The Place We Find Ourselves

What is our calling with regard to forgiving those who have harmed us? If forgiveness doesn’t require forgetting, what does it require? And how do I know if I’ve forgiven someone for harming me? Thes…

What does it mean to forgive? Today, Robyn and I talk about what forgiveness is NOT. In particular, we discuss the very problematic notion of “forgive and forget.” Does forgiveness really entail “for…

In today’s episode I talk with KJ Ramsey about how her suffering has forced her to rely on other people for help. There are times when our suffering puts us on the floor—either literally or metaphori…

Often the place we find ourselves is a place of desert, of wilderness, of valley. Indeed these are places of death. And they are real and they are part of the process of healing. But they are not the…

Last week we talked about Cathy Loerzel’s U-diagram and about the importance of engaging particular scenes of heartache and harm in order for healing to begin to take place for you. Today we continue…

In this week’s episode, we begin a three part series on the subject of healing. What is necessary for healing to begin to occur? There is no way to experience healing apart from taking an honest look…

Autumn reads a story that is a beautiful illustration of what it can look like to engage a parent who has done harm. This story is from a very recent time in Autumn’s life when she found herself cari…

In the near future, I am going to address how healing happens in the brain. But there is a prerequisite to healing, there is something that you have to be growing in if you are going to experience he…

Laurie tells us how and why she began to engage her story at a deeper level. She then shares a story from when she was 12 years old. It’s a story in which her sense of innocence, beauty, and hope wer…

“Affect” refers to your moment by moment experience of your internal bodily sensations. Think of affect on a scale of 1-10, where 1 represents completely numb and shut down and 10 represents panic, r…

Jason reflects on why he began engaging his story and what that process looked like for him. Jason began addressing his story as part of a story group... but (surprising twist) his father just happen…

Hope is flat out agonizing. Hope requires that you groan inwardly while, at the same time, waiting expectantly. The alternatives to hope are a deadening of desire and a growing cynicism about what yo…

In my second conversation with Andrew Bauman, we engage the whole question of “What does it mean to actually grieve?” If you enjoy my conversation with Andrew, you may want to either pickup a copy of…

If you take your story and your wounds seriously, then sooner or later you will find yourself disoriented by tragedy and heartache. The invitation at this point is to lament. When was the last time y…

One of the consequences of trauma is that we tend to do great harm to ourselves—and particularly to our bodies—after the trauma. Today, Andrew talks about the reality of self-contempt and the damage …

In today’s episode, I talk to a fellow therapist named Scott. Scott leads groups for men who have a history of sexual abuse. Today, Scott talks about part of what it looked like for him to engage his…

In today’s show we take a deeper look at how our hearts have been wounded and what the path to healing looks like. Guided by Isaiah 61, we see how our wounding is linked to the particular ways that w…

One of the byproducts of trauma is that you lose a sense of being able to trust your body. You begin to distrust your gut knowledge of what is true because the people around you question your reality…

When it comes to how and why you react to things the way you do, nothing is more important than implicit memory. Do you ever feel intense emotion that you know is “more than the situation calls for”?…