I am joined today by author Jay Stringer to talk about sexual stuckness/difficulties/pain. Healthy sexuality is deeply tied to the degree to which we have made sense of our story in our family of origin. Sadly, so few of us have ever been asked

152 Learning To Live Inside Your Body with Dr. Hillary McBride

Feb 21st, 2024 39m 22s

I am joined today by Dr. Hillary McBride to discuss excerpts from her new book titled, “Practices for Embodied Living.” Topics covered include: how to feel your feelings, being alive in your body (eroticism), and the story of your relationship

151 What To Do With Desire and Dread with Mike Boland

Jan 31st, 2024 41m 1s

Pastor and counselor Mike Boland shares a story from when he was 15 years old. It’s a story about the interplay of longing for connection and, at the same time, dreading what will be required of him in return. We talk about grooming, and the wa

150 Trauma Heals By Connecting With Others

Jan 8th, 2024 35m 12s

The opposite of trauma is not "no trauma;" the opposite of trauma is connection. To be human is to be wounded. However, wounds heal naturally when the environment is right… and the right environment for healing is the empathic presence of anoth

149 Why Listening To Your Body Leads To Healing Part 2

Dec 25th, 2023 31m 3s

Today I focus on two important ways that your body tells you things. The first is through your affect. Whenever your affect becomes dysregulated, your body is letting you know valuable information about your present environment… and about your

148 The Healing Power of Understanding Your Story with Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel

Dec 11th, 2023 39m 38s

You have a story and that story matters. Your story in your family of origin significantly affects the way you think, feel, and act in the world today. This is why Dan Allender says, “It is time to listen to your story.” What if healing begins

147 Why Listening To Your Body Leads To Healing Part 1

Nov 27th, 2023 33m 31s

Your body knows things that your enskulled brain does not. Moreover, if you listen, your body will tell you important things—things that will help you heal. Your body is a truth teller. It is the trustworthy prophet from within. In today’s epis

146 Triangulation and Misguided Hope with Matthias Roberts

Nov 13th, 2023 37m 8s

Friend and fellow therapist Matthias Roberts joins me today to share a very vulnerable story involving triangulation with his mother. How does an adolescent boy answer his Mom’s questions about his homosexuality when Mom is disgusted by it? Thi

145 How Loneliness Affects The Heart and Mind

Oct 30th, 2023 40m

Therapist and fellow podcaster Vanessa Sadler shares a story from when she was 11 years old. As children, all of us needed to belong—to feel “a part of.” If we did not receive sufficient attunement from our primary caregivers, we likely experie

144 Embodied Sexuality and Religious/Sexual Trauma with Jenny McGrath

Oct 16th, 2023 34m 34s

I am joined today by therapist Jenny McGrath who is passionate about helping people heal from the damage of purity culture. One byproduct of purity culture is a disconnection from your body and a distrust of your body. If you feel shame about y

143 Finding Home Again After Religious Trauma with Matthias Roberts

Oct 9th, 2023 37m 53s

Matthias Roberts joins me today to talk about his book Holy Runaways: Rediscovering Faith After Being Burned By Religion. Topics covered include: why belonging is so crucial for each of us, how to trust when you’ve been betrayed by others so m

142 Healing From Trauma: The Power of “Being With” Part 2

Sep 18th, 2023 23m 50s

We pick up with Curt sharing about Cora’s experience in a story group. Specifically, we talk about about why Cora’s intense bouts of panic were her body’s way of saying “something is wrong and needs care and attention.” We also talk about a wom

141 Healing From Trauma: The Power of “Being With” Part 1

Sep 4th, 2023 33m 29s

Curt Thompson returns to the podcast to talk about how we heal from trauma. In short, trauma and emotional pain begin to heal when our stories are witnessed by an empathetic other. Curt shares a story from his newest book about a woman named Co

140 Trauma, Resilience, and Race with Jimmy McGee and Rebecca Wheeler Walston

Jul 21st, 2023 34m 2s

Jimmy McGee and Rebecca Wheeler Walston join me to talk about how they came to understand the importance of trauma and story engagement. If you want to engage your story in more depth, the Impact Movement is hosting an online event called Hope

What If You Were Created For Connection?

Jun 1st, 2023 46m 29s

Jenn talks about how she often felt excluded and on the outside during childhood—“I felt so far from people all the time. I felt so far from myself. I was always over-thinking, never in my body.” As she grew into adulthood, Jenn became opposed

139 Role Reversal: When A Child Becomes A Parent

May 15th, 2023 39m 14s

I am joined today by my friend Rebekah, who shares a story from when she was six years old. Topics covered include: feeling like there is something wrong with you but not knowing what it is, self-doubt about how you see reality, difficulty trus

138 How To Heal From Sorrow and Grief Part 5 with Mary Ellen Owen

May 1st, 2023 45m 19s

Fellow therapist Mary Ellen Owen joins me today to share her journey with sorrow. Like many people with trauma, it took Mary Ellen years to find her tears, years to befriend her sorrow. Although she cognitively knew that grief was necessary for

137 How to Heal From Sorrow and Grief Part 4 with Heather Stringer

Apr 17th, 2023 50m 29s

I am joined today by Heather Stringer, who has lots of experience creating rituals that heal. Heather begins by describing two rituals: one focused on recovering from sexual assault and the second focused on preparing for a double mastectomy su

136 Engaging Another Person’s Story: Why It’s Important and How To Do It

Apr 3rd, 2023 46m 27s

I am joined by Cathy Loerzel to talk about how to engage another person’s story. Effective story engagement is not a magical skill that some people have and some people don’t. It can be learned. Today we give a preview of some of the principles

135 How Your Story Affects Your Sexuality

Mar 23rd, 2023 43m 38s

Jay Stringer joins me to talk about the relationship between our current sexual difficulties and our story in our family of origin. Sexual struggles are rooted in our stories—and, very often, our stories of attachment to our primary caretakers.

134 How to Heal from Sorrow and Grief Part 3

Mar 13th, 2023 25m 55s

In order to heal from sorrow, we need to move our bodies as we participate in rituals of honoring and releasing our sorrow. A ritual is a sequence of bodily movements and symbolic actions performed with emotion and intention for the purpose of

133 How to Heal from Sorrow and Grief Part 2

Feb 27th, 2023 29m 44s

This is part 2 in a series of episodes on how to engage our sorrow and grief in a way that brings healing. The focus today is on the four conditions needed to allow us to work with sorrow and grief. First, we need to own that our sorrows and gr

132 How to Heal from Sorrow and Grief Part 1

Feb 13th, 2023 26m 43s

For most modern people, the place we find ourselves is in a land where grief and sorrow are unwelcome. Most of us do not feel like the people around us can bear the depth of our sorrow and grief. And since we don’t want to risk our sense of bel

131 Engaging Your Family of Origin Story with Dan Allender

Feb 4th, 2023 46m 17s

This episode is a joint release of The Allender Center podcast and The Place We Find Ourselves. We have all experienced hurt, abandonment, or disappointment at the hands of our parents or caretakers, whether it was intentional or not. So much o

130 But Then Something Happened

Jan 30th, 2023 34m 4s

I’m joined today by theologian and author Pete Enns, who also co-hosts a podcast called The Bible for Normal People. Although we talk about quantum physics at the end, the focus of our conversation is “What do you do when you experience somethi