Latest / FOLLOW / What is your reaction trying to protect? /// FOLLOW

Transcript

What is your reaction trying to protect? /// FOLLOW · FOLLOW

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: What often when somebody like wounds us, we feel this permission for release to try to get that negative energy out of our body somewhere rather than actually seeing it as a clue an invitation that there is some healing that needs to happen here.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is an invitation for me to become more whole or holy or spiritually healthy.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's my work to get to the thing beneath the thing.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: God is not trying to fix my reaction.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: My reaction is trying to protect something.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what God's really trying to do is reach down and heal what I've been protecting.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Follow Podcast, a podcast that believes at its core, the single most important oriented belief that if Jesus is right about God and life and the human soul, then it would make sense that we rearrange our lives around what he says is true.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're exploring.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: All that Jesus said was true, and how to rearrange our lives around it.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Been in been here uh man for probably for a third of my life now.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm born and raised in Southern California, but um been uh been in the Midwest, Grand Rapids, and Chicagoland for the now half my life.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So okay, so what is your favorite thing about Chicago in this season, the fall?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're headed into the fall.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just I think that uh it's it's the best season, the leaves are changing.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um football, uh, sports.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um feels like people are back in the the rhythm of life with school.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's just uh you know, we we've joked about this before, but there's just uh something in the air um where you the Bears fans, we think we're gonna win it all, you know, Cubs fans, we're we're we're doing well heading into September.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: We feel like we're gonna catch the brewers.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like you just it like the fall just is is just brimming with hope.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and um we're not yet to the sadness and darkness and gloom of winter.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um we are just soaking up our kind of remaining days, and then it's like fire pit.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like what you you know, it's just backyard, fire pit, leaves falling.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it is for listen, you people probably don't know this about me, but um I do I'm I love Denver, one of my favorite cities, you know.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I love living here, but uh I don't love your sports team, but I love Chicago.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is such a awesome city.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, love everything about it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the food scene, and this time of year, this time of year is down on the lakefront.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's just a good time of year, bro.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, such a good city.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't been to Chicago, man, uh listener.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do go to Chicago, get Eric um's restaurant.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he has a secret power.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: He he has a he has a notes app of every city he's been to in this in the restaurants.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they're it's basically like if you think of what Letterbox is for uh people who watch movies and review it, Eric has that for restaurants and hotels pretty much every city he's been to.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Every city.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know it's fun, it's an actual truth.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Two days ago, I just had someone say, Parks, I'm going to Chicago.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Could you give me some spots?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I sent them, and I love this spot, Pivoli Tavern.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Down in West Loop.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, that place, that little alley feels like you're in Europe.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: The lights just like hover over at night.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, the whole area right there, just that West Loop is just a vibe.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So And then I also sent them to Cheval.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, hey, you want a burger?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: You want a burger that will absolutely melt your brain?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It'll melt your brain.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then they've got the the little ones and they call it small cheval.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like it's like it's just like this, like they're, you know, and so I just love it.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, dude.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Listener, what you may not know about uh the mild-mannered Steve Carter is he is um speaker extraordinaire, pastor extraordinaire, author extraordinaire.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um actually, we were doing uh, I think I know this when uh we were working together some years ago when uh a book came out that you wrote called The Thing Beneath the Thing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um to this day, one of my favorite book covers of all time.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely so great.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: But uh Steve wrote, he's authored, penned several books.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But this book in particular, I think is like really important for this series that we've been on.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: We've been talking with a bunch of different guests about um mental health, how the intersection between our faith and the way that our our mind works.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't think of a better sort of um multi-part series than to just to walk the through some of your book, because your book for real deals with a lot of these concepts.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so um uh this is what I'd love to hear.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me why you wrote the book.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Go back in time a few years because you wrote it a few years ago, but why'd you write it?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why'd you do it?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: They say like most um like nonfiction books, the uh you you write to the person you once were.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you're like writing back to this person, and and for some apparent reason, like you didn't have a map to get you through something.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so you you're you're writing back to that that person because you know other people are going to be in a similar situation someday, and hopefully this will be a map.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think I was wrestling with two realities.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: One is hey, why do people do what they do?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: But more importantly, why do I do what I do?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you we all know the the Romans 7.15 passage.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I do not know what I do, the good I want to do, I just don't do the thing I hate, I do.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in this cancel culture that we were living in in that time, in the the realities of like um kind of people just making some decisions, you you couldn't just literally get on stage and say, friends, I'm gonna quote Paul.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand what I do.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: The good I want to do, I just don't do.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: The thing I hate, I do.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think with all of the emotional intelligence, all of the the mental health conversations, all of just spiritual formation, we have so much at our disposal that we can't literally just say, I don't, I don't understand.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, we're we're in this time right now where um just recently um a major golf company partnered with another company and they made this this driver, um, and they made a commercial, and the commercial begins with a husband tackling his wife, and and it's it's like it's this like brutal conversation like video when you watch it, and like and it just has gotten torn apart, rightly so, but it it's it's at this point where you're like somebody allowed this to go through, and somebody thought this was okay, and now it's now we're in this apology tour.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think like from the biggest Twitter, Instagram, companies, churches, athletes, every day to uh every one of us, we do stuff that we wish we didn't do.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: We say things that we wish we didn't say, we behave in a way that we go like I thought I was past that.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I just found myself wrestling like with why is it I do what I do?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that kind of became the genesis, and I just went on this deep dive of research, meeting with spiritual directors, therapists, um kind of just uh some real clinicians on the way that the brain works to try to understand kind of these uh responses and reactions that happen and why it happens and what actually one the Bible says about it, but then what actually we can do about it um to actually lean more into formation and not more into um decisions that we'll will come to regret and that don't just hurt us, but actually hurt those around us.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so you you start the book, you open the book, and you say this.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wakes up one day and decides, you know what?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm gonna blow my life up.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody does that, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: That that doesn't happen.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh yet we can't we we have plenty of examples of leaders and friends, and you know, we all know people who um maybe it's even to some extent us, we we've seen um just seismic meltdowns.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder, like, could you walk me through from what you've learned?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: How does implosion actually build?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I I I take this like kind of picture of something that happened in Chicago.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when when I moved to Chicago, like, you know, obviously people told me about the museums and the food scene.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what people never tell you if you come to Chicago is how bad the potholes are.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just legitimately everywhere.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's a true statement.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Potholes and rats.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And rats.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's definitely a problem.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I I remember um learning that we didn't just have potholes in Chicago, but we actually had a three-digit number where you could report a pothole.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if you reported the pothole and the pothole had been reported but not dealt with in a timely manner, um, the city of Chicago would actually pay for the damages to your vehicle.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I got um a flat tire one day, I called 311, which was a three-digit number, I reported this pothole, and um, and the nice woman was like, I'm sorry, uh, that you're the first person to report this pothole.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, dang it.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: But then it like dawned on me, and I was like, How many potholes do you like like have to fill in to have your own three-digit number?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and she ends up telling me, like, in the last hundred days, they filled in like a hundred and I think thirty-seven thousand.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she tells me that the city of Chicago has its own pothole tracker, and and so like I start going on this deep research on the pothole analogy and and realizing that they just come up and they see that you know, water freezes, asphalt doesn't know how to deal with it, it's not like our sweatpants, and so this crater is created, they they fill it in and they move on.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes it's not because of asphalt not being able to deal with the inclement weather, there's something that's happening underneath the surface.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a sewage pipe, it could be some sense of erosion.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't deal with the pothole, a pothole will quickly become a sinkhole.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what happened in the city of Chicago, where an entire block just sank many years ago, and it's millions of dollars of damage.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so you you you put that with your original question.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I think nobody wants some massive sinkhole in their life that doesn't just affect them, it affects everyone around them.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think oftentimes we just minimize all of these potholes that have happened just because we're human, because we're dealing with other broken and beautiful people who said something or who um hurt us, or some form of abuse or trauma, so all these different ways at which um our expectations were far off from reality, and a pothole was created.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what I came to learn, and here's what I came to discover that was that just um took it to an entirely different level for me.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's two realities.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: One is uh there was a guy that I worked with, uh, and this guy um he just had this propensity to shut down an idea.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember um so deeply like feeling frustrated one day that I came home and I told my wife, and and I was explaining it, and she just looked at me and she goes, Isn't God so kind?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What do you mean God's so kind?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't God so kind?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, What are you talking about?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: This guy was a jerk, have my back, and she just says, like, God's so kind because this person reminds you of someone who did the exact same thing in your childhood, and you have pushed that healing journey away, and God's so kind that he keeps bringing people into your life till you honor that truth.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the real question is, Steve, will you have the courage to honor the truth of that wound?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And what I realized though was oh my gosh, what often when somebody like wounds us, we feel this permission for release to try to get that negative energy out of our body somewhere rather than actually seeing as a clue an invitation that there is some healing that needs to happen here.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, that there's a pothole.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a pothole.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if I don't deal with that pothole, that could become a sinkhole, that could be the enemy's playground for some area in my life that goes unformed or doesn't get reformed or reshaped, um, that will end up causing profound damage, not just to me, to my family and my life and my integrity.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that was one one piece.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: The second piece of this was, and and I like I don't know, I just never, I never thought about this, but there was this old, old prayer.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the the prayer was by um this guy by the name of like Father Thomas Keating.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it ended up kind of um kind of being taken by this woman by the name of Mary Mordrowski, and and she and him wrote this prayer, and it goes like this welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it's for my healing.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I let go of my desire for power and control.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval, and pleasure.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I let go of my desire for survival and security.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition person, or even myself.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I opened myself to the love and presence of God and God's action within.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized something.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: I never was welcoming the invitation for healing.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was welcoming opportunities to be frustrated or to be bitter or to escape.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was welcoming and giving myself all the permission to act in a way that was far from like the man I wanted to be, the the pastor, the Christ follower, the dad husband I wanted to be.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I could blame it because someone got next to a pothole.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Someone, someone hurt me, someone triggered me, and I need to self-soothe in some way.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it when I started to realize, oh, this is actually part of my own sanctification.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is an invitation for me to become more whole or holy or spiritually healthy.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's my work to get to the thing beneath the thing.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's kind of like the the genesis, the origin.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and all of a sudden started to to put some stuff together and and started to see like, oh my gosh, like I'm actually seeing what's really going on, what's really unfolding here, what this is really about.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it just gave me a sense of better wisdom and better attunement to the spirit, and a better invitation for grace and health and wholeness.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has potholes.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, everybody, right?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everybody has them.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I mean, wherever they come from, however they got there, we have them.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: How do most people deal with their potholes?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for real, like if I've got this this wound, you know, because I I I I sort of take the the pothole is a wounding, some sort of wound.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody did something to you once, or somebody just done to you multiple times, and you carry this through, and um, and then you know we respond because, you know, gosh, that thing's just been there.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I I assume most people do something to try to cover up the hole.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think we we work really, really hard to manage the potholes and to manage the wounds.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes we we we manage it in such a subconscious way that we're actually unaware of it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, when when when somebody cuts you off, it's not really about that they cut you off.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's really about someone didn't see you.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Someone I when when else have you felt like someone didn't see you?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, when when someone you know cuts you off, maybe it's not the the primary emotion of oh, I didn't feel seen.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was like you don't matter and you are small compared to the big truck that just cut you off, and all of a sudden you're like, I'm not small.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, somebody somewhere at some time made you feel small or told you you were small, and now because I never dealt with that, a Toyota truck or a four, you know, F-150 fully loaded just made me feel small.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I I have promised and vowed to myself, nobody's gonna make me feel small, and then you have all of this rise.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I came to realize is like a great comic, every great comedian has and they run off of a certain playbook.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: The playbook is I gotta set you up, and I'm gonna set you up with a joke or a story, and the way that I'm gonna set you up with a story is I gotta get the entire audience to be moving in the same direction.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're moving in the same direction, at some point when you don't see it, just like a great illusionist, I am gonna uh twist or turn.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when I make that turn, the only real hopeful response, if you're a comic, is that it's gonna create a sense of surprise and release.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that release from the audience will be laughter.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: The same thing works with with wounds and uh having to deal with other human beings who are aware of your wounds or who don't know your wounds, they're gonna hit one of those potholes, they're gonna drive over it.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, your whole day has been set up to go.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna drop my daughter off at school, I'm gonna go get my coffee, and then I'm gonna have some quiet time, and then I'm gonna go into work, and then I'm gonna go to this meeting, and then I'll go to this meeting, and then all of a sudden, your daughter forgets her computer for the third time in the week.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and what you expected was gonna happen doesn't happen, and your whole schedule's off.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: You get frustrated now.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Again, what ends up happening is the setup for how you thought your day was gonna go, something happens, and instead of the release that leads to laughter, the release of negative energy in your body, you end up needing to put somewhere.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I What I often will say is those moments where all of a sudden there's that turn in like kind of like therapy 101, it would be called a trigger.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: We get triggered, yeah, trigger, yeah, and that trigger is gonna send all of this negative energy through our bodies, it's gonna be the past, it's gonna be us experience, whether we're aware of it or not, it's happening.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the human condition is as quickly as possible, I'm gonna self-soothe.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that I'll self-soothe is three primary places.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: The first is I'm gonna find a hideout, I'm gonna find a place to like and biblical language.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta get out of here.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta get out of here.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I and in biblical language, that was just idolatry.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm gonna go self-soothe and I'm gonna buy something with money I don't have.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna eat something just to self-soothe.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna watch something, I'm gonna look at something, I'm gonna sleep with something, I'm gonna scream something, I'm gonna do something and not actually face the pothole or the wound or the actual primary emotion that led to this reaction.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna push this and I'm gonna feel the permission to escape.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it takes us right back to the Garden of Eden.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like when the man and the woman realize that they're naked and they feel that sense of shame and they go and they hide.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we do this every day, and we're unaware of the Holy Spirit going, Where are you?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you really?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, Carter, I I think sometimes, you know, I know you you've you've been in these spaces where especially around hideouts, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: That we get so used to like hiding.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: We go into these hiding, uh, these hideouts, these places that um remove us far away from the pain, the pothole.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um here's the challenge, because if you think about a trigger, I mean, it's just the way the brain works.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: You write about this.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like the amygdala is doing just like really quick pattern recognition, right?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, like when you said the dude cut me off, and it was kind of about him cutting me off, but it was actually about something else somewhere else.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, part of recognizing the pain that's happened to us in the past is part of answering um, why do I do that thing?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you start to understand is oftentimes the trigger, that trigger is me just pattern matching to something that happened to me a long time ago in some place.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean what happened to you in this moment isn't painful.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: It just reminds you of something else.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, you you then respond, the body naturally responds in that quarter second, right?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: To that.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Dick, Dick Schwartz, uh, who wrote, and he was kind of like the founder of this um movement called IFS and internal family systems.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and he's yeah, and he talks about how you know we have kind of these different parts, and there's no bad parts he says, but you just got to be aware of them.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: But he calls one part a firefighter part, and this is in many ways what you're you're describing, but I just love the visual at which he describes it.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: I do too.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: He he says, uh, if you know my office caught on fire right now, and I and we're recording this podcast, fire comes in, and all of a sudden the firemen come like running in.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: The firefighter is gonna come in, you know, with the hose, he's spraying down water, and he's not gonna stop and go, Hey Steve, do you want that surfboard that's hanging up?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Steve, do you want that book?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want this book?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want this book?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want this book?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, what do you what is he gonna do?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna do whatever he can as quickly as he can to put the fire out.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And this is that firefighter response, that that pattern recognition, that trigger response is all we're trying to do is I gotta put that emotion out.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: For me, Eric, you know this, like we've we've talked about this in my own life.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: When I feel powerlessness, like not in a self-like choosing of surrender, but when someone um takes away my power, um, and I don't mean like like ego, I mean from a from a victim of abuse as a kid.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like when I'm in a situation where I just feel powerless, my firefighter response, my my looking for the quickest hideout, get me to Nordstrom's, I will buy something, get me to go spend money on a on a nice fancy meal with money I don't have.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Get me to some experience.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have been so prone, and they're and again, hear this.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they are they are still forms of idolatry, they're just socially acceptable forms.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not meth, it's just me spending money that I don't have.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I'm still looking for something else to soothe me and get my kind of cortisol and get my amygdala that got hijacked in the front of my brain to just get back to something.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we all have these, and and again, and it's not I've just learned to not shame it, but just to go, oh, I understand now.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Carter, but this is such like this is why I love your book because um you and I have talked extensively about IFS and uh what Dick Schwartz wrote about, and there's so much of it in this book, but it it does answer the question because sometimes, and I'm sure listeners have been there, where something happens and you respond, and when you when everything calms down, you feel like that response was another person.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're like that.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You we use this phrase, well, that's really not me.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, it isn't you, it's really not you.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: There is this firefighter, there is this response that is tied to something else, and that's why walking through the process of identifying, like, okay, where does this come from?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the truth if you've ever um, if you've ever, I'll call it been victim to your parts, you know it does kind of feel that way.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like, dude, my reaction, it was not equal to what happened.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like it and you feel it, and there's shame, and you want to be different, and you don't know how you feel like it's a different person.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is what you're getting at.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and Eric, you know, this is the best part of like having like you know, really deep and good and healthy friendship, like you and I have had, because you know, there's been there's been moments where I've been in a meeting and you've been there, and like I it's like the moment has gotten hijacked for me.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's like you're looking at me almost as if, hey, hey man, like that's that's not that's not really that's not like the emotion that this moment really requires, or that that feels like a a bit of a leap um to to start jumping to that conclusion or that thought or that feeling.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's almost like with a with a a helpful question can almost like bring you back to oh wait, wait, wait.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I have agency here.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I I can I can like the language they'll say in IFS is I can speak for that firefighter part, I don't need to speak from it.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can go, I really do want to just escape this moment.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: This feels really familiar to what I went through and some trauma or what I'm afraid of.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like we've both been able to do that for one another, and like, and and I think that's that's the gift.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: But if if you don't have people who know that for you, yeah, or that you trust, um they're just gonna be like, Well, shh, that she just became a Karen.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, like we have these language, we have these phrases that we say, oh well, that's not me.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we just almost, you know, and or or it's like even like if you sexualize it, oh dude, that's I just I mean, I'm just tiger.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: She's just a cougar.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we have all of these phrases where we've almost like been like, and all it is is this response or reaction to something else.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and it's it's escapism.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's exactly right.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, well, and I wonder, Carter, like, because I think it it, you know, obviously we're talking about um uh sort of uh a mental health um uh framework, right?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a formation framework in here as well.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder, like, as you have thought a lot about the the whole idea of you know naming your hideouts, the ability to to look inside, where does this intersect formation?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where where do you see some of what you've written about from potholes to hideouts, hang up some of these pieces?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they intersect formation?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I I think probably threefold.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: First off, is for better or for worse, whether you're a follower of Jesus or not, we're fixated by fruit.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so like good fruit, um, however you want to define it, we in the church would say fruit of the spirit, but good fruit for a lot of people who are outside uh the faith system would be you know, money or power or sex, whatever, whatever, whatever your fruit is that you think.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got bad fruit, a fruit that just doesn't taste that great.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you can put a whole bunch of language to that, spiritually um looks this way, or um, outside of faith system, it might look this way, whatever.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we're fixated by fruit, uh never to the root of like what is actually producing this kind of life, and and so the formation side is uh if I can't tap into the wound, uh if I can't lean into man, why am I why am I thinking these thoughts about myself?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I thinking these thoughts about another?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I so quick to run to something else to soothe?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then we're just we're missing a formational pathway, and we're almost getting to a point of like, well, life just is doing this to me, and and no wonder I can't produce good fruit because I I just I'm not good.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and you just get into this like downward spiral when all when when in reality, uh if you actually think about um John Wesley, you know, kind of the one of the founders of the Wesleyan tradition, um, he talked about three stages of grace, and we often teach about grace just in one form, like you receive the gift of grace, you're freed from your sin, welcome to heaven.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the the gist of grace.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he he would say that's one type of grace, but then there's another type of grace that really is kind of in our theological terms sanctifying grace.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is the grace that goes to work on those potholes, on those wounds to really begin to sanctify you so that man, like when you're in a situation and someone cuts you off, or you're in a situation where you get triggered, you could step back and you don't have that quick trauma response or that quick like run to this.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I often will find myself literally, there's been this happened uh a month and a half ago.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I got my son.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: I um I've been been preparing and now have launched him into college.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I know your your youngest Harry uh just is is getting launched as well this fall.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Same, same.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: But this was our first, and I I had been pushing this feeling down.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: And to make it a little bit matters worse, as a freshman, he's going to Madrid.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we're dropping, we dropped him off in Madrid, and then got on a plane and flew home.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been like visualizing and and being and feeling so tender.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I and and what's the what's the real feeling?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that I don't trust him.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not the fact that like I'm not proud of him.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: He's worked really, really hard to get into this program, and and and he deserves it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm afraid of is powerless.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't protect him, I can't control him.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't, I can't just get there in 15 minutes or an hour.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta get on a plane and I gotta fly seven hours.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like the close, the the soonest I can be door to door is within 10 hours.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a lot of feeling right there.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I found myself like going, I need new golf clubs.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: I need new golf clubs.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Eric, I don't even really golf.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm but like I am like knee deep at a golf store, and I'm like on the verge of buying new golf clubs, and I I have this moment as I'm like practicing, and this guy's like, Oh, let's talk about your swing here.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think this club face would be great for you.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I am at the point of like, and I have this moment, and it's literally like as if Genesis 3 again, God says to the man and the woman that are hiding, where are you?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I was oh I'm doing it again.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this is this is five years after the thing beneath the thing came out.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am still having to wrestle with running back to cope for a feeling, and I don't feel shame about it, but I had to look and go, hey, thanks so much for um I do think I do need these golf clubs.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't think I need them this way.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Don't need them today.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and I walked out and it just was a learning lesson.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: But three years ago, eight years ago, twelve years ago, I would have I would have bought that.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: 15 years ago, I would have put it on a credit card.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and and I just didn't know.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: It just was my responsive reaction to go to soothe that thing, right?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and here's here's how I think about it, Steve.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like um, because I know again, uh we might think about what you're talking about as like a self-help architecture, but actually if you go to like Psalm 139, yeah, David says, um, search me, know my heart, see if there's anything offensive in me.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the process of awareness is certainly, you know, like your ability to be in a moment.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm still learning this, you know.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I laugh because you're like, you used yourself as the person in the amygdala hijack.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, is like, it was more times than not when we were working together.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was me that was like, like, what the heck, you know, like my brain felt like it was exploding.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: But but it is a formation thing.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: This whole process of being able to stop and go, okay, God, um, can you help me see, or can you help remind me of what this thing really is?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, I'm safe.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in danger, right?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm okay.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can you search my heart?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think um, and it it's not um not based in shame.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh honestly, based in um refusing to just level off the pothole, right?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: To just fill it with something that will sort of soothe it over or smooth it over.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that is work though.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because dude, uh trust me, this the journey back to who God made me to be.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sin has complicated it.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's work.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is work to find yourself in a moment at a golf store and you have them in your hands and you can feel it, you can feel the release, and to be able to say, oh man, God searched my heart right now.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that buying the golf clubs is bad.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'll probably come back at a different time, like you said.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that I'm doing this um to fill something else.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, dude, that's huge.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's such an important part.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is formation uh to step into that.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: What's so incredible though is when you can start to have that conversation with God, and and I just I remember like walking back to my car, and I just sat in my car, and I was like, uh, thanks be to God, Lord.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I didn't do that in the way that I was about to do it.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: What's this really what's really going on?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I just was like, I don't want Emerson to go my son's Emerson.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I know he needs to.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and then what I'll often call um you know, like this, it's a it's a it's an invitation for something deeper.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's this invitation to go deeper with God, and I go, God, you had your you let your son go.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how'd you do it?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you think about that, Jesus sees at the right hand of the Father, and Jesus leaves at the right hand of the Father, and and God lets him, God like lets him go through some of the most beautiful moments and horrific moments, and I'm like, how did you do that, God?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not like I heard like some audible answer, but the fact that I could like begin to have this invitation to realize God, you know how this feels.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: So teach me um how to let my son go, but teach me how to deal with my powerlessness in this.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And bro, that that's so huge.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as I've been on this journey, the thing I keep trying to remind myself is is that um, because I think sometimes it starts with I don't know, you wake up and you see a reaction and you become aware of it.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh dude, I don't, I don't want to do that.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: But but here's what I keep reminding myself that God is not trying to fix my reaction, he's actually trying to reach what my reaction is protecting.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because when, you know what I'm saying, that's what he's trying to do.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you say firefighter, that's what it is.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: My reaction is trying to protect something, and what God's really trying to do is reach down and um heal what I've been protecting.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and you said it, you said it just a few moments ago, and um and you'll only allow God to reach that place if you truly believe both you and your your nervous system feel safe, but more importantly, that you feel safe before God.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's in that safety, like oh God, God actually wants the best for me.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: God actually wants me to be whole and holy and spiritually healthy.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes with the way that we heard to be holy, was like, I just gotta like, I just gotta do better.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't do that.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Be perfect, stop doing that, be perfect, but the perfect but to be holy is actually.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: To invite God into those potholes.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's in that place where it's like, I of course I don't have it all together.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I'm not Christ.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not God.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: I of course.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the first person who's ever lived in this skin.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the first person who's ever walked this earth with everything that I've had to experience.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um from growing up in California, in the time I did, in the house I did, with the parents I did.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the only one.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like stop putting so much pressure on trying to have it all together and be holy.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: But man, inviting God into that, um, and what you're protecting, that's it's you know, it's learning the the beauty of vulnerability to be like, of course I wouldn't know.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Of course I would self-soothe here, of course.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: This would be my reaction.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: I tell this to my kids all the time.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just say back to them, hey, does it make sense that that would be your response?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, yeah.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why do you why does it make sense to you?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was feeling this makes sense to me now, it makes sense that that would be a like a normal reaction.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: But let's ask ourselves this do you think I'd like the healthiest, most like not even just God honoring, but like you honoring like because if it's god honoring it's gonna be you honoring, but yeah, um like you do you think and they're like no, like what would be different and just beginning to have that conversation?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was not a conversation I was having at my dinner table.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: That was not a map that someone was giving me.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, um, and and please listener, like, no, I'm not like some awesome parent.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I am stumbling, tripping, following my way through this.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: But man, there are these moments when all of a sudden you're I'm able to take these little moments, give them to our kids, and I just sit there and go, gosh, that was like two years of therapy and spiritual director and meeting with mentors to get to that point.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was 39, and there's she's 13.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she's gonna be so much farther along.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: So is it formational?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but it's retraining the brain and reframing the trauma or the wound to not be permission to escape, but an invitation to vulnerability between before a safe and holy God.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, dude, the conversation around your book that we're gonna jump into uh over the next few episodes is gonna be so rich.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know listeners already uh feel this.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the thing I want to leave them with is just this idea that it is a it is a journey to become whole E.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whole E.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the journey.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Orperg said it this way it is a journey back to the person that God thought of when he thought you up.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like that person.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's possible.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's work.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, it will be um it will be harder than others.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: We all have different puzzles, right?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Different triggers, um, different wounds, but there is a path towards being whole E.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I am I'm super, dude, for real, um from someone who has read your book um and read it in a time when I needed it, as well as someone who has gone on a journey of um IFS and understanding internal family systems and really a journey to understand why I do some of the things that I do.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like your book is truly a gift.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so for listeners, if you haven't grabbed the thing beneath the thing, like I gotta tell you, no matter where you find yourself on your formation journey or mental health journey, for me it's a must read.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like it is a must read because um I think it starts to give you a sense of hope.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, transformation is possible.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I love what uh Dr.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Harvard Powers said um a few episodes ago when he talked about the crucible and transformation, that um through these hard journeys, that's where we're transformed.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the transformation is from a caterpillar to a butterfly.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's true transformation.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think your book is such like such a cool tool in that.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um excited to keep jumping in.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, bro.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's gonna do it for today.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: If something landed for you in this conversation, don't just let it sit.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Take it with you.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Carry it into your week, talk about it with someone, let it do something in you.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go deeper, click on the link in the show notes.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back soon with more.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: So until then, keep rearranging, keep following.