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The Listening Church: Loneliness and Mental Health (Jackie E. Perry) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

0:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking
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Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that
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Speaker 1: more about making a difference in mental health through christ
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Speaker 1: centered education. That's CiU dot edu. Hey everyone, welcome to
1:18
Speaker 1: this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and
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Speaker 1: I'm joined today by doctor Jackie E. Perry. She is
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Speaker 1: a clinical supervisor, a professor of counselor education at Columbia
1:29
Speaker 1: International University, and she's also the president of the soul
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Speaker 1: Well Center. And we're going to talk a little bit
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Speaker 1: about what that is, what that does, what she does,
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Speaker 1: and we'll get into a lot of topics related to
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Speaker 1: faith and mental health. So, doctor Perry, welcome to the program.
1:44
Speaker 1: Really excited to have you here.
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Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
1:48
Speaker 1: Well, maybe just to start out, tell people a little
1:51
Speaker 1: bit about the work that you're doing at the soul
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Speaker 1: Well Center.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just Pausiti formidting. Yeah. I live in Asheville,
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Speaker 2: which is in western North Carolina, and in my teaching
2:05
Speaker 2: as a professor of counseling, probably about ten years ago,
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Speaker 2: I was teaching a course that is called Skills. It's
2:12
Speaker 2: sometimes called helping Techniques. It's just the class that counselors
2:16
Speaker 2: get that really teaches them how to sit across from
2:18
Speaker 2: one another. And as I was teaching it for the
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Speaker 2: first time, I had taken it many decades before, it
2:24
Speaker 2: really occurred to me that I felt like the church
2:27
Speaker 2: could use these skills in a layman's way. And though
2:31
Speaker 2: I'd been involved in different lay ministries, Stevens Ministry, things
2:35
Speaker 2: like that, I didn't see the kind of teaching that
2:37
Speaker 2: we were giving counselors that I felt like could really
2:41
Speaker 2: easily cross over. So I created a beta course with
2:44
Speaker 2: quite a few pastors and just individuals in western North Carolina,
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Speaker 2: and the course led to kind of this organization, the
2:53
Speaker 2: nonprofit called the Soul Law Center, And the idea was,
2:56
Speaker 2: what if we equipped just ordinary people, parents, pastors, friends,
3:01
Speaker 2: nonprofit leaders, business people with a chunk of good skills
3:06
Speaker 2: combined with the neuroscience behind relationships and why these skills matter.
3:13
Speaker 2: And that's what started the Soul Center. James, the vision
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Speaker 2: still is to equip people. The goal is and we're
3:21
Speaker 2: not here to have a center where well equipped folks
3:24
Speaker 2: that are not licensed clinicians can hold a safe space
3:28
Speaker 2: for anyone wanting to be heard ununderstood. So we're in process.
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Speaker 2: The nonprofit has just been official for about two going on, yeah,
3:39
Speaker 2: two and a half years, and we're definitely still in
3:42
Speaker 2: an early growth stage. But it has been fantastic to
3:45
Speaker 2: see people in this community equipped, you know, just even
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Speaker 2: the feedback of how it's changing their families and listening
3:53
Speaker 2: in a new way.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. On the website, it talks a little bit about,
3:58
Speaker 1: you know, the listening courses being related to this sort
4:01
Speaker 1: of growing epidemic of loneliness and certain mental health problems.
4:06
Speaker 1: And so I mentioned before we got on you know,
4:08
Speaker 1: I've done a little bit of this in relation to
4:11
Speaker 1: social media, and you know, some of this work Jonathan
4:14
Speaker 1: Heights put out and you know, various different things where
4:16
Speaker 1: social media is being linked to mental health problems and
4:20
Speaker 1: loneliness and all those kind of things. But I'm wondering
4:23
Speaker 1: what else you're seeing and how this course really sort
4:26
Speaker 1: of dives into that those notions of loneliness and mental
4:29
Speaker 1: health problems.
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Speaker 2: Well, I guess I'd love to just back up and
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Speaker 2: talk about that for just a minute, please. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 2: it's a huge part of this course, and it is
4:40
Speaker 2: a huge part of a problem we're seeing in mental health.
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Speaker 2: So I've been in the field for about thirty five
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Speaker 2: years and probably in the last fifteen I remember sitting
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Speaker 2: with colleagues and noticing the shift and the kinds of
4:51
Speaker 2: people who were coming in James and we began to
4:54
Speaker 2: see a shift. And this is there was a consensus
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Speaker 2: among my peers anyways, from people who had really, you know,
5:02
Speaker 2: serious issues going on or semi serious, two people who
5:06
Speaker 2: really just didn't have anybody who listened to them, whether
5:09
Speaker 2: that was an adolescent, an emergent adult, or an adult adult,
5:14
Speaker 2: that really we weren't doing the clinical work that some
5:17
Speaker 2: of us were used to doing. We were providing a
5:20
Speaker 2: safe space. And there's just you know, it makes me
5:24
Speaker 2: scratch my head in terms of especially being a Christian,
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Speaker 2: It's like, wait a second, why aren't we doing this better?
5:30
Speaker 2: I mean, we all have this imprint on us that
5:33
Speaker 2: is this deep, deep desire to be seen and known.
5:36
Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot of contributing factors to
5:40
Speaker 2: the reasons why we're seeing globally, it's not just in
5:43
Speaker 2: the US. Globally, these numbers rise, the way we live,
5:47
Speaker 2: our lives, all of that, but fundamentally it comes down
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Speaker 2: to this. It's like two people talking and people being
5:54
Speaker 2: able to offer the other person the sense that when
5:57
Speaker 2: you walk away you feel seen, like oh Jackie really
6:01
Speaker 2: saw me, or you know, and I and I and
6:04
Speaker 2: vice versa. And I think something has happened in our
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Speaker 2: families and our culture where we don't even have a
6:12
Speaker 2: mental model anymore. I mean, that's what I'm seeing in
6:15
Speaker 2: the class. It's like, this kind of listening is not
6:18
Speaker 2: something I've experienced outside of accounseling office. That is a
6:22
Speaker 2: very common statement of just oh this, this feels really
6:27
Speaker 2: good when we're practiced. There's a lot of practice in
6:29
Speaker 2: the class, and so I think it's like, wow, this
6:32
Speaker 2: is deep if we don't have a mental model from
6:35
Speaker 2: ideally our upbringing, whether it was parents or grandparents, and
6:39
Speaker 2: I don't know how to offer you what I also
6:41
Speaker 2: need and lung for myself. And so then we see
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Speaker 2: this trickle effect like Okay, where do I get that?
6:47
Speaker 2: Hopefully you're getting that from you know, hopefully you get
6:49
Speaker 2: that if you pay for a therapist. But yeah, I
6:51
Speaker 2: mean goodness, that's not accessible for the majority of people
6:56
Speaker 2: around the globe who can pay for a therapist. And
6:59
Speaker 2: it's one of the biggest reasons behind the Soul Wall
7:02
Speaker 2: Center was it's just not feasible for many many people
7:05
Speaker 2: for a lot of different reasons, and a lot of
7:07
Speaker 2: people aren't going to go into therapy office because it's
7:09
Speaker 2: like I don't have a problem. I just feel unseen,
7:13
Speaker 2: you know, And that is a problem, we know, but
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Speaker 2: it's not enough that it feels urgent, you know, understood.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like there's a malaise. Would you describe
7:23
Speaker 1: it sort of an ongoing sense of tension that I'm
7:27
Speaker 1: just sort of floating alone in the world and don't
7:30
Speaker 1: have really any outlet to have a real connection or
7:33
Speaker 1: any intimacy with anyone. Is that sort of the feeling.
7:36
Speaker 2: I think. I think that's a big part of it.
7:38
Speaker 2: I think you said that well, and I think part
7:40
Speaker 2: of it is like I don't know what I don't
7:42
Speaker 2: have if I've never had it. I don't know what
7:45
Speaker 2: I'm missing if I've never had it. And one of
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Speaker 2: the sad but true things that's happened in this course
7:51
Speaker 2: is now, you know, not just in our community, in
7:54
Speaker 2: other places is the feedback is one of the biggest
7:58
Speaker 2: things that was the takeaway was other people practicing these
8:02
Speaker 2: skills on me made me taste of them. Actually sometimes
8:06
Speaker 2: for the first time, it was like I came in
8:08
Speaker 2: because I wanted to be a better listener at my
8:11
Speaker 2: job or at my home, and it's like, oh, that
8:14
Speaker 2: felt really good, and sadly for some people, it's like
8:18
Speaker 2: it upped the thirst. And then it's like, Jackie, I
8:20
Speaker 2: don't have these people who I'm not going to dominate
8:23
Speaker 2: my small group. I don't know how to offer this.
8:26
Speaker 2: I don't know how to get this. I don't know
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Speaker 2: how to describe what I need. I can offer it
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Speaker 2: maybe a model, but yeah, it's tough. So you know,
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Speaker 2: I have our team has trained even small groups and
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Speaker 2: small group leaders so that they can be the ones
8:41
Speaker 2: that facilitate this a little bit more in terms of
8:43
Speaker 2: like what does this look like? But we have a
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Speaker 2: long way to go. I mean the numbers are really high.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it almost feels like So I was a
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Speaker 1: personal trainer when I went through my seminary degree, and
8:56
Speaker 1: one of the things that I found, and I think
8:57
Speaker 1: I even experienced in my own life was it's almost
9:00
Speaker 1: like the frog is being boiled in the kettle. Like
9:02
Speaker 1: you always hear that analogy, but it really is kind
9:04
Speaker 1: of true because when people come in and they're overweight,
9:08
Speaker 1: and you know, they're carrying a lot of extra pounds
9:11
Speaker 1: and they're not particularly strong. The transformation you can get
9:15
Speaker 1: them to go through by helping them lose some weight,
9:18
Speaker 1: develop some strength, and the way that their body now feels,
9:23
Speaker 1: you're resetting what good feels like. And when they're heavy
9:29
Speaker 1: and they're weak, they don't really understand that that's not
9:31
Speaker 1: they don't feel good, it's just their normal, right. And
9:36
Speaker 1: I think when I, yeah, I went through a period
9:38
Speaker 1: where I had some pretty heavy weight gain and I
9:40
Speaker 1: felt fine, right, But then when I lost the weight,
9:43
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember, now this feels good right, Like, yes,
9:48
Speaker 1: so much better.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that parallel. I. Yes, you don't know
9:53
Speaker 2: what you don't have. Yeah, if you've never felt that,
9:55
Speaker 2: if you've never had that deep connection, if you were
9:58
Speaker 2: raised in a home where everybody came home and went
9:59
Speaker 2: to their rooms and suffer together, wasn't a thing, and
10:04
Speaker 2: you didn't have eyes on you. Okay, let's talk about
10:06
Speaker 2: that for just a minute, because there's a lot There's
10:09
Speaker 2: a wonderful writer, doctor Gabram Mattee. He writes about attachment
10:14
Speaker 2: and families and trauma, and he uses this phrase I
10:17
Speaker 2: use a lot with my students. It's called these eyes
10:20
Speaker 2: of delight. Looking at people with eyes of delight, like
10:22
Speaker 2: even when you're having quick exchanges with them, the eyes
10:25
Speaker 2: of delight is like this quick bond that can form,
10:29
Speaker 2: and the deeper the bond goes, the more this person's
10:31
Speaker 2: likely to follow me. Well, when you grow up with
10:35
Speaker 2: this in front of you, really truly for much of
10:40
Speaker 2: your life, eyes of delight or eyes towards you, not
10:43
Speaker 2: even eyes of delight, just eyes towards you, can actually
10:46
Speaker 2: feel like a threat. It really can't you. You can
10:49
Speaker 2: feel like why are you looking at the stop it
10:51
Speaker 2: and working? My specialty area is adolescents and emergent adults
10:55
Speaker 2: and families, and so you know, we now have a
10:57
Speaker 2: generation of people that it's like we don't know how
10:59
Speaker 2: to say hard things to each other. They're all now
11:02
Speaker 2: becoming parents and then some we would, we would we
11:06
Speaker 2: can construct sentences that send it to them. Or now
11:09
Speaker 2: where we are right now is we have parents who
11:12
Speaker 2: are using AI to help them find the words to
11:14
Speaker 2: say to their children. That's coming up to my supervision
11:17
Speaker 2: cases is just yeah, yeah, it's like I don't even
11:21
Speaker 2: know how to find the words, so I'll text them
11:23
Speaker 2: to you in this way, child, And it's like we
11:25
Speaker 2: are now another step away from the messiness of human relationships,
11:30
Speaker 2: which is like, it's not supposed to be perfect. It's
11:34
Speaker 2: just to make us feel uncomfortable when we have new
11:37
Speaker 2: or hard or conflicting messages to give to one another.
11:40
Speaker 2: It's not supposed to be you know, I don't know
11:43
Speaker 2: a state of calm, so we even have that, right,
11:46
Speaker 2: But intimacy can't be formed if you're not willing to
11:49
Speaker 2: enter those waters. And so then and what I mean
11:51
Speaker 2: my intimacy is I mean emotional intimacy, the depth of relationships.
11:54
Speaker 2: Me knowing you, you knowing me. We will always hit
11:57
Speaker 2: this place. And if it's like we back out, then
12:00
Speaker 2: what a setup to not have very deep relationships where
12:04
Speaker 2: we can go there.
12:06
Speaker 1: So obviously the technology is creating some sort of distance, right,
12:11
Speaker 1: But then it also seems like what I'm kind of
12:14
Speaker 1: hearing you saying, maybe I'm inferring it incorrectly, but that
12:17
Speaker 1: there's a vulnerability that we're no longer willing to give
12:20
Speaker 1: away in order to have these relationships. And so part
12:23
Speaker 1: of it, maybe the distancing that technology provides. But then
12:26
Speaker 1: a part of it is the modeling as you're talking about,
12:29
Speaker 1: and then it just feels like we've gone into a
12:31
Speaker 1: more protective shell, like we don't want to be vulnerable,
12:34
Speaker 1: we don't want to we don't want to have those hard,
12:37
Speaker 1: intense conversations. Maybe we're afraid of hurting other people. Maybe
12:41
Speaker 1: we're afraid of getting hurt ourselves. Is that part of
12:45
Speaker 1: what you see when when you're dealing with these folks.
12:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I would say this, let me normalize
12:50
Speaker 2: that because I think fundamentally that's who we are as humans.
12:53
Speaker 2: It's like a push. It's like I want you to
12:55
Speaker 2: know me. I mean, I think about my relationship with s.
12:57
Speaker 2: Gott and I was sharing this in the question just
13:00
Speaker 2: weekend with students. It's just like this deep satisfaction of
13:04
Speaker 2: knowing we're reading someone thirty nine, of just knowing that
13:06
Speaker 2: he knows us, and he sees us, and he sees
13:09
Speaker 2: us whether there's light or dark, all of that and
13:12
Speaker 2: how wonderful that is, and what the group was talking
13:15
Speaker 2: about is also how terrifying that is. So this is
13:17
Speaker 2: fundamentally who we are. It's like I want it. And
13:19
Speaker 2: it's also like ah, because we fear you know, a
13:22
Speaker 2: lot of things. The voice of shame plays a role
13:26
Speaker 2: in that, like what if he really knew? Or what
13:29
Speaker 2: if she really knew? All of this? So I think
13:32
Speaker 2: that's always there and that's always at play. But I
13:36
Speaker 2: also think that if we are in this era where
13:40
Speaker 2: again I didn't have a mental model for it, I'm
13:42
Speaker 2: not seeing it in my peer group or my adult
13:44
Speaker 2: peer group. It really is kind of classified neurologically in
13:48
Speaker 2: my brain as a threat, as a bigger threat, and
13:52
Speaker 2: it gets bigger, and so what should be ideal and
13:55
Speaker 2: good is like even more of a threat threat threat.
13:59
Speaker 2: And if we just look at fundamentally how we're wired, well,
14:02
Speaker 2: when we have a threat response, what do we do
14:06
Speaker 2: we don't have a skill, we go to two extremes.
14:08
Speaker 2: We either avoid where we attack, and that that's kind
14:15
Speaker 2: of what we do when we don't have a response
14:17
Speaker 2: in general, we're going to go to the extreme of
14:20
Speaker 2: get me out of here, or.
14:23
Speaker 1: What are you trying to do?
14:24
Speaker 2: Why are you asking these questions? What are you trying
14:26
Speaker 2: to find something? And you know, I've heard some teenagers
14:29
Speaker 2: talk to me that way, so and it's like, oh no, no, no,
14:32
Speaker 2: that's not what's happening here. So I think there's that too.
14:35
Speaker 2: We can code things as threats that are actually quite good.
14:38
Speaker 2: And we see this definitely with trauma, where people who
14:41
Speaker 2: experienced some trauma they the very thing they long for
14:45
Speaker 2: is very scary because of the way their body has
14:48
Speaker 2: encoded people, relationships, situations, stressors, et cetera, et cetera.
14:53
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, So when you're doing the listening groups,
15:00
Speaker 1: I guess I have a couple of questions I'll ask.
15:03
Speaker 1: I'll ask one first, and then I'll i'll do a
15:04
Speaker 1: fall level see where it goes. But so I would think, guy,
15:12
Speaker 1: I grew up as an only child, right, and so
15:15
Speaker 1: we weren't we weren't like an around the dinner table
15:18
Speaker 1: kind of family, like we ate on TV trays in
15:20
Speaker 1: front of a television, right. So I didn't have a
15:22
Speaker 1: lot of I was almost like the original screen kid.
15:25
Speaker 1: You know, It's not like my parents and I never talked.
15:28
Speaker 1: But there wasn't a real big expectation that we were
15:30
Speaker 1: like going to be the Waltons and sit around the
15:33
Speaker 1: table and have dinner, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
15:35
Speaker 1: And so I was just sort of raised as a
15:40
Speaker 1: much more independently minded person, right, And so I don't
15:44
Speaker 1: have a lot of real close friends. I have a
15:46
Speaker 1: very small circle of real close friends. And so when
15:48
Speaker 1: I hear listening circles and like trying to understand how
15:51
Speaker 1: to listen to other people, I give my head around
15:53
Speaker 1: that and go, yeah, I probably do need to listen
15:55
Speaker 1: to other people. The scary part for me would be
15:59
Speaker 1: having someone else listen to me, Like, that's the part
16:03
Speaker 1: I don't really want care for, right, Like I'm good
16:06
Speaker 1: without that.
16:07
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly exactly what I'm talking about, that tension.
16:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, So do you find like that dynamic? How do
16:13
Speaker 1: you break somebody out of that? Because I mean I
16:15
Speaker 1: could see myself in my head going well, I just
16:17
Speaker 1: have to do it and then see how that feels.
16:22
Speaker 1: But I don't know, like how much does it take
16:24
Speaker 1: for that to just sort of habituate in and go,
16:27
Speaker 1: oh no, this is a really pleasant thing. And now
16:29
Speaker 1: I could see doing this more often, Like having been
16:32
Speaker 1: a rained for forty eight years, how likely am I
16:36
Speaker 1: to change? I guess maybe that's the question.
16:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you.
16:41
Speaker 3: Can answer that question more than I can, for sure,
16:44
Speaker 3: But I yeah, you're talking about something that I think
16:48
Speaker 3: you know, most people can identify in some way, shape
16:52
Speaker 3: or form a totally different story.
16:54
Speaker 2: Lots of kids in my home for girls, lots of conversation.
16:58
Speaker 2: Because it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that there was
17:01
Speaker 2: like a tuned listening where I felt heard. It's still,
17:06
Speaker 2: you know, something I get sad about sometimes when I
17:09
Speaker 2: go back home. It's like I don't feel known there sometimes,
17:12
Speaker 2: you know. So I don't necessarily think it's like a
17:16
Speaker 2: ripping open of my soul and like offering it. But
17:19
Speaker 2: I do think the question for me, in healthy relationships,
17:23
Speaker 2: whether it's two people in a partnership or good friends,
17:27
Speaker 2: is there a gentle moving towards can you offer each
17:30
Speaker 2: other a little more? And I think for some people
17:33
Speaker 2: that happens very fast because they feel comfortable and they
17:36
Speaker 2: grew up in a place where like emotional intimacy is
17:40
Speaker 2: just like the part of the risk taking they take
17:42
Speaker 2: in relationships, whether it's you know, really naming an emotion
17:46
Speaker 2: really really specifically or what we call granularly in the field,
17:51
Speaker 2: or we're just being like I'm feeling sad. There's a
17:54
Speaker 2: difference between sad and deeply distressed, right, So I think
18:00
Speaker 2: if there's movement towards each other. But unfortunately that's not
18:04
Speaker 2: always the case. Like I think, there's sometimes there's a momentum. Actually,
18:09
Speaker 2: especially when I look at families, there's a momentum of
18:14
Speaker 2: moving away or just this stuckness where everybody's sort of
18:17
Speaker 2: facing outward. And if we look at the I mean,
18:20
Speaker 2: if we go back to the narrative of the Grand
18:22
Speaker 2: Native Scripture, it's like this, we were made for more.
18:25
Speaker 2: And yes it's scary if I've never had it, But
18:28
Speaker 2: am I willing to sort of go in that direction?
18:31
Speaker 2: Who is it Benner who talks about to the extent
18:34
Speaker 2: that I know God, I know myself, and the more
18:36
Speaker 2: I know myself, I know God. And I can't do
18:38
Speaker 2: that work without another. Meaning even this requires community, and
18:45
Speaker 2: so even knowing me requires somebody else as well as
18:49
Speaker 2: my relationship with God. That this models the Trinity, and
18:54
Speaker 2: we resist that, we resist that. I think there's a
18:57
Speaker 2: tension in all of us if we're honest.
19:02
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I've thought about in
19:05
Speaker 1: the past is I think about discipleship as the church's coordination. Right,
19:12
Speaker 1: Discipleship is what sort of keeps us all on the
19:14
Speaker 1: same page. But it to your point, there's this sort
19:19
Speaker 1: of inertia or centrivigal force that's sort of pushing us
19:23
Speaker 1: away from that central point. It happens in families, you
19:28
Speaker 1: can kind of see it happening in churches. My thought
19:32
Speaker 1: has been, you know, you've got busyness, you've got the
19:35
Speaker 1: ability to travel, you've got you know, less sort of
19:39
Speaker 1: local community if you can kind of grasp what I'm
19:42
Speaker 1: saying there, what this listening piece seems like it would
19:47
Speaker 1: really play into that though, that because we're not in part,
19:51
Speaker 1: because we're not doing this, there's no reason for us
19:55
Speaker 1: to really stick together. Am I overreaching there? Or is
19:59
Speaker 1: that that's something you would like? Does that resonate.
20:03
Speaker 2: Because we're not doing say it again? I don't think yeah.
20:06
Speaker 1: So, because we're not doing this sort of listening it
20:10
Speaker 1: is a tuned listening, we lose a reason to stay together.
20:16
Speaker 1: In other words, if I felt known somewhere, I would
20:19
Speaker 1: tend to always go back there, right, gotcha? Versus like,
20:25
Speaker 1: because we're not doing it and we don't have any
20:27
Speaker 1: of those real deep connections, the the centrivigal forces that
20:32
Speaker 1: kind of pull us away and out, they're easy to follow. Yeah,
20:37
Speaker 1: they're easy just to go along with yeah.
20:39
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I have lots of thoughts in my head,
20:41
Speaker 2: but the first one that comes to mind is yes,
20:44
Speaker 2: agree with you. But but then look at our world.
20:47
Speaker 2: We have oh gosh, in a million different ways, movement
20:52
Speaker 2: towards things to see if I can get what I
20:54
Speaker 2: don't even know how to name. So I look at
20:57
Speaker 2: addictions as that, just like you know, addiction to pornography.
21:01
Speaker 2: It's like it's never enough. That's why you keep doing it,
21:03
Speaker 2: because it's never satisfying this deep thing in me overdoing
21:07
Speaker 2: this or under it's it's so yes, it's like I
21:12
Speaker 2: don't know to even that I need this, So why
21:15
Speaker 2: would I move towards you? But if we look at
21:17
Speaker 2: any person's life, we probably could see a hunt going on,
21:21
Speaker 2: a hunt for something that maybe is unnameable, that maybe
21:25
Speaker 2: has to do with this thing that's deep inside of us,
21:28
Speaker 2: just simply because of a human And yeah, I just
21:33
Speaker 2: want to name again the power of shame in this
21:35
Speaker 2: This is from the very beginning of the store of
21:37
Speaker 2: the Grand Narrative, right, It's like the enemy uses shame
21:42
Speaker 2: to sort of go this play, don't share that, don't
21:46
Speaker 2: name it. And we have this other tension in the
21:49
Speaker 2: other opposite direction, which is the father saying let me
21:53
Speaker 2: see you know, like where are you? This first question
21:55
Speaker 2: where are you? And it goes where are you? It
21:58
Speaker 2: was where are you? Who said that? Those are some
22:02
Speaker 2: of the first questions, And so there's this invitation on
22:05
Speaker 2: the other end that I do believe, you know, if
22:09
Speaker 2: most people can at least tap into some level of introspection,
22:12
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, it's there, it's just it's playing out
22:16
Speaker 2: not in moving towards people. It's like I'm searching again.
22:21
Speaker 2: I think this is one of the reasons why social
22:23
Speaker 2: media has grown exponentially. It's because it's part of that hunt.
22:28
Speaker 2: There's just never enough. It's the illusion of connection, and
22:31
Speaker 2: it's never been it's never been sufficient. Like it taps
22:36
Speaker 2: in on that. There's beautiful things that come from that,
22:39
Speaker 2: but it's never sufficient. What's sufficient is but oftentimes people
22:43
Speaker 2: say they go on these extreme things and they get
22:45
Speaker 2: away this random group of people and they're on this
22:48
Speaker 2: adventure and it's like, I never felt so kind of
22:51
Speaker 2: what you were talking about, Like, yeah, that feeling that
22:54
Speaker 2: you have when you lose all the weight, it's like, oh,
22:56
Speaker 2: there it is.
22:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. With and then it's a question of how do
23:01
Speaker 1: you capture that on a day to day sort of basis,
23:04
Speaker 1: And part of it has to be just rooting yourself
23:09
Speaker 1: in the relationships that are right in front of you
23:12
Speaker 1: and having this experience of knowing and being known is
23:15
Speaker 1: kind of how it would work.
23:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm deeply aware of even what's happening between you
23:19
Speaker 2: and I, Like if we were having this phone call
23:21
Speaker 2: for me and what I experienced just in this conversation
23:24
Speaker 2: so far, James is very different because I can see
23:27
Speaker 2: your eyes, I can see your softness, I can see
23:29
Speaker 2: this two way. So we have this incredible thing in
23:32
Speaker 2: technology to be able to do this, to be able
23:35
Speaker 2: to facilitate calling my friend who might live on the
23:38
Speaker 2: other side of the world, but to be able to
23:39
Speaker 2: sit with them.
23:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember who it was. It was a
23:44
Speaker 2: therapist and they were talking about how they connect with
23:46
Speaker 2: friends they haven't seen, and I thought that's pretty intense.
23:48
Speaker 2: But it was like, they don't say anything for ten
23:51
Speaker 2: minutes and they just look at each other and it
23:53
Speaker 2: usually ends up in just lots of tears. This deep
23:57
Speaker 2: connection that happens when you just look at each other powerful. Yeah,
24:02
Speaker 2: and I'm probably incredibly uncomfortable.
24:06
Speaker 1: Time, really awkward.
24:08
Speaker 2: It might even have been more than ten minutes, because
24:10
Speaker 2: I remember going, ooh, that's a lot.
24:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Can I nap while we're doing this?
24:18
Speaker 2: Look at you? Can I cut my eyes while I
24:22
Speaker 2: look at you?
24:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to picture you in my mind.
24:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I will say this too, which is probably
24:31
Speaker 2: you know this. It's it's a thing that we know,
24:33
Speaker 2: but it's like the power of it is pretty fascinating.
24:36
Speaker 2: Most of what's happening in a conversation is not verbal,
24:39
Speaker 2: and so a big part of the class is actually
24:42
Speaker 2: harnessing that and realizing that what you need and what's
24:48
Speaker 2: what you're processing for me is happening before my words
24:51
Speaker 2: come out. That's a fact. We know that from neuroscience,
24:54
Speaker 2: and so it's why I can say something with a
24:57
Speaker 2: very flat affect that I want you to really hold
25:00
Speaker 2: and you'll be like, you don't believe that. Or I
25:02
Speaker 2: could also say you're a jerk, you're terrible, and you'll
25:06
Speaker 2: be like, she doesn't really think that about me, because
25:08
Speaker 2: you're so I think that's that too. I think there's
25:11
Speaker 2: this piece that we need to see each other because
25:13
Speaker 2: there are seven or eight things that are happening nonverbally
25:16
Speaker 2: that are processed and felt faster. That's a big part
25:20
Speaker 2: of the class is helping people realize that, like, yeah,
25:23
Speaker 2: you don't actually need to say a whole lot to
25:25
Speaker 2: sit with people in hard places.
25:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. My wife was just talking about she started,
25:31
Speaker 1: she shifted to more remote work, and so she's been
25:33
Speaker 1: doing a lot more meetings on Zoom, and so she
25:36
Speaker 1: kind of got online did a little research looking at
25:38
Speaker 1: you know, how do you how do you do this right?
25:41
Speaker 1: How do you make connections over zoom? One of the
25:42
Speaker 1: things she found was that hands up, like big hands
25:47
Speaker 1: kind of movements like this, they are they express sort
25:51
Speaker 1: of a friendliness and an openness. And so she's like,
25:54
Speaker 1: you know, whenever you get on a meeting, you should
25:56
Speaker 1: just hand up, like hey, everybody right, And I'm like,
25:59
Speaker 1: it feels so weird, but I found myself doing it
26:02
Speaker 1: more often than so there you go. Yeah, I don't
26:05
Speaker 1: know whether it's working, but it's I'm like, it's one
26:07
Speaker 1: of those little things that you wouldn't necessarily go, you know,
26:10
Speaker 1: what I should do? Put my hand up?
26:12
Speaker 2: But that's right.
26:13
Speaker 1: Evidently there's there's all those different little cues, right that
26:18
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to sort of that really do communicate
26:22
Speaker 1: really if.
26:23
Speaker 2: You're trying to mimic what happens in a face to
26:26
Speaker 2: face conversation, which you would see the person's whole self.
26:29
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's why you know, if I was like this,
26:33
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be the same, right, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
26:37
Speaker 2: we've learned that. I mean, I think COVID really fast
26:39
Speaker 2: forwarded all of our learning on that. There's like a distance,
26:42
Speaker 2: it's comfortable, and I even just now you shrugged your shoulders.
26:45
Speaker 2: I could see that I wouldn't if anyways, we're getting
26:48
Speaker 2: lost on that. But but communication is a fascinating thing
26:51
Speaker 2: and how much we yeah, push stword it in a
26:54
Speaker 2: way from it in terms of connection.
26:56
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this because you had mentioned,
26:58
Speaker 1: you know, I think it was about twenty five or
27:00
Speaker 1: thirty years ago you're and your colleague started noticing that
27:02
Speaker 1: people weren't coming in just for like major mental problems,
27:07
Speaker 1: but they're starting to come in just to get this
27:09
Speaker 1: sort of back and forth, this intimacy, and so that
27:13
Speaker 1: tracks well pass I think like the onset of social
27:18
Speaker 1: media and those kind of things, right, actually.
27:20
Speaker 2: Said, I started about thirty five years ago so.
27:23
Speaker 1: I can't when you started on their Yeah, and it.
27:25
Speaker 2: Was in the past ten or fifteen years. It's definitely
27:27
Speaker 2: pre COVID. Definitely pre COVID, probably more like five or
27:30
Speaker 2: seven years pre COVID that it was like, something is
27:33
Speaker 2: just different. We are seeing people who it's really kind
27:36
Speaker 2: of hard to give a diagnosis. That was never the
27:38
Speaker 2: case when I entered the field. We didn't struggle with them.
27:41
Speaker 2: I mean, surely there's probably people who had a person
27:44
Speaker 2: on their caseload, but we have clinicians who much of
27:47
Speaker 2: their caseload is this person just doesn't have anybody is interesting.
27:53
Speaker 1: I guess I'm wondering. My question is what do you
27:56
Speaker 1: see as the impetus for that, because you know, theologically,
27:59
Speaker 1: we could probably both sit and say, you know, there's
28:01
Speaker 1: always been something lacking, right when we don't know Christ,
28:04
Speaker 1: There's always going to be something lacking in these people,
28:06
Speaker 1: and there's always going to be a sort of a
28:08
Speaker 1: quest for a meaning in life. But then this onset
28:12
Speaker 1: of it in the last ten or fifteen years, right,
28:15
Speaker 1: what are some of the factors that you think are
28:18
Speaker 1: culprits for sort of amping this up, like making it
28:22
Speaker 1: the way I think of it asn't. I don't think
28:24
Speaker 1: there's a cause necessarily. I think there's an increasing intensity
28:29
Speaker 1: that people are becoming more and more aware of its
28:31
Speaker 1: sort of how I it's almost like having the volume
28:33
Speaker 1: up too high on the TV and it reaches this
28:36
Speaker 1: level where you're like, that's really loud.
28:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think most definitely it's multi factored.
28:42
Speaker 2: So I always like saying like, there, could it be.
28:46
Speaker 2: Could it be that we we do have more like
28:50
Speaker 2: the efficiency that we have in our phones is actually
28:53
Speaker 2: or are just technology has pushed us away from each other?
28:56
Speaker 2: That's one thing. Could it be that I don't know
29:00
Speaker 2: the impact of more single family homes, the impact of
29:05
Speaker 2: one person providing for a family needing to be gone
29:08
Speaker 2: and it's simply not enough margin to be able to
29:11
Speaker 2: give children ideally what they need from at least a
29:15
Speaker 2: parent throughout the days, which is eyes and presence, and
29:19
Speaker 2: not this where we have that in families so much. Yeah.
29:25
Speaker 2: Could it be the pace at which we live our lives,
29:29
Speaker 2: especially in the West, and we don't allow for long
29:34
Speaker 2: slow that we sometimes make fun of in other countries,
29:37
Speaker 2: just even meal times that are just like you're going
29:40
Speaker 2: to get your food when you get your food, and
29:42
Speaker 2: that's how it works in this country, and so it's
29:45
Speaker 2: slowing down, Like could it be that, Yeah, it could
29:48
Speaker 2: be a lot of things. Yeah, it could be a
29:52
Speaker 2: lot of things. And I don't think it's here to
29:54
Speaker 2: blame oh if we didn't have phones. But I will say,
29:58
Speaker 2: I will say my husband was in youth ministry for
30:00
Speaker 2: a long long time, and I've always been involved with youth.
30:06
Speaker 2: You do hear a younger generation saying as much as
30:10
Speaker 2: they hate being away from their phones, there's this incredible relief.
30:14
Speaker 2: But then and it's like, well, I can't have it,
30:16
Speaker 2: none of us can have it. And it was the
30:18
Speaker 2: best week of my life going to this retreat or
30:20
Speaker 2: this camp or this whatever those two weeks. I do
30:24
Speaker 2: a lot of consulting for local camps in western North Carolina,
30:26
Speaker 2: and you see that it's just fascinating to see teenagers
30:31
Speaker 2: be together without phones for two weeks, and so it's
30:35
Speaker 2: a culprit. It's not the only thing, though, it's not
30:37
Speaker 2: the only thing.
30:38
Speaker 1: I just think there's a lot of Yeah, it's been interesting.
30:42
Speaker 1: I know you sort of run a nonprofit organization. You're
30:44
Speaker 1: doing a lot of other things too. But one of
30:47
Speaker 1: the things I found when I stepped away from academia
30:50
Speaker 1: was that I purposely decided that I was going to
30:54
Speaker 1: slow lifetown, and so I didn't take the next big job.
30:59
Speaker 1: I took a position with a nonprofit organization that was
31:02
Speaker 1: a little smaller that I knew would slow life down.
31:07
Speaker 1: And so I get, like, you know, a quarter of
31:09
Speaker 1: the emails I used to get, and even those, I
31:12
Speaker 1: know that most of them are not really that urgent.
31:15
Speaker 1: Right unless it says pay immediately, I don't really need
31:17
Speaker 1: to open it, right, and so things can just be slower.
31:23
Speaker 1: And I think after just like I said, after being
31:26
Speaker 1: in academia for such a long time and having everything
31:28
Speaker 1: feel very urgent and being pressured to deal with things
31:31
Speaker 1: like right now, right at this second, I just decided,
31:34
Speaker 1: like I'd like to enjoy my kids occasionally, I'd like
31:38
Speaker 1: to enjoy my family. And my family was telling me
31:40
Speaker 1: that too, like you need to slow down, and so
31:42
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, you know, pull it back. I
31:46
Speaker 1: don't think anything is really crept back in the way
31:49
Speaker 1: it used to. But I can definitely say like texting
31:53
Speaker 1: is becoming the new email. It feels like you're constantly,
31:56
Speaker 1: you know, like the buzzing and the chirping and whatever
31:59
Speaker 1: else constantly on. It's constantly there. And even I've got
32:03
Speaker 1: all my app silence, there's no alerts coming in on
32:06
Speaker 1: my phone, Like I don't do any of that, right,
32:09
Speaker 1: it's still very tempting to check. Yeah, it's crazy, yeah,
32:15
Speaker 1: and so it's hard to believe. Like I'm with you.
32:18
Speaker 1: I don't want to put it on one thing either,
32:21
Speaker 1: but I do think there's something to the three pieces
32:24
Speaker 1: you noted, like this efficiency that we're chasing, which yes,
32:28
Speaker 1: it makes something more efficient, but it's not our lives necessarily.
32:32
Speaker 2: That's right, right.
32:33
Speaker 1: The pace is just it's extraordinarily quick unless we grind
32:37
Speaker 1: it to a halt. And those are just challenging things
32:41
Speaker 1: I would imagine for people. But they do tend to
32:43
Speaker 1: squeeze out relationships, conversations, they.
32:48
Speaker 2: Do they do. I I want to say two things. One,
32:53
Speaker 2: I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy for you sincerely,
32:57
Speaker 2: because I think that's a brave move, important move, because
33:01
Speaker 2: I think what I see often is, you know, it's
33:04
Speaker 2: when they're when our kids are gone, and then it's
33:07
Speaker 2: like I missed it, And so it's hard to do
33:10
Speaker 2: it in the midst of that and I would say
33:12
Speaker 2: that's one of the drivers to people realizing I need
33:15
Speaker 2: somebody to talk to is pain. Pain is one of
33:19
Speaker 2: the things that brings people in and pain is one
33:22
Speaker 2: of the things that helps them recognize I don't want
33:24
Speaker 2: to be alone in pain. I can be alone in
33:26
Speaker 2: a lot of things. But when I hit pain, which
33:28
Speaker 2: we all will, every one of us in some way,
33:30
Speaker 2: shape or form, it's like it brings to the surface
33:34
Speaker 2: some of what we maybe didn't know we needed, We
33:37
Speaker 2: didn't even know that we were so so I love
33:40
Speaker 2: that for you, that you aren't in a place of like, oh,
33:42
Speaker 2: they're all gone. Shoot. I wish I could have done
33:44
Speaker 2: it differently, that you're doing this like that you can forecast.
33:47
Speaker 2: That's a that's a huge, huge thing, which is which
33:51
Speaker 2: reminds me, which makes me think of something else. And
33:54
Speaker 2: this is semi related. It's related. I'm going to make
33:57
Speaker 2: it related. It's just having a gone verisation with my
34:00
Speaker 2: son last night, who is a principal two schools in
34:05
Speaker 2: New York City, at two elementary schools, charter schools. And
34:09
Speaker 2: and he's not that old, okay, he's twenty eight and
34:12
Speaker 2: a half, so this old wise soul. And he said
34:16
Speaker 2: who hated school. It's a funny thing that he's a
34:18
Speaker 2: teach others and then principal, a hilarious thing, middle child
34:21
Speaker 2: in every way. But anyways, he's like, Mom, this is
34:25
Speaker 2: just like a huge problem. I have these young young
34:27
Speaker 2: little people coming out twenty two, twenty three, and they
34:30
Speaker 2: can't do this job. Is not that hard. This is
34:32
Speaker 2: a pretty structured school. This is not crazy here. They
34:35
Speaker 2: can't do this job. And so we had a long
34:37
Speaker 2: hour long conversation about distress tolerance, a lack of distress tolerance.
34:43
Speaker 2: And I think there's a connection here. I think there's
34:45
Speaker 2: a connection here. I think one of the ways that
34:48
Speaker 2: we learn to tolerate stress distress is in relationships. James.
34:53
Speaker 2: It's like we build up our tolerance for some of
34:57
Speaker 2: the discomfort in relationship. There's other things we do which
35:01
Speaker 2: is risk taking and not a lot of over protection.
35:04
Speaker 2: So that's a whole other thing we could talk about.
35:06
Speaker 2: We have kids now that were raised in way overprotected.
35:10
Speaker 2: Jonathan Hyde talks about a lot of people are talking, yes, right,
35:14
Speaker 2: what I did growing up in the seventies and eighties
35:18
Speaker 2: is you know, would be considered child of probably right,
35:21
Speaker 2: some of it. Jonathan talks about this. Yeah, I love
35:23
Speaker 2: his work, but I think that's part of it too,
35:27
Speaker 2: is like there's just a moving away from stress period.
35:31
Speaker 2: And so it's like they quit in eighteen teachers. This
35:33
Speaker 2: has never happened. He's like, I had eighteen teachers that
35:35
Speaker 2: two different schools quit and they were all under twenty
35:38
Speaker 2: five years old. What is happening out there? Which is
35:41
Speaker 2: again he's not that much older, but there was enough
35:43
Speaker 2: of a difference honestly, even in cell phones and when
35:47
Speaker 2: you gave them out to your kids and then in
35:49
Speaker 2: those different years, and so I think that's another factor
35:53
Speaker 2: that's part of what's missing sometimes as people enter adulthood,
35:59
Speaker 2: this ability to tolerate distress, to which I said to him,
36:03
Speaker 2: the good news is this is all learnable. You can
36:05
Speaker 2: actually teach somebody, probably related to your former career. You
36:10
Speaker 2: can actually teach somebody how do you begin to tolerate distress?
36:15
Speaker 2: And what most people do naturally is not helpful, which
36:18
Speaker 2: is white knuckle your way. You can wipe knuckle your
36:21
Speaker 2: way through short term things. You cannot wipe knuckle your
36:24
Speaker 2: way through a job that's going to go day after
36:27
Speaker 2: day after day, right unless you have some skills to
36:29
Speaker 2: be able to tolerate the distress of little kids being
36:32
Speaker 2: out of control, or parents getting mad at you, all
36:35
Speaker 2: of that. So I think, I don't know. I think
36:37
Speaker 2: that's another maybe impact product of lack of good relationships
36:42
Speaker 2: that's playing into listening, and it's I don't know, those
36:45
Speaker 2: all go together, but this distress tolerance is a big thing.
36:49
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question because I want to
36:50
Speaker 1: see if there's a parallel here too. Like you know,
36:53
Speaker 1: when you read this strength training literature, one of the
36:55
Speaker 1: things you do if you're trying to build muscle is
36:58
Speaker 1: you want to take your muscle to failure. But what
37:02
Speaker 1: the literature shows is that if you take your muscle
37:04
Speaker 1: to failure within let's say, five to ten repetitions of
37:07
Speaker 1: an exercise, people have a much better perception that they've
37:11
Speaker 1: actually failed than if they go beyond that. And you're
37:15
Speaker 1: trying to guess, how would I fail if I'm going
37:17
Speaker 1: to do fifteen or twenty or twenty five repetitions. The
37:21
Speaker 1: longer the sets go, the easier it is for you
37:24
Speaker 1: to misgauge how many more you could actually do. Interesting,
37:28
Speaker 1: and so my question is, like when you when you're
37:30
Speaker 1: training people to deal with those stressors. Do you tend
37:34
Speaker 1: to focus on a small package stress right, like a
37:38
Speaker 1: very minute, like here, let's just focus you in on
37:42
Speaker 1: this little piece and deal with it versus you know,
37:47
Speaker 1: long term in this job, you're going to deal with
37:49
Speaker 1: all of this stress and it's going to be okay, right,
37:54
Speaker 1: I mean I think, yeah, I.
37:55
Speaker 2: Think it's both. I honestly think it's both. But like, yeah,
37:58
Speaker 2: if I was sitting with you and this is something
38:00
Speaker 2: we're working back at, and maybe you're a teacher in
38:02
Speaker 2: my son's school, it is like, get your eyes off
38:07
Speaker 2: of where you think you should be, Like, that's not
38:09
Speaker 2: where we're going to start. It's like looking at these
38:11
Speaker 2: micro moments throughout your day that you're building up some
38:15
Speaker 2: some some stress, uh resilience or a little bit more
38:20
Speaker 2: tolerance level. That's typically how it's done. It's like these
38:23
Speaker 2: little crements. There may be a dip that you can't
38:26
Speaker 2: control because it's like this thing is going to happen
38:29
Speaker 2: and it's going to submerge you. That's life. But it
38:35
Speaker 2: typically is in these little and then leaps though. That's
38:39
Speaker 2: the wild thing is like little things end up creating,
38:42
Speaker 2: So it's not always right. Yeah, that's the word I
38:49
Speaker 2: was looking for. Yeah, yeah, it is very very true.
38:52
Speaker 2: It is very teachable, but I think it's like, again,
38:55
Speaker 2: the people who are going to learn that are failing relationships.
38:59
Speaker 2: I have to learn this because I want to have
39:01
Speaker 2: a relationship with my son or daughter, my wife or husband.
39:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, my job.
39:06
Speaker 2: There's this thing that's happening. And then it's like there's
39:09
Speaker 2: a little bit of motivation, like I've got to change,
39:11
Speaker 2: I've got to do something a little bit different.
39:13
Speaker 1: But again, yeah, well, and you can kind of see
39:16
Speaker 1: how all of that sort of fits together. I mean
39:18
Speaker 1: you think through Jonathan Height's work and sort of the
39:20
Speaker 1: safety and security that has been provided because now the
39:27
Speaker 1: pain of losing your job isn't as like if I
39:32
Speaker 1: think about if I lost my job, I understand the
39:34
Speaker 1: pain of it, right, Like I need to now go
39:37
Speaker 1: find another job, and that job search is difficult, and
39:40
Speaker 1: every year I get older, it's getting more and more difficult, right,
39:42
Speaker 1: Like you know, there's just certain things you just think about,
39:45
Speaker 1: and so you're like, Okay, I got I got to
39:47
Speaker 1: deal with where I'm at now because I need to
39:50
Speaker 1: continue performing. I can't retire yet, right so right, because
39:55
Speaker 1: there's no real net right now, that's not to say
39:58
Speaker 1: that I'm scared of that or like being anxiety paralyzes
40:01
Speaker 1: me or something like that, but just the reality of
40:02
Speaker 1: the situation. You know this is going to be bad.
40:06
Speaker 1: But sometimes it feels like maybe with younger generations there's
40:10
Speaker 1: too much of a safety net and so when something
40:13
Speaker 1: gets painful, it's like, well, it's just easier for me
40:15
Speaker 1: to default back down to this easy, sort of safe
40:19
Speaker 1: kind of lifestyle. And I don't know it. You can
40:23
Speaker 1: see how that sort of his research dovetails with what
40:26
Speaker 1: you're saying. I think it's probably not as clean as that,
40:29
Speaker 1: but the general idea is I think crucial to make
40:33
Speaker 1: that connection of the more safety we feel doesn't necessarily
40:38
Speaker 1: mean that we are fully functioning human, right, Like there
40:43
Speaker 1: are aspects of it that we lose because we're just
40:46
Speaker 1: too safe. There is such a thing as being too
40:48
Speaker 1: safe one percent.
40:52
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, so let me just go to like a
40:56
Speaker 2: theological place I think. I think one of the fascinating
41:00
Speaker 2: thing about working with adolescents is I believe part of
41:03
Speaker 2: God's design is risk taking is supposed to happen in
41:07
Speaker 2: that season because it's like the beginning of having a
41:11
Speaker 2: vision for something beyond that's scary and bigger than you.
41:14
Speaker 2: In fact, we know dopamine levels begin to draw around
41:17
Speaker 2: twelve or thirteen, and it's interesting, it's like, that's such
41:21
Speaker 2: a bummer. I would have liked that to not be
41:22
Speaker 2: the case with my teenagers. It's why they're kind of
41:25
Speaker 2: sometimes they're flat. We see crocks, and so the theory,
41:29
Speaker 2: one of the theories is it's because they now need
41:32
Speaker 2: to go look for things that are going to give them.
41:35
Speaker 2: You know, some of them do that, well, gotcha, taking
41:38
Speaker 2: a hard course or auditioning for something or trying out
41:41
Speaker 2: for something new. Those are going to give some and others,
41:44
Speaker 2: you know, break into buildings and steal you know, that's
41:47
Speaker 2: a dopamine verse or drugs or what all. But I
41:50
Speaker 2: just think about how much, you know, if we can
41:54
Speaker 2: get a snapshot of how God has designed us and
41:57
Speaker 2: what he's inviting us to do with him, each one
42:00
Speaker 2: of us globally, it's like beyond what we could usually imagine.
42:04
Speaker 2: And it requires again, distress, It requires a lot of these.
42:08
Speaker 2: It requires an ability to enter into relationship to tolerate distress.
42:12
Speaker 2: And so when you talk about what you were just saying,
42:14
Speaker 2: it's just sort of this default. It's like it must
42:17
Speaker 2: grieve the Lord so much to just see us sort
42:20
Speaker 2: of like, yeah, that's okay, because it's like there's this capacity,
42:25
Speaker 2: this invitation. I like that word better, like I'm inviting
42:29
Speaker 2: you to co labor with me, the god of the universe,
42:32
Speaker 2: and it's always going to feel bigger than you. It's
42:35
Speaker 2: always going to feel ridiculous in some ways maybe, but
42:39
Speaker 2: that's what you get to do if you can actually
42:41
Speaker 2: dream big. And I think you're right, I don't. I
42:43
Speaker 2: think a lot of young people are dreaming big and
42:46
Speaker 2: doing amazing things. So I certainly don't want to put
42:48
Speaker 2: into any kind of box at all, because I see
42:51
Speaker 2: amazing things, but I see the counter of that too.
42:55
Speaker 2: It's just sort of like I don't know, Like I
42:58
Speaker 2: was supervising a case with it. I think he's twenty one.
43:00
Speaker 2: He's a tech school now because his parents want him
43:03
Speaker 2: to be there, and he's like, you know, I think
43:06
Speaker 2: I'm happy just working at the ice cream shot down Down,
43:09
Speaker 2: and we as I'm listening to this tape with this
43:12
Speaker 2: therapist I supervised, it's just sort of like that's kind
43:15
Speaker 2: of bummer, not that there's anything wrong with working, do
43:18
Speaker 2: you know, what I mean, it's just sort of yeah, there's.
43:20
Speaker 1: Not that sense of like movement forward right, like you know,
43:26
Speaker 1: it feels like a stagnation.
43:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd almost rather see something ridiculous, like I don't know,
43:31
Speaker 2: he's gonna be this rock star and I'm gonna start
43:33
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, we can use that. But when there's
43:36
Speaker 2: like a flatness in the fuel, it's kind of like
43:38
Speaker 2: what you're talking about. It's like, yeah, we're just taking
43:41
Speaker 2: exit ramps left and right and just settling for whatever
43:44
Speaker 2: lands in our lap. And is that living? I don't think.
43:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think so. And again, yeah, there's
43:51
Speaker 2: privilege at we're not talking about that. There's privilege here
43:55
Speaker 2: in that some people it's like good luck, that's not
43:58
Speaker 2: going to happen in my situation. I don't have choice.
44:01
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about those. I'm just talking about in general.
44:04
Speaker 2: This is patterning that's happening.
44:06
Speaker 1: So no, it's hissery. I mean. Jurgen Moltman, he wrote
44:10
Speaker 1: Theology of Hope. If you're familiar with Jurgen Moltman, he's
44:14
Speaker 1: got a great quote in there about sin and he says,
44:16
Speaker 1: you know, sin isn't just this sort of tremendous desire
44:19
Speaker 1: to be like God. It's also the passivity, the unwillingness
44:24
Speaker 1: to move, the complacency that keeps us from being who
44:28
Speaker 1: God requires us to be. And I think that's sort
44:31
Speaker 1: of what we're hitting on here. It's this like I
44:35
Speaker 1: don't want to step out and even try anything. I
44:39
Speaker 1: just want to be cared for, thank you, and I
44:41
Speaker 1: don't want to really put any skin in the game.
44:44
Speaker 2: So Will said, yes, that's what we have right now.
44:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's something where that's the challenge.
44:50
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, Yeah, I think that is. Yeah, and there's
44:55
Speaker 2: just a sadness. I mean it goes back to sort
44:57
Speaker 2: of the relationships not being it back to you, James.
45:00
Speaker 2: I'm just saying in terms of like why should I
45:02
Speaker 2: why should I not? You know, why should I go
45:05
Speaker 2: deeper in these relationships. It's like that's a part of
45:07
Speaker 2: it too. It's not just about a vocation or a
45:10
Speaker 2: co laboring. It's also like this is because this is good,
45:13
Speaker 2: this is how I've made you, and this is not
45:15
Speaker 2: partly like these deep relationships are an extension of the Trinity.
45:19
Speaker 2: They really are that there's this beautiful thing that's happening
45:23
Speaker 2: and it can't happen in hiding, And again it's like,
45:28
Speaker 2: does that mean we all need to have like seventeen people.
45:31
Speaker 1: No.
45:32
Speaker 2: I always say people, if you have two or three people,
45:34
Speaker 2: you are blessed, because I know too many people that
45:37
Speaker 2: don't have two or three people that they could share
45:42
Speaker 2: the deepest, most vulnerable part of their lives. And do
45:46
Speaker 2: you have one person that you can do that with?
45:48
Speaker 2: And you should consider yourself less because I think most
45:50
Speaker 2: people don't. The second part of that is would you
45:53
Speaker 2: you know, would you share that right you might have
45:56
Speaker 2: that person?
45:57
Speaker 1: Even if you have it, would you do it? Yeah?
45:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And there's goodness in that, just
46:02
Speaker 2: to see the eyes that actually do ideally ideally reflect
46:05
Speaker 2: the eyes of the Father, which is no condemnation. I
46:09
Speaker 2: see you as you are.
46:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this has been great. I work running into time,
46:16
Speaker 1: so I want to on your time and just really
46:19
Speaker 1: appreciate you being on the episode though, And I'm wondering
46:21
Speaker 1: if you'd answer just one last question. I usually ask
46:24
Speaker 1: my guest one last question before they go, And so
46:26
Speaker 1: you can go wherever you'd like to go with us,
46:28
Speaker 1: But what do you think the church needs to do
46:31
Speaker 1: today in order to be and make more faithful disciples.
46:35
Speaker 1: There's probably a million things you could come up with,
46:38
Speaker 1: but I'm just, you know, kind of your your gut reaction.
46:41
Speaker 1: What does the church need to do today?
46:43
Speaker 2: Exactly where I started with you, James. Yeah, I really
46:46
Speaker 2: think the church needs to become better at listening, at
46:49
Speaker 2: really sitting and holding a safe space with the person
46:53
Speaker 2: next to you and the pew, the person who's that
46:56
Speaker 2: you see when you leave church, the extension of the church,
46:59
Speaker 2: not just the building. But I think that is you know,
47:03
Speaker 2: we can go on a whole nother forty five minute
47:04
Speaker 2: conversation about the divisiveness that's at play in our in
47:08
Speaker 2: our world, in our culture, and so I just can
47:11
Speaker 2: you listen to the person who is one hundred different
47:14
Speaker 2: than you and offer the eyes of Christ. We have
47:18
Speaker 2: a lot, we have a ways to go in that.
47:22
Speaker 2: I don't think that that's what we are known for.
47:25
Speaker 1: Very good, Well, thank you very much for being on
47:28
Speaker 1: the program. We're going to put the link to your
47:31
Speaker 1: website to soul Well Center on the website and that's
47:34
Speaker 1: where people can get the listening course. Correct, Yeah, yeah,
47:37
Speaker 1: if they wanted to sign up. So the soul Well
47:40
Speaker 1: Center if you're interested in doing the listening course. That's
47:42
Speaker 1: where you can find more information about that, so you'll
47:45
Speaker 1: see that link in the show notes. But also just
47:47
Speaker 1: encourage you to pick up your book. Heart cries of
47:52
Speaker 1: every team. I read through part of it before the interview.
47:55
Speaker 1: I knew wouldn't be talking about the book very much.
47:57
Speaker 1: I didn't read the whole thing, but really appreciated it.
48:00
Speaker 1: My kids are teens, and so it's just one of
48:03
Speaker 1: those it's like a good reminder. Yeah, they want to
48:05
Speaker 1: be heard, they want to you know, they want to
48:07
Speaker 1: be seen, they want to and so yeah, just really appreciated,
48:12
Speaker 1: really appreciated what I was able to read there. But yeah,
48:15
Speaker 1: check out the links in the show notes. Everybody really
48:18
Speaker 1: encourage you to check out more of doctor Perry's work.
48:20
Speaker 1: And yeah, thanks again for being here.
48:24
Speaker 2: Thank you James. A great week.
48:26
Speaker 1: All right, everybody take care and we'll catch on the
48:28
Speaker 1: next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take
48:31
Speaker 1: a second to thank the team at Life Audio for
48:33
Speaker 1: their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If
48:36
Speaker 1: you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of
48:38
Speaker 1: other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows
48:42
Speaker 1: about prayer, Bible study, parenting and more