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Experiencing God as Safe After Trauma with Aundi Kolber · Echoes & Edges

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's Patria. If you've been listening to this podcast
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and find yourself recognizing pieces of your own story, the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: patterns of secrecy or shame, the questions about your worth
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: or purpose, or maybe you see clearly the places that
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: feel stuck, I want you to know that you don't
• 0:24
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• 1:21
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  Speaker 1: by supporting both the recipient of care and the caregiver,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: who are all people that have personally walked the walk
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of healing and have turned back to extend a hand
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to others. To you, the person thinking about checking this out,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: You are not alone in this reach out. There is
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a way forward. Hi, Welcome back to Echoes and Edges,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the Broken and Beautiful Podcast. The Broken and Beautiful is
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a collective of healers on the hunt for beauty, meaning,
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  Speaker 1: and transformation. I'm Patria, and I'm so grateful you're here today.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Today's conversation feels especially meaningful to me because we're going
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  Speaker 1: to explore healing through the lens of gentleness, embodiment, nervous
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  Speaker 1: system awareness, and secure connection, themes that I think so
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: many of us are deeply longing for, whether we have
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  Speaker 1: language for that or not. I'm joined today by Andy Colbert.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Ady is a license professional counselor, speaker and author of
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  Speaker 1: Try Softer and Strong Like Water. Her work beautifully integrates
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  Speaker 1: trauma informed care, attachment theory, nervous system awareness, and faith
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  Speaker 1: in a way that deeply feels deeply compassionate, grounded, and
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  Speaker 1: profoundly human. One of the things I appreciate most about
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  Speaker 1: Andy's work is the way she helps people reinterpret themselves
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  Speaker 1: with tenderness instead of shame. Rather than asking people to
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  Speaker 1: strive harder or disconnect more from themselves in the pursuit
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  Speaker 1: of healing, she invites us into a gentler and more
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  Speaker 1: embodied way of living, one rooted in attunement, regulation, grace,
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  Speaker 1: and connection. Personally, her work has given language to experiences
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  Speaker 1: I didn't fully understand in myself for a long time,
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  Speaker 1: especially around functional freeze, overfunctioning, and what it means to
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  Speaker 1: slowly come home to your own body and humanity after
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  Speaker 1: living in survival for years. Ady, I'm truly on that
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  Speaker 1: you're here and grateful. Thank you so much for joining today.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you are so welcome, and thank you for that
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  Speaker 2: beautiful introduction. I'm really I'm touched and honored to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Anything that you feel is missing from that introduction
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  Speaker 1: that you would want people to know about you.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean one of the things.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, it sounds like you're pretty familiar with
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  Speaker 2: my work, so you may know this, but yeah, just
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  Speaker 2: that part of my story and history is that I
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  Speaker 2: myself am a survivor of complex PTSD and just some
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  Speaker 2: really significant childhood trauma, and that has definitely been a
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  Speaker 2: part of my journey. And it's like, you know, I've
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  Speaker 2: got almost twenty years as a therapist, so I have
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  Speaker 2: lots of clinical experience which has been so important and meaningful.
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  Speaker 2: And because I myself am a survivor, that has been
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  Speaker 2: something that has I think given me a lot of
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  Speaker 2: empathy and a lot of desire to continue to give
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  Speaker 2: language and resources to things that even like what you said,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of people experiencings and they don't have words
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  Speaker 2: for it, and that in and of itself is kind
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  Speaker 2: of disorienting in some ways.
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  Speaker 3: That's very connected.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to project onto your experience, but traumatic
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  Speaker 2: experiences often don't have words.
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  Speaker 3: That's what trauma actually.
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  Speaker 2: Does to us is that we get disconnected, like in
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  Speaker 2: our brain fundamentally trauma it fragments us. And part of
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  Speaker 2: that is losing language. And so I think of the return,
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  Speaker 2: part of the return of healing is also beginning to
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  Speaker 2: have some language for our experiences.
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  Speaker 1: Of the things that I most appreciate about your work
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  Speaker 1: is that it doesn't feel like merely information that you're giving.
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  Speaker 3: You're we so there.
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  Speaker 1: So that's what's coming to my mind, which is, let yes,
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  Speaker 1: we lose our language and then we need language, but
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  Speaker 1: we also don't just need information, right, So what is
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  Speaker 1: the what happens in the body, like in terms of
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  Speaker 1: healing is such a generalized word and it means different
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  Speaker 1: things to different people. So what does healing mean right there?
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  Speaker 1: Around language? What happens? How does language help and and
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  Speaker 1: how how does that work in the nervous system.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's certainly a lot of complexity to this,
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  Speaker 2: but I think honing in on that, I want to
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  Speaker 2: point out a couple of things, and one I love
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  Speaker 2: that you say, you know, it's not just information, and that.
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  Speaker 3: Is really purposeful for how I do my work.
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  Speaker 2: That and one of the things I say a lot
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  Speaker 2: when I'm speaking and even when I'm writing, is that
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  Speaker 2: you essentially, information doesn't change us. Information doesn't heal us.
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  Speaker 2: Facts themselves aren't enough to create lots of the things
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  Speaker 2: that we need to be able to facilitate the integration.
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  Speaker 2: That's part of what I think of when we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about healing, and we might get into that more.
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  Speaker 3: But if trauma fragments us, if an.
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  Speaker 2: Experience and there's a big spectrum here, so I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to use it roll broadly. But if an experience or
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  Speaker 2: a moment or a sensation is so overwhelming to our
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  Speaker 2: nervous system that our nervous system essentially can't metabolize it,
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  Speaker 2: it can't process it. The consequences of that is that
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  Speaker 2: the experience is not filed away like a normal memory.
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  Speaker 2: And because it's not filed away like a normal memory,
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  Speaker 2: it fragments in our I'm gonna I don't want to
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  Speaker 2: get too clinical, but brain like sort of our brain body,
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  Speaker 2: we have our there's impaired neural networks, like the encoding.
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  Speaker 2: They're impaired, they're fragmented. And and so healing is the
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  Speaker 2: is the return, It's the integration where once there has separation,
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  Speaker 2: there's not that separation. And so to your other part
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  Speaker 2: of your question is how does the language, what does
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  Speaker 2: language have to do with that? And I think one
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  Speaker 2: element is that a lot of traumatic experiences are really
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  Speaker 2: connected to so our right hemisphere amygdala. The amygdala is
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  Speaker 2: like the fire alarm of our brain. So when something
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  Speaker 2: is potentially dangerous, our amygdala sends off signals. And when
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  Speaker 2: we've been through something traumatic or overwhelming or disturbing, and
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  Speaker 2: that experience is not fully processed. Part of what happens
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  Speaker 2: is that if that gets activated, meaning if something reminds
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  Speaker 2: us of the original experience, we re experience that as
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  Speaker 2: though it's happening in the present. And so like if
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  Speaker 2: you've ever been triggered and you have felt like you
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  Speaker 2: don't know how to articulate that, it's like remniscent of
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  Speaker 2: the original experience, and so healing. Part of healing. What
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  Speaker 2: happens is that our left hemisphere is good at narrating,
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  Speaker 2: and it's good at it's very linear, it tends to
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  Speaker 2: be more logical, and so when we get integration, and
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  Speaker 2: this is going to be overly simplistic, but when that
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  Speaker 2: experience of trauma begins to get integrated with other parts
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  Speaker 2: of our brain that are more resourced or they feel
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  Speaker 2: more connected to experiences and moments that are more feel
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  Speaker 2: more safe, that left and right start to work together.
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  Speaker 2: And that is when we get language, and that's when
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  Speaker 2: we get writing, because the left is essentially facilitating an
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  Speaker 2: integration with the right hemisphere of our brain to allow
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  Speaker 2: us to speak and to allow us maybe to write
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  Speaker 2: these experience and so it's this really beautiful picture of
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  Speaker 2: a form of integration or healing, even if it's just
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  Speaker 2: a glimmer of healing that's happening.
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  Speaker 1: And yes, yeah, oh, thank you so much for the
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  Speaker 1: imagery and the descriptions that you provide there. It helps
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  Speaker 1: me to see it, you know, which I think is
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  Speaker 1: one of the difficulties of this of this work or
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  Speaker 1: this unders trying to understand this as we can't see it,
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  Speaker 1: at least for me as a visual learness learner. So
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  Speaker 1: that is that gave me a lot of visuals as
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  Speaker 1: you were talking. And I think too, this is a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of a tangent. But my my young I
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: have three brothers. My youngest brother was in a traumat
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  Speaker 1: a car accident, suffered a traumatic brain injury of three
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  Speaker 1: different kinds actually, but one is the sharing type of
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  Speaker 1: injury where the disconnections happen. And that's something like what
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  Speaker 1: I hear you describing now in a brain injury that's
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  Speaker 1: different than in developmental trauma. But that kind of reconnection
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  Speaker 1: possibility with developmental trauma is pretty profound. I mean, that's
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  Speaker 1: amazing to me. We can't make up that stuff. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I just, you know, I just I never have enough
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  Speaker 1: awe to express around that design that we have so
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  Speaker 1: and thank you for that. And I think I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to use that as the segue to just to talk
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  Speaker 1: a lot a little to kind of move into the
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  Speaker 1: faith aspect of things, one of the things that I
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  Speaker 1: really love. And yeah, I'm feeling tears gun to my
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  Speaker 1: eyes because of the just the personal connection I feel
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  Speaker 1: to Jesus being an integral part of how that actually
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  Speaker 1: took place within me, which I can't explain to people.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's a mystery. I don't know if he's
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  Speaker 1: sitting there with a plug and putting things back together
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  Speaker 1: for me, you know, or what happened. But I do
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  Speaker 1: know that a great deal of Christian spirituality can unintentionally
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  Speaker 1: reinforce the striving the you know, I obviously not intentionally
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  Speaker 1: self abandonment, but you know, dying to self submission even
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  Speaker 1: in certain camps and things like that, or just performance
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  Speaker 1: like you don't have to feel this way, you just
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  Speaker 1: need to do this way kind of you know, kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing. And I'm curious if you could share more
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  Speaker 1: about how your understanding of Jesus shifted something from you
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  Speaker 1: because in your book you share you know, there was
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  Speaker 1: quite a bit of performance related things or faith. You know,
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  Speaker 1: if you had enough faith, things would have turned out
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  Speaker 1: differently and things like that.
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  Speaker 3: So what are your thoughts?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think this is a great thing to
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  Speaker 2: be talking about, and it's something I'm really passionate about.
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  Speaker 2: In many ways, It's why I integrate faith in my work,
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  Speaker 2: because in many ways, this category of being able to
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  Speaker 2: talk about trauma and the body could stand alone. And
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: then there's a lot you know, there's some good there's
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  Speaker 2: lots of good resources connected to that out there, and
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  Speaker 2: those are great, and in part because of my own
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  Speaker 2: beliefs and my own integration with just the belief that
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  Speaker 2: our bodies are designed really specifically and in my really
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  Speaker 2: magnificently in their capacity to heal and not only.
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  Speaker 3: Just to heal.
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  Speaker 2: And I always like to be careful with this language,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: but ultimately even the ways we are designed to survive,
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  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for not because I'm grateful that from personally,
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  Speaker 2: I'm not grateful for my own trauma, and I would
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  Speaker 2: never want someone to feel like they needed to be
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  Speaker 2: grateful for trauma to happen to them, But the fact
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  Speaker 2: that we can survive is pretty a really big deal
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  Speaker 2: because in a sense, of the ways that our body
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  Speaker 2: is able to adapt psychologically, the impact of trauma would
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: look a lot different. Are the pain that trauma can
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: cause us to, you know, potentially lose the ability to
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: function versus when we can psychologically dissociate because we had
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: to write. And it's not that we want to do that,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: it's that this is part of what we needed to.
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  Speaker 3: Do for a time. I think in part what I
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  Speaker 3: was given.
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  Speaker 2: There was a mixed bag around faith, around experiencing God
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  Speaker 2: and experiencing Jesus in many respects, even from a very
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  Speaker 2: young age, having glimmers of an embodied experience of God
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: that I knew was something good and real that still
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: feels true to me. And there were lots of other
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: experiences that were sometimes neutral and sometimes harmful, messages about
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  Speaker 2: our bodies, messages about what it means to keep God happy.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: We also psychologically tend to sort of translate the template
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: of for example, if we have insecure attachments with our caregivers. Right,
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  Speaker 2: So these are the internal working templates that cause us
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: to be able to predict how our relationships will go
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: and if people will meet our needs. And we, just
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: as humans are designed to, we project those templates onto
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: other relationships, including God. So for me, I had an
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: extremely abusive caregiver, I mean extremely abusive, And so it
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense that my experience of God
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: would be confusing and that there would be confusion around
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: messages that were often sometimes well intentioned, sometimes just straight
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: up not good theology and harmful about that.
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  Speaker 3: And so I think one.
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  Speaker 2: Of the things that has really kept me tied to
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  Speaker 2: my faith is the embodied experiential element of of knowing Jesus,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: of knowing God, of knowing you know, and trace.
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  Speaker 3: After I tell a story about you know what it
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  Speaker 3: was like.
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  Speaker 2: A moment where I was grieving and going through I
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: think it was a time when I was going through
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: some significant infertility and just sensing God's presence, yeah, and
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  Speaker 2: experiencing God as safe, like not the idea like, not
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  Speaker 2: like a cognitive fact about God, like like a wakeness. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: And that, you know, when I think about that, it's
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  Speaker 2: beautiful how that pairs with psychology. We know that being
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: in the safe presence, the grounded, co regulating presence of
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: someone else in and of itself is healing. So how
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: much more the God of the universe, if we can
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  Speaker 2: access that right and sometimes not that God's not with
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: us sometimes because of lots of things, because of our story,
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  Speaker 2: because of dysregulation, because of messages that we've internalized, we
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: may not be able to always access that, and we can.
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  Speaker 3: Hold the reality.
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  Speaker 2: I believe that that doesn't change that we are invited
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  Speaker 2: to it at the pace that we're able to access it.
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  Speaker 1: This is reminding me of something that I could not
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  Speaker 1: remember what it was.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I was like, what is it? What I want to
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: talk about? This was one thing.
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  Speaker 1: It was just really I was not accessing it. And
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  Speaker 1: it's that you use the term, if I'm not mistaken,
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  Speaker 1: incarnation instead of embodiment.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Is maybe you use both? I use both, but yeah,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: you use both.
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  Speaker 1: Are we talking about the same thing ish right there?
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  Speaker 1: Or is that different? And if so?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: How Yeah? Yeah, I think that for me, I sometimes
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: use them like synonymously. And the reason I do that
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  Speaker 2: is because I think that as humans we are designed.
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  Speaker 2: We are designed to be fully embodied. And I think
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: that we do that in part because that's sort of
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: also Jesus is modeling like It's like it's the invitation
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  Speaker 2: and it's also what we can Ultimately, it's almost like
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: almost a promise it's a hope. And so I don't
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  Speaker 2: think they are exactly the same thing, but in many
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: ways I think they strongly overlap because I think an
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: incarnational life is you know, I think we look at
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Jesus and we're like, oh, that's an incarnational God. That's
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: a God who came, and in that respect, yes, it
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: was a fully embodied God. And also I think that
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  Speaker 2: there's a spiritual dimension to the incarnational peace, and for me,
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  Speaker 2: that might be the thing that's missing. I think we
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: can be embodied and maybe that there can be a
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: little like we might be talking about a little bit
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: of a different thing. I almost think of like the
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: incarnational element as being fully embodied and accessing the reality
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: of God with us.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you so much for that clarification, because that
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: makes so much sense, and anecdotally to my experience, that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: makes so much sense. And as I have spent a
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: couple of decades, you know, recovering from you know, all
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the things that complex trauma brings, that's one of the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: pieces that I find myself reluctant to just jump into,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: which is this idea of embodiment.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: It's not that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I don't understand what embodiment is. But that helps me
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: just personally to kind of sift and sort again. So
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: thank you for putting words, you know, back to the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: beginning of our conversation, to some of these pieces that
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: we just are trying to make sense of. I always
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: call it retrofitting. I'm trying to retrofit my experience with words.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that you write and speak about
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: healing through attunement, grace, and connection rather than force, which
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: that might be the that might be the premise, that
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: might be the whole point of your book, or you
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: might have others. But for listeners, what would you say
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: to listeners who have only known faith through fear, performance
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and relentless responsibility, what does it look like to begin
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: this place of experiencing God as safe enough often or
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: you know, move or stop stop moving so fast around?
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think that's such a that's such a
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: good question.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, I think what you're saying there especially is
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: really highlighted in my book Trice Softer and but even
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: in my book Strong Like Water, and you know, just
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: all of my work, there is a theme there. Even
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Strong Like Water is ultimately like about the paradox of
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: that strength is very expansive, and I won't go all
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: the way into that right now, but all that to say,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I find that there's a lot of paradox. I think
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of paradox, and I think that's part
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: of I mean, Jesus often taught in parables. I mean
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: we can just say that right there. You know that
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: there's something about that curiosity and that way in which
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: we come to certain things that you're like, wait, how
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: do these go together? And I think for a lot
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: of us, a lot of folks have been taught and
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: given stories about who God is is really deeply rooted
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: in fear, is rooted in a type of compliance, a
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: kind of strategy for behavioral management. I think it's Dallas
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Willard who talks about it like almost through that lens
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: of sin management, right, and that there's this way in
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: which I believe. And in some ways this links on
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: with your other question about even about Jesus. But well,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: number one, I think one of my favorite verses in
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the Bible is when Jesus is talking about come to me,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: all you who are weary and heavy laiden, and I'll
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: give you rest and just this beauty of I think
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: it can be really reparative for us to set with
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: the significance, like we're like, okay, this is God, like
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Jesus is God, and here's God saying, Oh you thought
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: it was all of this. But what I'm saying is, oh,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: just come you, just come on. I know you're so tired.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I know you're so weary, right, And this is so
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: in alignment I think with the character of God. I mean,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: there's it's easy to take certain pieces of the Bible
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: and you could like proof text it to say a
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: lot of different things, right, But when we look at
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the arc of the Bible and who God is and
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: God's character, compassion, God's loving kindness, this is not a
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: small element of who God is. I mean, this is
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: profoundly woven, right, And it's even woven in Jesus being
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: able to essentially, you know, tell us we've got these
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: two commandments, you know, to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: and strength, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: That the whole law and profits are in just these
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: two things summarized, right, Like the significance of these it's
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: pretty profound, the ways that there's so much connection there.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: There's so much love. There's so much compassion wrapped up.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: And so when I think about the way we're designed,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: it makes a lot of sense to me that what
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: neurobiology testifies to is that we need safety, we need compassion,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: we need withness, we need the ability. In trisoftware, I
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: use the language of compassionate attention. We are invited to
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: participate in stewarding compassionate attention towards ourselves in the same
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: way that God is already. This is God's posture towards us.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: This is, I believe, a reality that.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Just exists, and we get.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: To tap into that that God's posture is good and
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: kind and loving, and as we are evil, we steward
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: that and we participate in bringing that compassionate attention to
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: our own pain and story and parts and woundings.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: And that this is not.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Apart from the character of God, but it actually is
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the embodied incarnational yeah, character of God.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, and it's making me think about So I do
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and have been meeting, you know, one on one with
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: clients as a trauma and for I went through the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Islanders Center and have the Narrative Focused Trauma Care certification.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But before that, I did a type of prayer, ministry
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and just different things. And I'm a clinical nurse by profession,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: so I kind of have come through a very you know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: big transition in my life. But it's making me think
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of sitting with survivors and how the most natural things
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm putting this together with striving versus is resting
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: versus receiving? Right, there's this idea that I find with
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: survivors over and over again that their inner voice is
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: not that like the inner voice is so self critical.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: It's like lacks imagination for this compassion on purpose. Like
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: again back to the survival. That's not a judgment. It's
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: actually gratitude for the design because it gets us to
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a certain place. So there's that piece that's coming to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: my mind. But there's this other piece that keeps kind
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: of popping. So I'm just going to share it that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I've met with this with this beautiful woman many years
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: ago who had really been raised and like I would
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: call it a Huckleberry Finn type fashion where she kind
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: of had to forage for food occasionally a lot of
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: poverty things like that, and she just connected right away
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: because she just needed somebody to talk to and she
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: just kind of unloaded a lot of her experience very quickly,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and at the very end of our first session, she
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: whispered to me, I know that it's going to sound
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: really weird, but I believe I hear from Jesus. And
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I said, well, thank goodness, you know, with that story,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness because it's a different voice. And so I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: wonder how you can start leaning into that and really trust,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you know, that experience that you're having. So I don't
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: have a question so much in there as thoughts about that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I guess anything come to your mind. Otherwise I can
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: ask other questions too, But those experiences are really coming
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to my mind as you're talking about the movement, Yeah,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the active movement of God within us.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well yeah, it brings up a couple of thoughts.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, first, that's I mean, that's beautiful. That's so beautiful.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, even from a neurobiology perspective,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: what it makes me think is that sometimes safety that
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: we experienced in the present.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Because it helps us regulate.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it helps us access again that idea that it's
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: already there. It's not that God left her, it's not
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: that Jesus maybe wasn't Also loving her at another time,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: It's just that when we are in a survival brain,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: our body literally has to prioritize having a really narrow
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: view of reality because that's what survival requires. And so anyway,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: so first and foremost, I just want to say that's
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: beautiful and healing in many ways. It speaks to what
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: healing just does, which opens us. That's just what we see.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: We see it all over nature. It's like ebb and flow. Right,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: it's ice melting, it's movement, it's rhythm, it's dance, it's heartbeat,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: it's flow.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: It's like we are designed, we are living organisms.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: We in creation is alive and there is rhythm within
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: within creation, and that's God's design, right. So so I
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: think that is just it's so beautiful, and I hear
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I think you kind of asked a little bit of
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: this question from last time, and I might connect it.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: Here, which is how what does that look like to
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: lean in and.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: To be open to that kind of experience, which because
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I know for a lot of people there's a lot
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: of grief, there's a lot of a lot of different
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: things about this reality of like wanting to experience God
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: is safe and that's not their experience. Yeah right, totally,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: and that I just first.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: And foremost actually just want to honor that.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, because that in and of itself can be
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: pain to have.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Like parts of you. Maybe I could say.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: That know these scriptures or have beliefs that you value,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: but when you try to embody them fully, there is
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: a disconnect or it doesn't.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Something happens, maybe.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: A critical or really critical voice maybe comes up, or
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: there's so many things right, And the more complex our
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: trauma history, oftentimes the more complex the response can be
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: in the midst of this.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: And I want to just acknowledge.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: That even before we like we can talk about what
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: does that look like to work with it. But because
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: like we've already named, sometimes people have felt that and
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: they haven't even known. Can I even ignowl? Like do
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: I get to acknowledge this? How do I acknowledge it?
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: And in and of itself, naming a truth is also
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: a form of integration. We're just naming, Oh, this is
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: existing here, and in naming it, part of what we're
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: doing is we're validating reality, even if we're not ready
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: to change it yet. It's not until we can honor
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: reality and the experience we're having in our body that
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: we can even begin to have the capacity to.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Influence that right.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And what I would say is, and this is where
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: there's some mystery, and this is where faith is. There
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: is mystery. Faith is not, as you know, it is
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: not a checklist. We cannot control God, we cannot manipulate God.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: But what we can do is we can create the conditions.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: We can create conditions that are allow the mystery for
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: us to be open to the mystery. And in a way,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I think that's what healthy faith does for us, is
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: that we can create conditions, including especially often times with
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: people that we feel safe with. And I want to
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: define that a little bit, because safety can mean a
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: lot of different things, and there's a lot of ways
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I could define it, but in a really simplistic way,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: this is what I mean by safety. I mean people
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: that when you are in their presence, you can actually
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: there's something your nervous system. There's you notice a sense
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: of settling, a sense of maybe you notice yourself breathing
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: a little bit more deeply, Maybe you notice yourself feeling
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: a little bit more curious, Maybe you notice yourself feeling
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: a little bit more open to what they're saying. Not
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: from a place where you're like hyper vigilant, like oh,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I gotta respond to what they're saying, but like there
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: is a there's a like a literal.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Dance kind of that happens.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: There's a responsiveness that happens, and not that there's not
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: other parts of safety. But I think really talking about
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: it from a body centered perspective that sometimes can be
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: helpful to have, Like that's what we're looking for, and
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: certainly over time we're going to look at things like
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: character and if people are congruent and all those things too.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: But when we're in those when we're in the presence
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: of someone who feel safe, or maybe if we've had
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of attachment trauma, we might not be ready
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: yet to even be with a person yet. Maybe we're
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: in nature, yeah, yeah, maybe we're noticing places where when
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: I like, for me, when I grew up next to
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean, when I am next to the ocean,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I'm just like like yeah, And that to me actually
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: is like a very spiritual experience too, because I feel like, oh,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: God create it, like I feel held, I co really
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: with God. I believe and coregulate with the rhythm of
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: the ocean. And those things help us to have the
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: conditions available to where we can then say, Okay, Spirit,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: I'm listening.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today on Echoes
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: and Edges. If you're listening and you have just found
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: this episode to be so full of important thoughts, please rewind,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: listen again, take notes. It is so worth really sitting
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: with the words that Andy offered us. They are not
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: only learned, like learned and intelligent through her education process,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: but they are experienced, and you can feel that in
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Andy's presence, and so please take all the time that
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: you can to really take in her wisdom. I am
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: so deeply grateful for Andy's presence, her wisdom, and the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: gentleness that she carries into this work. I think what
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: strikes me most about this conversation is the reminder that
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: healing is not about becoming less human. It's about becoming
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: more fully alive inside our humanity. It's about growing that
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: window of tolerance, the capacity to live, the capacity to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: experience our own arousal, our own sense of awe and
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: wonder and beauty and connection. Today we talked about trauma, survival, adaptations,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: nervous system attachment, embodiment, incarnation, and faith and what it
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: means to slowly come home to ourselves after years of
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: living in protection and survival, and through all of it,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I hope what listeners heard most clearly is something like this.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: You are not failing because your body learned how to
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: survive and adapt. Your nervous system isn't your enemy, and
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: gentleness is not weakness. Healing often begins through force or
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: performance through not through safe connection, and again there's nothing
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: wrong with that, and in fact, it's just usually the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: first step. So as you learn to pay compassionate attention
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and you learn to stay present and we I'll include
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: myself in that. As we learn to stay present to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: ourselves with increasing tenderness and honest, that window of tolerance
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: will grow. If today's conversation resonated with you, I highly
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: encourage you to explore Andy's work. You can find her
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: books Try Softer and Strong Like Water wherever books are sold,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: and connect with her at Andycolber dot com and on
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Instagram at Andy Coolber. We'll link all of that in
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the show notes. Until next time, be kind to yourself,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: especially the parts of you that have learned to survive
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: before they ever learned to rest. You are not too much,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: You are not alone, and you are.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: Right on time.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: If this episode resonates with you, follower, subscribe to Echoes
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and Edges on your favorite podcast platform, leave a five
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: star review, and share with a friend who might need
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: a gentle invitation to self understanding. Echoes and Edges is
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: produced and edited by Stephen R. Sanders. Music promoted by Vado.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Echoes and Edges is part of the Vivid Livid podcast network,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: where bruses speak and healing finds its voice.