Trauma therapist Aundi Kolber is my guest. With her book Strong Like Water, Kolber builds from her critically-acclaimed and much-beloved first book called Try Softer. Her work has been healing and life-giving to many including myself.
(Book links are Amazon affiliate links)
(The Substack and Patreon links below have extras—including the latest work from Puerto Rico!)
Enjoy my conversation with Sophfronia Scott today as we converse about her book “The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton”. This is a enriching and down-to-earth interaction with the private journals of the famous author monk of the mid-20th Century in conversation with Sophfronia’s own life and spiritual growth. We also talk about the Lenten online retreat Pilgrimage of Renewal she and writer Lisa Deam are offering and the resources available for anyone interested.
🚩This book is our selected reading for MARCH.
Sophfronia will join us LIVE for a discussion of her book on Wednesday, April 7th. Come with your questions or just listen in. It is free to attend, but registration is needed. Join us for what will be a wonderful time! https://www.crowdcast.io/e/sophfronia/registerListen now with the AUDIO PLAYER:
Some of us have been reading Robert Monson’s Devotional together in February. When you post your reflections online uses the hashtag #subvstill (copy available here: https://www.subcultureinc.org/product-page/subversive-stillness-1) Meet with us for the discussion on Wednesday, March 3 (2021), or watch a replay of our discussion with author Robert J Monson.🚩It is free to attend, but you need to register here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/spark-my-muse—book-4/register.My book “The Wild Land Within” will be available wherever book are sold next month!
Now you can pre-order it here:tiny.cc/wildland.Or, you can help an independent bookshop by shopping here: 🥰
http://tiny.cc/wildINDIE When you support me at Patreon you ease the financial of these weekly episodes and monthly events. As a “thank you” I offer you extras each week and from years of episodes. You get fun things like sneak peeks on some new episodes, posts not made public, updates on projects, and news on my events and book tour with “The Wild Land Within” published with Broadleaf Books. Thank you for coming along!patreon.com/sparkmymuseSparkMyMuse.com contains over 370+ audio episodes, an online store, and resources. Roam around the website and enjoy!Do you make CONTRIBUTIONS?
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(on “Hump Day” aka Midweek) for a brief Soul School “lesson”–something for your interior world and common life.
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Today’s guest is Dr Jessica Tracy, the leading expert on the emotion of pride. Jess is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and a Canadian Institute for Health Research New Investigator. Her work is currently supported by a Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) Operating Grant. She is an Associate Editor at Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relationships and Group Processes.
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The distinction between emotions and how pride is expressed.
Universal expressions of pride in humans around the world.
4:40
Both kinds of pride lead to power–both different kinds.
A self evaluation is needed for the emotion of pride.
Amy Cuddy’s book Presence
(Power poses produce certain chemicals that help us succeed.)
MIN 7:00
Shame
A gobal negative sense of self.
Pride and shame body expression in congenitally blind athletes.
MIN 9
Dr Tracy became interested in studying more complexed emotions. Paul Ekman showed that 6 distinct emotions were recognized all over the world (1960s) and determined through facial expressions. Similarly pride was determined to be an emotion due to bodily expressions.
MIN 13:30
Do other primates have expressions of pride and what is it like?
MIN 17:00
Humans notice high status expressions in pride body language.
18:30
Dominance and Prestige both work to get power.
Dominance and success.
Types of tasks and types of leaders and types of pride.
23:30
Avoiding the wrong kind of pride.
Authentic pride is a huge motivator.
MIN 25:30
Looking for praise (which can lead to bragging) for the feelings of pride instead seeing the accomplishments for the sense of pride.
Social costs to hubristic pride ( which gets you power or status) but creates situations where others don’t like you.
26:30
[ictt-tweet-inline]A big misconception about pride is that it should be avoided.[/ictt-tweet-inline]
Pride strengthens our identity.
Our society determines what we feel the emotion of pride about.
A caution:
Don’t get caught of in the great feelings of pride and get grandiose and forget why you did the good thing you did.
Giving is Fast. Easy. And doing it makes you feel SO good.
Today, my guest is anam cara (soul friend), Tara Owens, of Anam Cara Ministries.
Tara’s ministry exists to provide a place dedicated to the practice of soul friendship and coming alongside others in order to facilitate healing, wholeness, holiness and spiritual formation.
• We cover topics about embodiment, sexuality, sensuality, body shame, body and brain disconnect, fear, technology, the vow of “staying with”, spiritual direction, holy listening and attending to others, and using an adult coloring book as a spiritual practice.
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Did this ever happen to you? You think the way your family (of origin) does something is normal, and then, suddenly, you find out it isn’t?
Usually, this happens when you form close relationships outside your family of origin. Fireworks can ensue!
How your family dealt with conflicts, problems, shame, secrets, and tragedies shaped you and learning relational and loyalty dynamics from the previous generations in your family can bring relational repair, health, and hope.
That’s what today’s show is about. I’m glad you can listen, today.
Today’s guest is graduate school professor and marriage and family therapist in private clinical practice, Janet Stauffer, Ph.D.
JANET’S BIO:
Dean of Students, Evangelical Seminary
Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy
In addition to her work at the seminary and her clinical practice, Janet is vice president of the Board of Directors at Philhaven Behavioral Healthcare facility. She has led retreats, presented at professional conferences, and published articles in a number of journals. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and approved supervisor and clinical member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. She also holds membership in the Christian Association for Psychological Studies. Her research interests include genuine meeting through dialogical engagement, loyalty dynamics between and across the generations of the family, and the intersection of faith and therapy.
SHOWNOTES:
MIN
1:40
Each person is born with an inherent longing to connect.
2:40
Early childhood experiences shape who we are and how we relate to others.
Our ancestors deliver ways of being to us across generations:
4:00
What can be done if the early years weren’t filled with dysfunction and problems?
5:00
How relationship can alter the wiring and re-patterning of the brain.
5:30
Jim Coen, UVA – The Hand holding experiment.
7:00
In close relationships, we end up feeling–not only are you here with me–but somehow you are me. Somehow we are here together.
8:20
Before we can help others, we have to be open to ourselves and our own healing. Our wounds can remain as vulnerabilities and our greatest resource.
11:00
“I because who I am through my relationships with other people, so that more of me gets called forth as I respond to others in my world around me.”
The still face experiment:
12:15
“Foo-Poo” (FOO = Family of Origin) influences our current relationships.
12:45
The interconnectedness and “loyalty dynamics” between and across the generations and how during all our interactions we are holding something that has been passed down across generations and in the larger cultural dynamics.
14:00
Example from life (Janet, her husband and the Ford Fiesta). Naming the truth in our interactions and being curious about what we hold from generations before us.
16:00
Janet explored what anger was like for her mother and grandmother and discovered not just a family secret and the shame that was carried on, but also a a family norm relating to how pain is dealt with.
18:00
Family secrets and ways of interacting waiting like land mines that can sabotage our other relationships.
20:00
We can also end up carrying or holding visibly or invisibly things that our spouse (or other close relationships) hold as well.
21:30
There are options for growth and healing if we can be open, aware, curious and can find courage to turn and face [the other] and remember where our weakness are and admit them.
22:30
The power of naming what is happening for us emotionally.
23:00
“Honoring my personal truth, personal awareness, my being, and made a claim for myself has a profound impact in my own knowing.”
24:00
“Every one of us experiences terror at the thought of finding the courage to turn and face the other in a painful situation at some point in our life.”
25:30
A defend or fight mode should be superseded by the prevailing message “You and I are on the team team ultimately. We have a reason to connect and I long for you. But it’s been hard between and here’s something of how it’s been for me… and I want to know what it’s like for you.”
26:20
Yet, we cannot think what we say will always help because we cannot guarantee the other person’s response. So there is vulnerability in saying the truth.
26:50
Being calm, curious and compassionate even in the face of wounds and vulnerability.
27:30
Emotionally self-regulating and contending with emotional triggers.
30:00
(In marriage or close relationships) Learning self and other in a whole new way…in a kind of sacred space to grow through the most tender places that we hold.
31:00
Telling the other what would help in what feels like an unsafe place emotionally.
31:20
Learning to soothe one another.
32:00
On core lies we can believe about ourselves.
33:00
Honoring when emotional safety is just as important as physical safety.
34:00
What to do when it’s not safe to have important conversations.
36:00
Martin Buber-We live with an armor around us and bands around our heart and being closed off and unaware and unaddressed.
37:30
Asking questions of ourselves to create more awareness and realizing our thoughts and memories are not us.
38:30
We limit our imagination about the capacity each of us holds to respond the other, the world around us and ourself.
39:00
We can test our assumptions and plant seeds that bring new possibilities for ourself and others.
40:20
When we can’t yet name or isolate our feelings.
41:00
Giving permission and a soft demand to know what is going on with someone else and helping them find their voice.
42:30
The biblical tradition of the garden where God says “Where art thou?” a story about hiding. God’s longing for humankind.
44:00
King David in the psalms is modeling openness and receptivity…asking “What is in my heart?” “Who am I?” “What do I hold?”
46:00
Being open and still safe. Giving yourself warm, regard, and leaving the self-judgment out.
“Judgment limits the knowing.”
47:00
Being present to and growing in recognition of “here’s what I hold” or “here’s what freezes me” etc and asking “how can I be more free?” and then exploring new pathways and practices that go somewhere.
50:10
On the spiritual practices and things can people do to move forward.
51:00
These ways of understanding what it is to connect, grow and be human are universal and offer hope to those with varied religious tradition and no religious affiliation too.
53:00
The spiritual and the Other when it is not defined as “God”.
54:20
“God doesn’t limit God’s self to the church or the synagogue or the mosque and we can never fully describe God because God cannot be contained and is always more than what I can fathom or grasp”
55:00
Asking, “How do I understand the call before me and how do I invite others and find the place where they are experiencing call and longing and where is this work happening within them. What is being invited forth?”
56:10
How we can pass down the best of our generational dynamics and loyalties to our children.
57:20
On the invisible family rule of perfectionism and how it made Janet think she could be the perfect parent and how that idea was shattered.
58:30
How she approached her son after that point to understand what he was experiencing and being surprised by his reply.
59:00
We can never get it all right, but we can be willing to go to our child and ask them about their experience.
60:00
Inviting others to know themselves in whatever capacity to do that they can and hold what they say with care and honor.
61:00
Enacting moments and accumulating themes and transactions and happenings and asking “Is their a burden they carry or an injury of disregard or diminishment that was not theirs to carry?” which deserve address and caring and honor.
62:00
On having a commit to “I will be there for you, and I will be here for me, and I invite you to be here for me,” is a profound act that helps us for the long run.
64:00
Despite our efforts, outcomes are not guaranteed and each person has an opportunity to respond uniquely.
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Did this ever happen to you? You think the way your family (of origin) does something is normal, and then, suddenly, you find out it isn’t?