding we are changed. 34:16.552 --> 34:28.902 [SPEAKER_00]: and transformed, and yes, she didn't have trauma vocabulary, but if you dive in and I think in terms of mystics, I think she's one of the more accessible ones. 34:29.683 --> 34:37.510 [SPEAKER_00]: Even the way she talks about sin and beauty, there's no blame for her and sin. 34:37.570 --> 34:41.293 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just what happens to us in the same way that trauma is kind of what 34:41.875 --> 34:43.877 [SPEAKER_00]: happens to us as humans, right? 34:44.017 --> 34:49.781 [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody, and of us emerges unscathed in the slides. 34:51.323 --> 35:03.873 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it becomes this beautiful picture of where I'll be on this journey of becoming who we already are in relationship, beholding love, beholding God. 35:05.098 --> 35:06.840 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 35:07.140 --> 35:08.581 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, like Matt said, sign me up. 35:10.403 --> 35:11.003 [SPEAKER_02]: It sounds good. 35:12.264 --> 35:15.527 [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a final piece of the book. 35:15.567 --> 35:18.950 [SPEAKER_02]: That's even in the title of the book is the kind of the neuroscience piece. 35:19.911 --> 35:24.815 [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of bringing together the healing of trauma and some of the 35:26.152 --> 35:31.915 [SPEAKER_02]: you know what you're learning in spiritual direction and some of what the the mystics seem to have known for a long time. 35:31.935 --> 35:39.900 [SPEAKER_02]: But you also, you know, deal with kind of what we're discovering about neuroscience, how the brain, the body work, all of that kind of thing. 35:40.660 --> 35:47.925 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, Christians over the years, this is getting probably better than it used to be, but Christians over the years vetted. 35:48.565 --> 36:00.928 [SPEAKER_02]: I

don't know, a little bit of a suspicious relationship with science, sort of assuming that science posed an obstacle to their faith or, you know, science was trying to explain God away or, you know, something like that. 36:00.988 --> 36:09.790 [SPEAKER_02]: But in your book, you talk about that, you know, the fact that neuroscience actually informs and supports the work that you do as a spiritual director. 36:09.810 --> 36:17.132 [SPEAKER_02]: So I wonder if you can just talk about that for a bit, how how those things for you are not competing, but complementing 36:19.413 --> 36:38.765 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and even confirming, I mean, I love it when neuroscience discovers things and names things that mystics or early church fathers and mothers wrote about thousands of hundreds and thousands of years ago, how beautiful is that? 36:38.905 --> 36:43.769 [SPEAKER_00]: So in the book, I dive into the aspect of neuroscience 36:50.291 --> 36:59.276 [SPEAKER_00]: from our brain through our whole body that its function is to scan all the time as scanning for safety or we save, or we save then. 36:59.837 --> 37:16.486 [SPEAKER_00]: If we're not it's giving us telling our bodies, you're not safe, go into your fight, flee, freeze, do something because you're not safe. 37:19.996 --> 37:39.248 [SPEAKER_00]: as that nerve as we're in a regulated great state with within ourselves and with other people that nerve is actually attached to our eyes, our ears, our voice, our mouth. 37:39.548 --> 37:42.170 [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's a difference. 37:43.211 --> 37:46.353 [SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember who I quoted in the book who said you can't fake. 37:49.313 --> 37:55.696 [SPEAKER_00]: a vagus kind of face, you can't fake it, you can't fake the tone of ways. 37:55.896 --> 38:15.405 [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's actually becoming, as our systems are regulated as that vagus nerve is calm and not inside or flight or agitated or maybe carrying less trauma than it did a year or two or three ago, that, um, 38:16.123 --> 38:17.803 [SPEAKER_00]: We are actually different. 38:17.823 --> 38:21.804 [SPEAKER_00]: We are with people in a different way. 38:22.924 --> 38:33.186 [SPEAKER_00]: And that person sitting across for me can see it and sense it in my eyes, in the tone of my voice, in my mouth. 38:33.607 --> 38:38.287 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a different for me in the way that I'm even hearing them are experiencing them. 38:39.748 --> 38:44.589 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like we're wired for this. 38:46.380 --> 38:58.643 [SPEAKER_00]: And it becomes at that point just about a way of being the way that we are being as humans together and it's all embodied. 38:58.703 --> 39:01.104 [SPEAKER_00]: It's all going on in our bodies. 39:01.804 --> 39:02.044 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. 39:02.644 --> 39:04.905 [SPEAKER_00]: I could nerd on up on this for a long time. 39:05.505 --> 39:06.345 [SPEAKER_01]: Right. 39:06.605 --> 39:13.787 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, though, I just the neuroscience piece in our brains and our

bodies and all of it, it's fascinating to me. 39:15.413 --> 39:17.954 [SPEAKER_01]: But I also know that we're kind of close to time. 39:18.014 --> 39:20.436 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm wondering if I can ask one final question. 39:21.557 --> 39:43.169 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you could just address, how do we approach those of us who have religious trauma like where God himself is triggering for us, how can we sit in the presence of God when our bodies are communicating to us, God's presence is dangerous because of things 39:45.949 --> 39:58.274 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a great, great question and I do think so much of this, particularly in terms of spiritual trauma is about healing our image of God. 39:58.294 --> 40:00.274 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely. 40:00.615 --> 40:03.736 [SPEAKER_00]: How we see God and how we believe God sees us. 40:05.877 --> 40:14.060 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that's where the human to human connection is so important because I may not be in a place 40:16.020 --> 40:37.685 [SPEAKER_00]: feel safe connecting with God in any way at all and actually if we have time maybe I'll share a cool story about that but don't forget time yeah so I was meeting with this young woman who had been assaulted by her youth pastor and so God Jesus all of it was 40:45.938 --> 40:49.661 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I've done a lot of listening at this point, right? 40:49.721 --> 40:51.982 [SPEAKER_00]: Just a lot of reflective listening. 40:52.382 --> 41:12.696 [SPEAKER_00]: And here's a little tip, it's not in the book, and it's just by observation, but I really come to believe that if you just listen well to somebody, just reflectively listen well around the 20 minute mark, they're going to have some kind of insight or make some kind of connection or know something that they didn't know that they knew. 41:15.423 --> 41:18.124 [SPEAKER_00]: So lots of listening, which is healing. 41:18.144 --> 41:31.771 [SPEAKER_00]: Then I'm like, well, would you be okay seeing if we can just maybe there's a safe space where you could be imaginatively today that might be healing? 41:31.791 --> 41:33.092 [SPEAKER_00]: And she was open for it. 41:33.232 --> 41:44.417 [SPEAKER_00]: So just got quiet and she sort of found herself imaginatively in her grandmother's backyard as a little girl. 41:46.006 --> 41:52.210 [SPEAKER_00]: And she finds herself there was a tree swing in her grandma's backyard. 41:52.270 --> 42:02.356 [SPEAKER_00]: So she's like, I'm swinging on the tree swing, which I'm thinking as cool as I'm watching this because swings regulate our nervous system, right? 42:02.556 --> 42:04.597 [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I can feel myself swinging. 42:04.617 --> 42:06.899 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, that's cool. 42:06.979 --> 42:12.442 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, well, what if we just asked how God might be present with you in any way? 42:13.409 --> 42:20.094 [SPEAKER_00]: She was, she was games, she said, okay, and she was, and she was like, ah, God is the wind pushing the swing. 42:20.114 --> 42:30.081 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, ah, I'm a million years, I could never come up with this, right? 42:31.582 --> 42:38.587 [SPEAKER_00]: And she's having this amazing, beautiful connection with God in the swing, with the wind. 42:40.068 --> 42:40.789 [SPEAKER_00]: And we didn't, 42:41.210 --> 42:48.202 [SPEAKER_00]: Make it mean any more than that day because that was what was for that day and it was it was beautiful so. 42:52.392 --> 42:57.015 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm not sure I'm talking anymore about the question that you actually asked. 42:57.696 --> 43:05.301 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think in that story, it's correcting a view of God and for her. 43:06.542 --> 43:12.487 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we all need that more and more, but especially those of us who've had spiritual trauma. 43:12.507 --> 43:12.787 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. 43:13.247 --> 43:13.788 [SPEAKER_01]: And I did it. 43:13.848 --> 43:19.412 [SPEAKER_00]: And I would add thanks just to me as a human being with her. 43:20.643 --> 43:30.550 [SPEAKER_00]: being to the extent that I can't be at any given day at any given moment, the presence of God, right, Christ is in all of us, so we can be this for each other. 43:32.091 --> 43:37.394 [SPEAKER_00]: And so she couldn't connect with God and yet somehow in the safe. 43:37.733 --> 43:53.197 [SPEAKER_00]: space with me, she was able to take that step back towards God and find a way of experiencing and connecting with God that fell safe and loving and healing for her. 43:56.558 --> 43:57.378 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah Susan. 43:58.865 --> 44:00.046 [SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate that story. 44:00.086 --> 44:07.551 [SPEAKER_03]: I know every person that comes to spiritual direction with you, their precious, their stories are theirs. 44:07.652 --> 44:11.434 [SPEAKER_03]: And I appreciate you sharing that in a way that I think honors that young woman. 44:16.975 --> 44:26.340 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm also just, I just want to clock for our listeners like, you know, Ben and I wrote a book where we talked about God's always present and at work. 44:27.280 --> 44:34.804 [SPEAKER_03]: And obviously, this is one of the central dynamics that we think is so helpful about learning to trust that. 44:35.685 --> 44:41.588 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, Christie's led lots of cohorts and I know that she has taught that stuff for years 44:46.992 --> 44:54.176 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, one of the things that interferes with my ability to embody that with people is just my own anxiety. 44:55.917 --> 45:02.741 [SPEAKER_03]: My own, my own wanting to produce results, secure outcomes, not look foolish. 45:03.822 --> 45:07.464 [SPEAKER_03]: Have something wise to say, get people to do what I want. 45:08.845 --> 45:11.807 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, and sometimes it's, you know, all those things maybe aren't. 45:12.747 --> 45:15.148 [SPEAKER_03]: necessarily benevolent, but sometimes it's a benevolent thing. 45:15.208 --> 45:18.550 [SPEAKER_03]: I want desperately for you to be able to

be with God and not hurt you. 45:19.330 --> 45:23.432 [SPEAKER_03]: How do I, how do I manufacture that result? 45:23.892 --> 45:32.016 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's not, that's not the cognitive discursive thought, but that there's an anxiety for wanting to make this happen. 45:33.196 --> 45:55.171 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think I'm coming back again to remember as a gift of your work to me, that there's a ruthless fierce trust at the core of our connection with God that is ultimately and thoroughly just surrender. 45:57.813 --> 46:19.430 [SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I know Susan that you and I, we do that in perfectly, but part of the gift of it sounds like your work and your book is having just in a faith, just enough times to leverage that trust on someone else's path. 46:21.220 --> 46:36.043 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I think that's a beautiful gift delighted that you were able to join us today and just thank you for your continued growth and work and for running it all down so we can benefit to. 46:38.446 --> 46:39.227 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 46:39.387 --> 46:40.648 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys so much. 46:41.128 --> 46:42.549 [SPEAKER_00]: So good to be with you today. 46:42.569 --> 46:46.052 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so grateful for all the good work you guys are doing in the world. 46:46.232 --> 46:46.793 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 46:47.693 --> 46:52.177 [SPEAKER_03]: The book again is a kinetic way, a contemplative healing. 46:52.858 --> 46:56.901 [SPEAKER_03]: Julien of Norwich, Neuroscience, and the centrality of safety and healing trauma. 46:57.982 --> 46:58.863 [SPEAKER_03]: Bless you, Susan. 47:07.758 --> 47:33.288 [SPEAKER_01]: You guys, I could talk about that for a while because I think it's so deeply important for us to understand neuroscience and the Vegas nerve and our nervous system and how understanding that can actually give us wisdom to understanding how to regulate ourselves so that we can actually be compassionately curious and dive in to what is going on in our lives to learn from it. 47:38.160 --> 47:38.340 [SPEAKER_02]: Um... 47:39.060 --> 47:39.381 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. 47:40.721 --> 47:41.281 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I do. 47:41.301 --> 47:42.662 [SPEAKER_02]: Let me think about it. 47:43.242 --> 47:46.203 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry. 47:46.243 --> 47:48.224 [SPEAKER_02]: I got confused about experience. 47:48.264 --> 47:48.404 [SPEAKER_02]: What? 47:48.424 --> 47:48.984 [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, wait. 47:49.104 --> 47:49.424 [SPEAKER_02]: What is it? 47:49.805 --> 47:50.925 [SPEAKER_03]: No. 47:51.025 --> 47:52.326 [SPEAKER_03]: I was just telling Ben today. 47:52.366 --> 47:58.428 [SPEAKER_03]: I made this connection between procrastinating and my body experiencing something as a threat. 47:59.128 --> 47:59.568 [SPEAKER_03]: Or danger. 48:00.369 --> 48:00.609 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. 48:01.618 --> 48:11.063 [SPEAKER_03]: that sometimes when I'm avoiding a task, it's because my body, this isn't, I'm not conscious of this, right? 48:11.083 --> 48:18.187 [SPEAKER_03]: So there's no conscious story, but I'm coming to realize that when I avoid a task that 48:19.468 --> 48:42.195 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, is mundane or banal or, you know, it's just, it should be easy to do that there's some kind of signal my bodies giving, uh, my brain, um, that it's, that it's a, that it's a threat that there's danger here that you, you don't want to do this because it'll cost you something and we don't want to pay that cost. 48:43.215 --> 48:43.595 [SPEAKER_03]: That's right. 48:45.068 --> 48:45.308 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 48:45.808 --> 48:52.192 [SPEAKER_02]: And you, I mean, one of the, if I can share for you, Matt, Matt went on to say, all right. 48:53.292 --> 48:55.153 [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to share this because this has been helpful for me. 48:56.274 --> 49:01.097 [SPEAKER_02]: But you also talked about how sometimes just sometimes you can just reframe it for yourself. 49:01.437 --> 49:07.660 [SPEAKER_02]: Like once you realize consciously that you're like, oh, I'm avoiding this because it feels dangerous to me. 49:08.260 --> 49:12.623 [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes you can just reframe it and just sort of say, oh, but it's not dangerous, is it? 49:13.682 --> 49:25.127 [SPEAKER_02]: It's just an email, you know, or whatever it might be, or sometimes for me, so that one of the examples that I can maybe give is like, if something, if a, if, 49:27.334 --> 49:49.332 [SPEAKER_02]: This is the stuff I typically procrastinate about our projects where I don't feel quite certain I know what I'm doing yet or it's a project where I feel like I'm, I don't really know what all the pieces are of this and so like leaning into it triggers some kind of like the danger in it for me feels like the danger of 49:51.274 --> 50:00.065 [SPEAKER_02]: What kind of the one of my life messages that's not good like with the lies that has run my life is just that I have to show up useful competent. 50:01.467 --> 50:04.811 [SPEAKER_02]: Helpful and if I don't, my belonging is at stake. 50:05.512 --> 50:07.272 [SPEAKER_02]: people going to want to be with me if I'm helpful. 50:07.832 --> 50:09.393 [SPEAKER_02]: Not if I'm not, you know? 50:09.933 --> 50:17.654 [SPEAKER_02]: And so the risk always feels like to me if there's a project that I can't quite get my hands around or if I don't, I'm not confident I know exactly what I'm doing. 50:18.214 --> 50:25.255 [SPEAKER_02]: I tend to procrastinate because the danger there feels like I'm going to lose my belonging if I expose myself as somebody who doesn't know what they're doing. 50:27.336 --> 50:32.097 [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes it's enough for me to just remember because consciously I don't believe that, 50:34.756 --> 50:36.357 [SPEAKER_02]: My body's still learning the lesson. 50:37.017 --> 50:50.101 [SPEAKER_02]: And so sometimes it's enough for me to just, it's almost like just preaching a little good news to myself, to be like, now you are, you are loved and you're belonging doesn't

hinge on the success of this project. 50:50.121 --> 50:59.585 [SPEAKER_02]: And what if, and I think I learned this reframing from an Oliver Bergman book, what if this was just an interesting problem to work on? 51:01.716 --> 51:04.737 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what if my work is just interesting problems? 51:05.777 --> 51:08.098 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what if the problems that I encounter my work are interesting? 51:09.279 --> 51:13.100 [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes that's enough for me to just go, oh yeah, they are actually interesting. 51:14.061 --> 51:17.382 [SPEAKER_02]: And I can, if I engage them as interesting, 51:18.372 --> 51:20.752 [SPEAKER_02]: then somehow the threat level is decreased. 51:20.812 --> 51:23.773 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh, I, of course I don't know what I'm doing. 51:23.813 --> 51:26.754 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, that's part of the fun of being a human is learning. 51:27.034 --> 51:29.494 [SPEAKER_02]: And so, I can just learn. 51:30.254 --> 51:32.815 [SPEAKER_02]: And this is just an interesting problem that I don't know what to do about yet. 51:32.835 --> 51:34.595 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm gonna spend some time working on it. 51:35.515 --> 51:36.316 [SPEAKER_02]: By thinking about it. 51:36.756 --> 51:37.456 [SPEAKER_02]: There's no threat there. 51:37.616 --> 51:38.056 [SPEAKER_02]: That's fine. 51:38.096 --> 51:38.976 [SPEAKER_02]: It's fun, actually. 51:39.756 --> 51:41.677 [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes that's enough for me, just reframe it. 51:44.213 --> 52:12.888 [SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes I got to do some more healing, but yeah, I feel like reframing is good when I can get there, but sometimes I can't get there, meaning I don't know, I don't know, like give some processing involved there right then, right, and so sometimes it's helpful for me, just to name, I'm feeling threatened to buy, sending the scene now, I'm scared. 52:15.039 --> 52:15.199 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 52:15.760 --> 52:27.866 [SPEAKER_03]: And like, just to beat, and really this is some of the connection and safety that Susan is talking about, like, I'm essentially just offering it to myself. 52:30.968 --> 52:38.412 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think sometimes we can do it on ourselves and not moralize it, not make it better good, but just be compassionate and curious about it. 52:39.060 --> 52:46.528 [SPEAKER_01]: But if we have a like a faithful trusted, safe friend, sometimes they can help us do that as well. 52:46.568 --> 52:49.892 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm hearing Ben do that right now for you Matt. 52:50.152 --> 52:52.215 [SPEAKER_01]: I think I just recently had a friend. 52:52.255 --> 52:53.776 [SPEAKER_01]: I was explaining a situation. 52:54.457 --> 52:58.160 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I don't know why I feel so anxious about this and I even said that to her. 52:58.680 --> 53:05.044 [SPEAKER_01]: And she goes, I know why your feeling anxious about it because the last time this happened in your life was X amount of years ago. 53:05.104 --> 53:06.285 [SPEAKER_01]: And

this is what went down. 53:06.485 --> 53:08.767 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I didn't even think about that. 53:08.867 --> 53:10.428 [SPEAKER_01]: But my body was holding it. 53:11.008 --> 53:12.049 [SPEAKER_01]: The memories were there. 53:12.149 --> 53:18.313 [SPEAKER_01]: And she was able to help reframe that the situation currently is very different than it was, you know. 53:23.263 --> 53:25.866 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that's what part of what Susan was talking about. 53:25.886 --> 53:26.948 [SPEAKER_02]: That's the part of the help. 53:26.968 --> 53:32.074 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this has been the humbling lesson for me and learning to kind of like be a spiritual director for people. 53:32.855 --> 53:36.620 [SPEAKER_02]: Is that most of the good I do is just listening. 53:37.541 --> 53:39.343 [SPEAKER_02]: Most of the good I do is just being a, 53:40.865 --> 54:04.282 [SPEAKER_02]: resonating with us, just being somebody who can hear you, say this thing that maybe you're a little shamed of or maybe you're scared to admit or just you just realized and just to be somebody who is not shocked by that, to be somebody who doesn't immediately tell you to fix that or you should probably never say that again, you know, or whatever else, all the internal scripts that run for us, 54:05.258 --> 54:14.121 [SPEAKER_02]: like a lot of times it does the embodied witness is like maybe 95% of the work sometimes. 54:15.982 --> 54:20.243 [SPEAKER_02]: Just have somebody bear witness to it and say, yeah, I get it. 54:20.883 --> 54:21.203 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 54:23.264 --> 54:25.945 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, just so conversation reminds me of a joke. 54:28.198 --> 54:31.460 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for preempting it and just telling us that you're going to say a joke. 54:31.540 --> 54:33.982 [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that anxiety level just went down that. 54:34.142 --> 54:36.644 [SPEAKER_03]: I, uh, I think it has a regulation. 54:36.744 --> 54:38.485 [SPEAKER_03]: It has something to do with a regulation. 54:38.525 --> 54:40.486 [SPEAKER_03]: It's a meeting connected to you, Christy. 54:41.307 --> 54:42.268 [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that. 54:42.368 --> 54:43.569 [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us your joke, Matt. 54:43.629 --> 54:44.549 [SPEAKER_03]: And I just want to hear it. 54:44.669 --> 54:46.150 [SPEAKER_03]: I just want to point out the listener. 54:46.190 --> 54:48.292 [SPEAKER_03]: I've already been thanked for telling a joke today. 54:48.472 --> 54:49.973 [SPEAKER_03]: So it doesn't matter how good the joke is. 54:50.834 --> 54:54.256 [SPEAKER_03]: Christy, what has four legs and flies? 54:57.104 --> 54:58.844 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what has four legs and flies. 54:58.964 --> 54:59.605 [SPEAKER_01]: My dead horse. 55:01.405 --> 55:01.625 [SPEAKER_01]: What? 55:05.766 --> 55:06.246 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't get it. 55:06.806 --> 55:07.866 [SPEAKER_02]: Because it's decaying. 55:08.987 --> 55:09.107 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh. 55:09.927 --> 55:10.567 [SPEAKER_01]: That's gross. 55:11.147 --> 55:12.087 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, what's okay then? 55:12.127 --> 55:13.128 [SPEAKER_03]: It's the cycle of life. 55:13.188 --> 55:13.768 [SPEAKER_03]: It's the circle. 55:13.868 --> 55:14.848 [SPEAKER_03]: It's this. 55:14.868 --> 55:15.908 [SPEAKER_03]: What's okay? 55:15.928 --> 55:16.528 [SPEAKER_03]: What's funny? 55:16.568 --> 55:18.029 [SPEAKER_03]: What's funny or than a dead horse? 55:19.089 --> 55:20.529 [SPEAKER_03]: Hmm. 55:20.869 --> 55:21.670 [SPEAKER_03]: A flying horse? 55:21.810 --> 55:23.230 [SPEAKER_03]: A dead horse and a clown costume. 55:25.192 --> 55:28.093 [SPEAKER_03]: What's funny, what's funnier than a dead horse in the clown costume? 55:28.113 --> 55:34.016 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what is it a dead horse in a clown costume on fire flying through the sky. 55:38.418 --> 55:39.378 [SPEAKER_03]: What's funnier than a dead. 55:42.119 --> 55:48.782 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, what's funnier than a dead horse in a clown costume on fire flying through the sky? 55:49.962 --> 55:51.183 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but please tell me. 55:52.127 --> 55:55.168 [SPEAKER_03]: a dead clown in the horse costume flying to the sky on fire. 55:57.049 --> 55:58.529 [UNKNOWN]: Oh my god. 55:58.889 --> 55:59.069 [SPEAKER_03]: See? 56:01.590 --> 56:09.993 [SPEAKER_02]: This feels like this feels like a five year old like started to tell in jokes and then got into deep and was like, I don't know where the punch line is zero to that. 56:10.153 --> 56:12.374 [SPEAKER_03]: That's zero to the five year old and that's what you got here. 56:12.394 --> 56:13.414 [SPEAKER_03]: All right. 56:14.315 --> 56:20.437 [SPEAKER_03]: What's what's funny, you're that a dead clown in a horse costume on fire flying through the sky? 56:22.300 --> 56:23.961 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but I'm bet you're in tell me. 56:24.201 --> 56:25.262 [SPEAKER_03]: Stopping it with a shovel. 56:26.482 --> 56:26.783 [SPEAKER_03]: Don't. 56:30.545 --> 56:36.108 [SPEAKER_01]: Your guys' faces, I like look at your faces to like help get some clues about what I'm supposed to laugh. 56:36.148 --> 56:37.188 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't, yeah, I don't. 56:37.689 --> 56:38.209 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm with you. 56:38.309 --> 56:39.730 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm with you on this one, Christy. 56:39.830 --> 56:40.510 [SPEAKER_02]: I just don't get it. 56:40.690 --> 56:41.691 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not gonna let you go. 56:41.971 --> 56:43.332 [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like it's gonna go somewhere. 56:43.392 --> 56:43.712 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm there. 56:43.952 --> 56:44.833 [SPEAKER_03]: There, it's not. 56:44.933 --> 56:45.673 [SPEAKER_03]: Dead clown. 56:47.714 --> 56:48.815 [SPEAKER_01]: Dead clown who? 56:50.323 --> 56:50.523 [SPEAKER_03]: All right. 56:50.543 --> 56:53.767 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, sometimes jokes just write themselves, and sometimes they don't. 56:54.287 --> 56:57.471 [SPEAKER_03]: And when they don't, it's sometimes better off to leave them unfinished. 56:58.892 --> 56:59.353 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. 56:59.393 --> 57:03.617 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, then in that case, friends, thanks for listening to our podcast. 57:06.981 --> 57:07.922 [SPEAKER_01]: So see you next time. 57:14.752 --> 57:17.794 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Gravity Podcast. 57:17.854 --> 57:19.775 [SPEAKER_02]: If you're finding it helpful, please tell your friends about it. 57:20.115 --> 57:22.397 [SPEAKER_02]: Word of mouth is the best advertising. 57:23.017 --> 57:29.301 [SPEAKER_02]: Ratings and reviews online also help others find the podcast and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. 57:29.901 --> 57:34.102 [SPEAKER_02]: To join discussions about the podcast and lots more join us in the Gravity Community. 57:34.242 --> 57:41.864 [SPEAKER_02]: It's free to join and you can connect there with other listeners to the podcast to talk about faith and spirituality and whatever else comes up. 57:42.344 --> 57:46.666 [SPEAKER_02]: To join, go to gravitycommonz.com slash community. 57:47.306 --> 57:50.907 [SPEAKER_02]: Gravity podcast is produced by Ben Sternke and Matt Teby. 57:51.367 --> 57:53.948 [SPEAKER_02]: Aaron Sternke edits and mixes the podcast. 57:54.048 --> 57:58.749 [SPEAKER_02]: You can check out his mixing and generic and production work at AaronSternke.com. 57:59.429 --> 58:01.130 [SPEAKER_02]: Finally, we would love to hear from you. 58:01.630 --> 58:09.032 [SPEAKER_02]: To record a question or comment for us, you can go to gravitycommonz.com slash message and click the start recording button. 58:09.512 --> 58:14.394 [SPEAKER_02]: You can also email us at podcast at gravitycommonz.com. 58:15.014 --> 58:15.674 [SPEAKER_02]: Catch you next time.