59. The Good Hard Work of the Heart w/Sam Eldredge

E59 SUMMARY

Sam Eldredge is the Founder and Director of Noble Workshops, a wonderfully effective intensive on-site healing workshop that helps hurting people experience holistic care that encompasses mind, body, heart, and spirit. Jay recently attended Noble and it was life-changing and beautiful.

 

Sam and host Jay Heck explore the multifaceted, courageous journey of healing and sonship. They discuss the significance of creating safe spaces for vulnerability and connection, particularly in group settings like Noble Workshops and around campfires. The discussion highlights and celebrates the courage required to seek help and the transformative power of emotional connection in personal growth. Sam shares insights on facilitating healing in community, encouraging listeners to embrace their stories and the healing process, adding practical tips on how men and women could listen better and minister healing more effectively around environments like campfires. It's a great discussion we hope you come out better for hearing.

 

TAKEAWAYS

• Holistic care involves addressing mind, body, heart, and spirit.
• Sonship is a journey of receiving God's love and healing.
• Creating safe spaces is essential for vulnerability and healing.
• You don't have to solve others' problems; just being present is enough.
• Noble Workshops provide a structured environment for healing.
• Emotional connection is crucial for personal growth.
• Investing in your healing journey is a courageous act.
• It's important to honor each person's story and experience.
• Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
• The process of healing often requires facing uncomfortable truths.

 

CHAPTERS

00:00  Holistic Care: Beyond the Mind

03:54  The Journey of Sonship

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
So we're more than just a brain, more than just behavioral psychology.
You're also a body, you're also a heart, you're also a spirit.
And so how do we not neglect any of those aspects?
In fact, how do we address some of those carefully and kindly to bring about what I wouldsay is true holistic care?

(00:31):
Sons, hey, welcome back to the Being Sons podcast.
My name is Jay and it's my joy and pleasure to host conversations about sonship and finduh people who have things to share that would encourage us, vessels through which God can
offer His love and His brotherhood and His fathering and His mothering to us, which issomething that we all need.

(00:58):
uh Me.
for sure, 53 years old, still in desperate need of all of the ways that God offerssalvation.
And I am so pleased to have a guest here that many of you are probably familiar with.
His name is Sam Eldredge, and he has recently played a very important role in my life.

(01:21):
I've known about him from a distance, met him on a couple of occasions.
But uh God, in His abundance and in His kindness, allowed me to sit under His leadershipand enjoy some healing that I've been praying for for many years.
And so it's my joy and with great thankfulness, Sam, that I want to welcome you to theBeing Sons podcast.

(01:43):
Thank you, Jay.
It's an honor to be here.
I've been looking forward to this conversation.
So thank you for the kind words.
And yeah, what a privilege to get to partner with anybody as they pursue healing.
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
uh It's amazing looking back in my story that when my heart began to see what salvationactually was, I was really excited about some things that feel a little bit more rah-rah.

(02:13):
I was very excited about getting my power back, getting my authority back, uh getting atrue name, you know, under...
hearing God say, hey, this is how I feel about you.
And this is the story that you're in.
You're Lord of the Rings, um Star Wars, Walter Mitty.
um Like you have a story like those.

(02:34):
So come on, let's go, let's go, let's go.
And then it gets to the part where you're having to do some of the internal work, whereyou're being invited to do the internal work.
And a lot of the initial excitement becomes...
hard.
uh
I you could just hear the way the sentence went there.

(02:56):
It was energy and excitement.
I'm like, yes, where's my lightsaber?
Where's my starship?
Where's the battle?
And then the words start to slow down.
because we're not quite sure how to take the next step.
Right.
Yes, yes.
And it's a privilege to have people who uh can very tenderly and very kindly help us takethe next step because what I have found is that once we get to that part in our journey as

(03:27):
sons, we tend to have a lot of contempt, a lot of things arise in us that are the oppositeof the kindness that we first felt.
uh And we need, we need guides, we need counselors.
And what a joy to be able to participate in the full work of redemption with God,especially when it comes to this hard stuff.

(03:49):
And Sam, that's something that I have seen you uh become here.
What I wanted to start off with, this is the first question, because this podcast isreally focused on
looking at everything through the lens of sonship.
This is how I would say it, sons, we are being sons, a tribe of sons growing in theprocess of receiving God's full salvation, learning how to come home in every way that a

(04:21):
man can come home to God as their father.
That means to become free to love God, to love ourselves, and to live life to the full.
And there's a lot of internal work that's required in order for us to come to that place.
So, just so you know the audience that you're speaking to, um sons, how do we actuallylive outside of the cute metaphor of sons and more into the practicality of it and into

(04:47):
the reality of our positions as sons in the kingdom?
And so, with that as the backdrop, I want to ask you this first question.
As one of God's sons, working in partnership with Him, Sam, how would you describe the waythat you bear
your Father's image, His heart in the world.

(05:11):
It's a generous and beautiful question, Jay.
It tees me up to go, uh I look at how our design is.
I look at what the example we were given in Christ is.
I look at the creativity.

(05:33):
And my mind goes in several different directions.
So thank you for just the.
oh
springboard of the question.
I look at my work at present, I'd say it's defined by a couple of pieces.
It's defined by creativity.
It's defined by healing and redemption.
And it's defined by a lot of mystery.

(05:56):
And those pieces feel increasingly possible as someone who doesn't exist in a vacuum.
as someone who's not trying to reinvent the wheel, as someone who's not trying to juststruggle their way up.
But like the more that I've been able to walk in uh seeing that as an inheritance and asactually part of like this great spiritual family mission, come to heal the brokenhearted

(06:25):
and set the captives free as Christ declared over himself and to go, okay, what I get tosee myself doing in that redemptive.
for people's stories, for ways that we have felt stuck or trapped or harmed, the ways thatwe have felt unable to love or unable to take the next step.

(06:46):
Like what we're doing is we're engaging a little bit of the healing work while alsoengaging some creativity in terms of how we get there.
And I'd love to touch more on that later, but then there's this mysterious element that...
uh
I want to say one of the things that probably the biggest thing for me was I didn't wantto have the conversations at first internally.

(07:14):
I didn't want to be curious.
I didn't want to ask the friend the hard question, are you doing okay?
Or have you felt low?
Have you thought of hurting yourself?
Or you've been in a dark season, but like those types of questions that that sort oftheme, because I felt like if I asked them and they said, no, I'm not doing.
that somehow is now my responsibility to solve it.

(07:37):
I needed to be able to fix whatever they were interacting with.
And so instead what I would choose is to disabandon them by not asking the question.
I wouldn't ask myself the question.
I wouldn't ask other people the question because there was this looming, if you ask, thenyou need to be able to fix.
Irvin Yellam writes in his book, The Gift of Therapy, that we don't need to be able tosolve the thing.

(08:01):
We need to let the other person stand shoulder to shoulder facing it together.
And it's this invitation to ask the question.
As a son, who doesn't have to figure everything out, who will be told the next step,asking questions like that gets so much easier.
Hmm.
So there's my tee up for the, I didn't have that, the world, whether I was a surgeon, amechanic, a therapist, a roofer, um the pressure becomes uh perform, get it right, do a

(08:39):
really good, don't slip up, don't have any questions, or else you lose everything, ortruly.
Talk about the other side of the.
How do you maintain that?
Like, my gosh, I could do like two roofs that way before the stress of being the perfectroofer, the perfect therapist would just, I think, cause my knees to buckle and it'd hard

(09:04):
to keep.
I identify with that so much.
We want to be in environments with other people where we're growing and we're hearingstories, but the complexity, the trauma, it gets really overwhelming.
And to the degree that we feel like it's up to us to help somebody, you know, pass throughthat birth canal and become a new version of themselves, it can be terrifying.

(09:31):
Right.
Right?
What do we say?
What do we do?
How do we do it?
if people, if this is the one takeaway from our conversation for your listeners, I wouldhope that it's you don't have to know the next step.
You don't have to solve it.
But don't abandon any other person to face it alone.

(09:51):
Mm.
You just being with them is a phenomenal gift.
I want to come back to that for sure.
uh Here's the goal.
I hope this is where we get to go in our amount of time here.
um I have something that I want to uh say to you that I just felt really compelled to sayto you.

(10:14):
And then I want to ask you about Noble and uh discuss with you your heart behind it, whatI got to experience at Noble with you here recently.
And then most of the men that I'm around have got, well, all of them could benefit fromhealing work.

(10:40):
I I pray that everybody is able to, at some point somewhere, find God's provision for themto find the deep healing that He offers that Jesus came to bring us.
It's very common for me to be around a campfire with other men.
and I've been doing it for a decade now, and I know that there are many, many men wholisten to this, many men around the world who are gathering around campfires.

(11:03):
um You do extremely well in the environment that I saw at helping coach us to know what todo and how to hold each other's stories in pain.
So one of the things that I would like for God to bring through you to us is some wisdomhow we might in this simple environment gathering around a fire.

(11:25):
know how to better.
carry that space, right?
So it's not near the complexity or the invitation.
It's not a five day thing.
It's like, we've got three hours to hold some space to do something wonderful.
And I've seen God do amazing things, but I want to invite you based on what you arelearning, what you have learned to help give us some counsel on that space.

(11:50):
So if we were able to get through all of that in the course of the 60 minute podcast, wellthen come on, let's do it.
Well, so let's play ping pong with it, Jay.
um How have you seen it go wrong?
ah Well, I've seen it go wrong.
uh And that's why we've created some rules around it to try and keep it from going wrong.

(12:17):
uh I think probably the most discouraging and dishonoring thing is that when men begin toshare their story, they're not honored.
Their story, their heart is not honored in some way.
So either they're interrupted, um somebody offers a comparative story.
um Somebody offers a lesson.

(12:37):
Somebody refers to a sermon, a teaching that somebody else shared, know, something thatthey read, right?
So they're offering head knowledge instead of uh even being curious because they'veprobably never received what they most need, instead of being curious about what does this
man actually need in telling a story?
Why does he have the courage to tell a story?

(13:00):
And then how might I...
partner with God to either say something or to not say something that will help this mantake the next step toward healing.
So speaking too quickly, not knowing exactly how to respond, and not honoring.

(13:22):
It's also difficult to give men no...
guidance on how to share their story so that one story actually becomes ten stories thatare all tangential and they start off with a heart to get to the point of this story
because they know this is the thing but what happens is they end up telling six or sevendifferent stories and it's their way of it's probably their way of subconsciously avoiding

(13:53):
coming to the hard hard thing and what they really need is for somebody to ask a reallybrilliant question.
to really help them come back on center.
So I mean, there's just a couple of things.
pretty big things, right?
I think most of us have been on the receiving end of the, I'm sharing this hard element onmy story.

(14:14):
Then somebody comes in, we have terminology for it, but it's a form of bypassing would bethe language I would uh use, which is that skipping the process to get to the right
answer.
And it's looking for a shortcut for a variety of reasons.
I think I've seen that from

(14:36):
Folks who are uncomfortable with the unsolved, who feel responsible perhaps like Imentioned earlier with like the, I ask the question and it goes poorly, do I then need to,
I have to put them back together?
I don't know how to put them back together.
another mess and I'm uncomfortable.
There's a level of our own codependency where it's our job to make sure everybody elsestays okay.

(15:00):
and that they're not okay, then we're not okay.
And their stuff actually activates their own work.
There's so many ways this goes, And yes, we've created a lot of rules and handrails tohelp because at Noblewood, as you experienced, we're doing this in a group.
We're doing this in a communal setting that's terrifying.

(15:20):
Because to be alone with a therapist and go into your own work, having done thispersonally many times, that feels like...
being asked to strip down and show the mole on my left cheek and be like, it kind of lookslike George Washington, but is it cancer?
I don't And it's humiliating.
It's embarrassing.

(15:40):
But to then do that in a room full of strangers that you've just met, it's like, why haveyou taken this up times six?
And therefore, how do we create an environment that's safe and actually amplifies thehealing?
rather than makes this into sort of like a children's birthday party with the pinata inthe middle of the room and everybody else taking turns trying to bust open to get the

(16:08):
candy out.
Sure hope it's not Tootsie Rolls, those are always disappointing.
Anyways, I always get so hard.
Don't lie, lots of thoughts on that, Jay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I, it's pretty common for, you know, a host to ask a guest, Hey, tell us your story.

(16:32):
How'd you get here?
But in printing about that, uh what I felt led to do is I would like to just share withall of you listening Sam's story as I see it, you know, from a distance through a window.
uh
So Sam, here's your story from my perspective, and I will be filled in more and more uh asour relationship grows, whatever God has for us.

(17:02):
2001, I read your dad's book, Wild at Heart.
There are stories of you in that book.
And I remember God used those stories to help me understand my childhood more.
And of course, I'm asking the question, well, who is this kid?

(17:22):
How is he going to turn out?
know, so that's 2001.
And then I remember hearing Morgan uh Snyder, another guy that God's used, tell storiesabout you.
And then uh and then it was, let's see, several years later.

(17:47):
I met you at, it was 2015, I think you went to a Become Good Soil intensive and you and Isat by the keg and talked about ramen, noodles, and you were young.
Like, I'm not even sure it was legal for you to have the beer in your hand.
An intensive bear trap?

(18:09):
I would, I mean, I looked young, but yeah, I would have been 24, 25.
Okay, well I was feeling really old, so by comparison, you probably just looked reallyyoung.
Several years ago, I started calling people in their 30s kids.
I mean, I never thought that would happen,
perspective changes, right?
I was a child at 24.

(18:30):
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, ah I enjoyed that conversation, but it wasn't really anything meaningful.
And I remember thinking to myself, this is a sensitive thing to talk to the son of yourhero, because you don't want to make it about his dad, know, all this.
just seeing you there as a young man, I was just really happy.
You're there.
You're on your journey.

(18:50):
I pray that God does wonderful things in this young man and that all the things that couldbenefit him from being the son of
of John Eldredge will benefit him and then all of the things that will become obstacles tohim will be something that God lovingly, powerfully helps him walk through.
Very unique, very unique story.

(19:11):
And I remember just feeling for you and praying for you going, God, allow him to have hisown unique story and glory.
uh So 2016, forgive me if I got any of these dates wrong, but you co-authored KillingLines?
with your dad, John.
And my son was in high school at the time and he probably was not ready for it.

(19:36):
But we were on a journey of learning how to be sons together and he saw this book in myarsenal and he began to read it.
And that turned him on to a podcast that he, think he's listened to everything, everysingle episode of that podcast.
ah He has devoured your magazine multiple times.

(19:56):
He still sends me
episodes, his favorite episodes from And Sons, dad, you don't know about this?
Well, let me tell you, here's their perspective uh from this podcast.
When my son was 18 years old, and we're looking at colleges, he had a lot of fear, he hada lot of concerns, and we're driving.

(20:18):
And I said, well, why don't we just call and see if Sam Eldredge would be willing to talkto you, this guy who's been authoring all of these articles and has been a hero of yours.
I know God works in beautiful ways and I knew that you were going to be probably anabsolute, you were an absolute hero to him.
So I called, you answered the phone, you graciously gave us about an hour, you gave ussome swag on the way out and my son felt like he had heard from the wisest man that he

(20:44):
needed to hear from in the world.
that was huge for my son.
And it really did help us navigate his journey of where to go after
high school and he's had a great experience and he continues and he's going to be reallyexcited.
Hey Baer, say hi to Bear if you wouldn't mind Sam.

(21:06):
Hey Baer, it's been too long.
Hope you're doing well.
Enjoy that buddy.
uh then I've heard you speak at some Wild at Heart events.
I've heard you be on podcasts.
You've been in the presence of Wild at Heart, this kingdom that God and your dad have kindof built together.
uh But a couple of months ago, I sat in a chair with like 22 other people and uh thesepeople were stuck like me.

(21:37):
They were in need.
like me.
And I saw you, Sam, leading with strength.
You're clearly your father's son, but you have your own sense of humor.
You have your own speaking style.
You have your own way of creatively communicating things that looked so different thanyour father.

(21:58):
And I was deeply encouraged in my own calling as a father.
I'm actually reading this because I wrote this.
I'm deeply encouraged in my own calling as a father to see
that you had left home and become your own man.
And this morning I was chuckling at the observation that your father, great man that heis, father figure to me and to so many, was used by God to get me on the path to sonship,

(22:20):
to healing and salvation.
But it's you, John's son, that I needed to help lead me skillfully and take me to the nextsteps in my own journey.
And what I saw
reminded me of the scene in A River Runs Through It when the father and his two sons,Norman and Paul, have left home and they've come back for a visit and they went fishing
again with their dad.

(22:41):
And it's the highlight of the whole movie where Brad Pitt, who is Paul, has learned tobecome an excellent fisherman and his brother and his father have sat back.
And I remember sitting in the room with you in the very first session and thinking, myGod, Sam is his own man.
He is, he is,

(23:01):
being used powerfully and uh he has found his way of expressing himself in the world and Iam so glad to be sitting under his wisdom and under his care.
And I felt extremely safe the whole week and uh I just want to celebrate.
That's your story as I see it and I know that there's so much more to it.

(23:26):
But yeah.
you're another person that I want to continue learning from and growing with.
So anyway, that's
Jay, thank you.
You have most guests share their story and here you shared mine and in such an honoringway.
I'm blessed by it.
So thank you.
Wow.
Yeah.

(23:49):
Does that feel accurate?
Am I off on any of that?
Why are they beautiful?
Tell me, thank you.
No, doesn't, I don't know how I'd say.
Yo, you're off.
I haven't become my own man.
I just, yeah, enjoying receiving it.

(24:11):
em And yeah, those twists and turns and the ramen at Morgan's Intensive, the years, decadewith Ann Sons and loved the moment with you and Bear as you were passing through.
And yeah, it's a fun culmination of like, and here you are here to get to see these littleconstellations.

(24:32):
I think it's Sturz and Mejai, I wonder what the next pinpoint will be.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you were there.
uh You let off the very first session.
You are the founder of Noble Workshops, which I'm about to ask you to help everybodyunderstand what that is.
And uh you were with an amazing team.

(24:56):
I mean, an amazing team of people who very tenderly, skillfully helped us become curiousabout our stories and find
uh, some
freedom from ways that we were stuck.
You know, there were keys that were offered to us that we had to hold in our hand and wehad to partner with God to stick it in the lock, the rusty lock, and turn the key and then

(25:23):
actually leave the chains there and walk away.
You've also got a podcast that I really enjoy.
So there's a lot of wisdom that you are bringing to the world right now.
So that said,
uh I enjoyed Noble Workshop, so would you just tell us from your perspective, is it?
are you doing in the world right now?

(25:45):
Yeah, yeah.
The way I think in this context, that's the most helpful understanding of NILA workshopsis um when do we need the surgery to address the wound?
um When is it the right time to pull back from our worlds for five days and

(26:15):
take the time to go after some of the deeper work in a intensive format.
So the workshop model, I wanted to answer that question and address all of the facets thatmake us up.
So we're more than just a brain, more than just behavioral psychology.

(26:35):
You're also a body, you're also a heart, you're also a spirit.
And so how do we...
not neglect any of those aspects.
In fact, how do we address some of those carefully um and kindly to bring about what Iwould say is true holistic care?
I think if we're neglecting one of those portions, we're actually not doing baseline care.

(27:00):
um We're getting access to an important area.
I've benefited from physical therapy and from.
some chiropractic, a naturopath, and uh an ex-personal trainer, like those kind ofsnippets in the past.
I've taken the body and the body often ends up being a doorway into trauma.

(27:21):
Case in point, Bessel van der Kokes, the body keeps the score.
There's a lot of research around sometimes that nausea in your gut actually isn't justnausea.
That may actually be a story waiting for you to slow down enough to hear it.
I've done enough personal therapy and talk therapy that I know that the mind matters.

(27:43):
I know that that's true, but why is it, whenever we've stayed up here in the head and notmade what we call the eight teenage journey down to the heart and into behavior and into
really embodying it.
so trying to answer that with two decades of getting to go to the mountains, these eventsthat my father had been putting on, being a part of them on the team.

(28:07):
watching them as a little boy, seeing what just beauty alone will heal and going, how do Iintegrate all of these different pieces?
I think this is one of the questions I ended up asking myself along the way was, I've beengiven all these different pieces of my story, as have you, Jay.
And there's this moment where you go, now, what do I build with this?

(28:30):
There's no Lego manual.
That would be kind of nice sometimes to be like, oh, this is actually
a forerunner, I had no idea.
It looked like it was a bunch of just yellow bricks.
For me, eventually it became this, oh, this is obviously, I had an attendee ask me lastyear, Sam, how long did this take you to make?

(28:50):
And I was like, in some ways, 20 years.
In other ways, 20 minutes.
Both are true.
just kind of, so Noble Workshops is four nights, five days of group.
experiential.
therapy meets uh healing.

(29:16):
You don't need to have a diagnosis to be sitting in one of those chairs.
That's actually not even truly, if the need is like highly medical, we're gonna look toget you somewhere where the care is slightly different.
We're not an addiction recovery from a substance.
We're after wholeheartedness and taking that really seriously.

(29:38):
And so Jay, on any given day, let's just take a snapshot on like, maybe like Wednesday.
Wednesday, you're gonna come into the room.
There's gonna be a poem with a beautiful design waiting that's specific to that day.
um A lovely woman is gonna come and do 30 minutes of guided stretching and breath work,reading a blessing and benediction over soft music plays in a warm towel with eucalyptus

(30:06):
is passed around.
And then we move that that's all resourcing.
That's all bringing you back into the present.
That's all you reminding yourself.
You have a body.
I could go into the neuroscience of it.
It's functionally EMDR bilateral stimulation, bringing yourself online, but you don't needto know all that to, slow down and pay attention.
My body, I've been moving too fast through my own life.

(30:29):
Now my soul has come to catch me up and be at one place in time into some teaching.
know, Wednesday, Stacia does her talk on internal family systems.
There's a framework of how we have learned to protect ourselves.
And then the group's invited by invitation, not obligation, to connect and share withmaybe one of the ways these roles has played out in their life.

(30:55):
And just picking up a card off the floor and holding it and standing there in a room fullof, at that point, yeah, 25, 30 people is vulnerable, brave.
act to go, I know what it's like to carry this message.
I can stand here and just hold it to my chest and connect with that place.

(31:18):
Into several hours of guided, contained, experiential, and by that I mean um we're notjust talking, we're moving, we're enrolling people from your life, people from your story
into the therapeutic work.
I think on my Wednesday, we were still doing some pieces of Family of Origin and thenshifting into some pieces about the present and touching on how has your past shaped you

(31:48):
and how are you living out today in a way that isn't true to who you were meant to be,isn't true to how you long to be and how might you use tools of compassion and grief.
and honesty to draw closer to that place.

(32:10):
Okay, so some of what you're describing um is terrifying to the people who are listening.
m
sounds like a fire hose for most folks, right?
yeah.
What is there a belt for this roller coaster ride?
I hope so.
That sounded like a loop de loop.
Is there another way?
Come on, come on.
I don't want to go through all of that, you know.

(32:32):
I have been there.
I was once a pastor at a church.
We went to a retreat for the faculty and somebody came to help us do heart work.
And I was so pissed.
Like, I wanted to go play golf, you know, with some of the people and they were invitingme to do heart work and I was shocked by how terrified.

(32:55):
I was and how revolted I was that anybody would think that I needed to do any of that.
And yet...
I don't even know how many years later this is.
Holy smoke, that was around 2000.
We're talking like 27 years later and I have finally said, okay, I'm ready.

(33:16):
Let's go.
Let's do it.
Um, so
I can totally appreciate for you sons out there who are saying if there is a way to livethe life to the full that Jesus is inviting us into, but that it will not require me to do

(33:37):
some vulnerable things and to look at pieces of my story and to invite other people to seeit.
I don't know of a way to do that.
So I just want to prepare you guys that...
as you continue to search for deeper healing, you're probably going to become morecomfortable with the fact that you're going to need something that feels very extreme and

(34:01):
scary.
And God is going to take you by the hand and he's going to take you by the heart and he'sgoing to make you aware of that.
So with that being said, um like who do you find comes to this?
Like what's the demographic?
Like where do you have to be to
to want to come to Noble and to receive what can be received from the experience.

(34:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's such a kind word to your audience as well, like uh brothers, fellowsons, friends.
The answer is connected to what you are offered to them.
The folks that come are those who, um for many of them, the sufferers, there's been enoughsuffering.

(34:52):
to admit the tools I'm trying aren't going to work anymore.
And by tools, I mean for some folks that has been chemical addiction to drugs and alcohol,pornography.
For others, that has been the drug of performance and people pleasing.

(35:14):
uh For others, the drug has just been simply
dissociation and Netflix.
And for others, it's the spiritual bypassing of the correct spiritual answer.

(35:34):
as does that somehow, like, just makes everything go away.
To folks like that, I would actually invite the story that we're recording this here inHoly Week and Lazarus Sunday was this past Sunday.
I would look at the story of Lazarus, of Christ is on His way in that story.
He's already announced to His disciples, you're going to see my glory through this.

(35:54):
He's on His way to resurrect Lazarus.
And yet He takes the time to be impacted by the sisters and the loss and He weeps.
There's a sentence dedicated for just Jesus wept.
He does not skip the process to get to the right answer to make all the pain go away.
Majus is back.
You guys don't need to cry.
You don't need to feel sad.

(36:15):
Ta-da.
Rabbit is out of the hat.
We are given the example that the process is actually the way through.
So the kind of folks that come to these events, you have to be 18 just because of themature nature of some of the stories that are shared.
But we've had men and women.
uh single, married, divorced, widowed, um from 18, I think our oldest attendee at thispoint was 79.

(36:44):
um And I also want to name the thing that different attendees take away, it's gonna lookdifferent for each person.
Because for some,
There's going to be this lens of perspective.
There's going to be this, I now have language for my internal world.

(37:08):
For others, it's going to be the dignity of putting the stage of what their family lifewas like when their child hit home and sitting with the honesty of the messages they
received from mom and dad, whether they were explicitly said or implicitly felt.
And just getting to embody that and connect with their younger self in that moment has tobe a takeaway.

(37:30):
For others,
There will be this moment of that two to 10 degree shift of I can see a way out of whatfelt like the endless loop.
I now have another option in my behavior, in my thought life, in my heart life.
My hope is that we get each a piece of all of those things.

(37:53):
But there's also this like that if you got one and not the other that wasn't wrong, thatwas the thing you needed at the time.
That was the next step.
May we be willing to take it and to own what's ours.
And it all demands courage.

(38:13):
I would say that probably most of the people who arrive at a noble workshop, uh they'veprobably tried a lot of other Christian things.
uh The precious group uh that I was with, hey guys, I'm going to send you this podcast.
it's over, I'm sure you'll enjoy listening to it.

(38:36):
But those other precious people in my group, uh many of them had tried so many differentmodalities, you know, and all of them had brought some benefit.
I know for me personally, when I went to a wild heart, one, just understanding that I wasin a story with two kingdoms that were at war with one another, enormous for me.

(38:58):
um As a man who felt
that I didn't have power.
ah Just the dignity of being told you can actually operate and you can say no to thesepowerful spiritual forces and to begin exercising spiritual warfare.
That was my thing.

(39:19):
That was the sword that I exercised everywhere.
I was a two-year-old given a hammer and the whole world of course looked like a nail atthat point to me when it comes to spiritual warfare.
two, three years of yelling at every spirit that I could even imagine, I got exhausted andI realized, wait, this is actually deeper.

(39:40):
And then I got clarity, you know?
oh, okay, I can see how I was, I didn't get exactly what I needed when I was younger.
Here are needs that went unmet, here are things that people said to me that actually didhave an impact on me.
I've been trying to deny it for a long time.
So my, you know the...
The categories and the tools on my belt just continue to increase and my work belt isgetting heavier and heavier and yet I'm still not finding this life to the full, this joy,

(40:11):
this peace, this freedom that I am able to live in.
uh One of the lies or the agreements that I came into noble workshops with, I hadidentified a long time ago, but it was this lie.
It's not okay.
to be okay.
So the moment in my life that I began feeling like, you know what, the clouds areclearing, the sun is coming out.

(40:36):
That's when I began to get scared.
And whether, know, to what degree I began to manufacture either in my mind or, you know,in the physical world, something else to worry about, for some reason, I felt unsafe when
things were going okay.
And that's the world that I've lived in for a long, long time.
That's the place where I was stuck.

(40:56):
That's what I brought into my home.
Being with a group of people who I didn't know that I was invited to risk being vulnerablewith was exactly what I needed.

(41:17):
And it's also, I just want to say to many of you, um Sonship, a huge part of Sonship andone of the earliest lessons in Sonship, which never goes away, is just, you know, is your
father going to provide for what you need?
So let's just get this out there.
uh
what you offer, Sam at Noble is not cheap.

(41:38):
uh It's an investment.
It's $5,000 to do it.
uh But it's one of those things that we have to face the fear that somehow we have toprovide all of our own security and we have to have money in the bank in case things go
awry because ultimately what we're believing is that it's up to us.

(42:04):
to take care of ourselves.
And so when God doesn't come through, I better have some money in the bank.
And many years ago, God said to me, you know, uh
The wisest thing that you can do is invest in the kingdom and my kingdom lives inside you.
You're not being kind to yourself and you're not trusting me and you're not exercisingwhat I would like for you to exercise as a son.

(42:30):
And that's trust that taking what I have given to you and investing it in the heart and inthe spirit that I have placed inside you is not, it is in fact the wisest thing that you
can possibly do.
And
I have on many occasions had to overcome my deep, deep fear of lack in my life and trustthat God was going to give me something that was going to end up having this collateral

(42:57):
beauty that would spill over into all the people that were most uh important to me.
uh
You know, as a son, we need to be set free of that.
um Calling, looking up noble was something that happened in the moment.
was like a passionate, I am having a conversation with my wife.

(43:19):
It became very apparent that I was in need.
She needed to see me take a bold and courageous step.
And she was like, I don't care what we have or don't have in the bank.
You need to go and you need to address this.
And so
There are moments where what felt like a big expense becomes a very, very tiny expense.

(43:42):
And what God has brought me back to over and over again is He says, I want to ask you,Son, what will be more costly for you to pay for this or for you to not pay for this?
You beat me to the punch, Jay.
That's so good.
You beat me to the punch, right?

(44:03):
He has told me that so many times and not just in terms of therapy, but uh in terms oflike vacations, know, just what will be more costly to not go and have some joy with your
family or, you know, to take some money out.
And every time it's an opportunity for me to see that whatever I need, it's going to endup there when I need it, maybe not a moment before.

(44:32):
So it was worth every penny, Sam.
It was worth every penny.
In fact, as concerned as I was about the money coming out of my account and whether thiswas going to be worth it, while I was there, my wife, who is perfect and has no problems,
she's a fully healed, fully redeemed woman, I thought to myself, she's got to do this.

(44:56):
I don't know how we're going to get the money for two of us to go do this, but
She's going to do it because it's so good.
if you're listening out there, there comes a point where the clouds part and you begin tosee things more clearly.
And there is nothing more precious and more needed in the world than for your heart tobecome healthy.

(45:19):
Everything in your kingdom changes when your heart becomes healthy.
So the question is, God, what is the provision for your
healing for me.
It could be Fight Club, it could be all those modalities.
I would say Noble was not my first stop, but all the previous stops, I have been led tothem.
And it's not that they failed, they were all in preparation for this.

(45:45):
So I'm thankful for every step of the journey, including this one.
It's so good.
I have several pieces rounding around as you share that, Jay.
um One is the story that Stephen Covey shares the end of his Seven Habits book.
He shares the story of the lumberjack just sawing away on the tree and he's not makingmuch progress.

(46:08):
He's just been sawing back and forth, back and forth.
And the observer passes by and says, uh have you thought, can you pause for a minute andstop to sharpen the saw?
And the guy looks at him and just goes, I don't have time.
I don't have time to stop to sharpen the saw.
And I think in that moment, I was connecting with you as you were saying, like, whetherit's the five days away, I don't have time for that.

(46:35):
Whether it's the saying no to picking up a couple of shifts, I don't have the resources tonot work there.
What you're naming is the, you should expect the same results.
Then we're going to go around the loop one more time.

(46:55):
If nothing's going to change.
John Mark Comer has this line in his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.
Every system is perfectly designed to give the results that it gives.
which has a bit of a oomph to it, a little bit of a gut punch of the, if we don't have thetime to say yes to the next piece, whether it's noble or something else, honestly, taking

(47:25):
off two hours of work on Friday a little earlier to go sit in the park and journal andread and be impacted by beauty so that you walk in the door to, whether it's an empty
house.
a quieter house, a full house, whatever life stage you're in, you don't have the time.
You should expect the same results this weekend, unfortunately.

(47:46):
But if you can risk slowing down that saw, even for the two hours, you give theopportunity for something different.
You give the opportunity for that to be sharpened.
And you actually end up creating some of the opportunity for you to do more with what youhave.
Here's this little asterisk.
Very few things affect our telomeres, our DNA, that lengthen them.

(48:10):
They give us more of our own biological self to draw on.
Sleep, mindfulness, connection of our internal world.
So when we slow down and we go, there is a place in me that has been, something you saidright at the beginning was contempt, ah Really, I have to go inward?

(48:33):
There should be, if there can be the curiosity around, do I feel rage at myself forneeding to look under the hood?
You actually bring more of yourself back online in the way that sleep and rest does, at abiological level.
The more you're willing to connect with your heart and with what's under the hood, you'regiving more of yourself back to be present for the rest of your day, like you guys.

(49:01):
I know I'm a biased voice here, but there's just, I hope, whether it's two hours or a weekwith us at Nobel, that there's some off-ramp from the expected familiar pattern.
There's a couple of observations I want to make, um first and foremost to the audience, isthat the idea that men have in growing up that the touchy-feely, the stuff that feels

(49:35):
feminine, let's just say that is mislabeled as feminine when we're kids.
um
The what feels like what we have been taught is immasculine to be in touch with your heartum is a sign of weakness as we get older.
And yet the more, the more we want to be wholehearted, the more we realize that that wholejourney just goes deeper and deeper and deeper into the heart.

(50:05):
cannot, it cannot stop at our epidermis.
It can't start.
It cannot stop.
It cannot be complete by getting the job that you want, the church that you want, thetheology that you want, the reading the books that you want that are best, the podcasts.
At some point, that love of God and the salvation in Jesus' Isaiah 61 message, it has tobe absorbed and it has to go into the system at some point for it to bear fruit on the

(50:36):
outside.
I just want you to hear some men saying the opposite of what others may have said, thatit's an act of great courage as a man to look at your life, to be humble and to say, I
need help and I know that it has to do with my heart.

(50:57):
It's not a sign of weakness.
It's a sign of immense strength.
And it's one of the great joys that I have of working with fathers and sons and fathersand daughters on adventures is that
The guys who come are humble and they're like, okay, something's not right.
I want to change and I know it's me.
I can't expect my nine year old to change.
This is about me changing.

(51:18):
So that's the first observation.
Um, and let's see.
Second, my goodness.
My second observation was really good and I just forgot it.
Hmm.
Yeah, it probably will.
Okay.
Um,
this is the second one.

(51:39):
Last night I'm talking with some of those dads on a Zoom call and all these dads arelamenting, my God, like as I'm learning about sonship, I want them to see their stories
with their fathers because they have to look at their stories first and get some claritybefore they're able to offer anything to these sons that they showed up on these

(52:02):
adventures with, right?
Please, this is not about tips and techniques for your son.
This is about learning the love of God so that you can embody it and then you can actuallyhave something to offer.
It's so available.
And last night we were joking because the dads were like, gosh, just don't know that I,know, what if I mess up?
What if I don't do initiation right with my sons?

(52:24):
What if I don't read the right books?
I mean, it was all about kind of a, what can I absorb so that what comes out of me is whatmy son needs?
And I said, guys, you know what?
I'm just chuckling here because I'm going to be on the phone talking about this stuff withSam Eldredge tomorrow.
How many of you think that Sam Eldredge walked out of uh childhood with no wounds andperfectly prepared for life?

(52:47):
And all of us were like, ha, ha, okay, all right.
All right, so there's no, perfect father, a good father, one of the best fathers on theplanet.
uh
He cannot be the shield for all that the enemy has for us and for stripping us of ourglory and trying to keep us from operating and bearing the image that God gave to each of

(53:13):
us, you know, which we talked about earlier.
um like, you need it.
I'm just saying, hey, friend, brother, I'm telling you, like, you need to take the healingjourney, not just a journey of knowledge, and uh that may lead you to someplace where
it's gonna require a big investment on your part and i just want you to say i'm for youi'm cheering for you

(53:35):
Here's the interesting other side of the coin of your conversation last night, And I feltthis as a dad myself.
Do we inadvertently communicate to our sons if we want to spare them from all harm and allwounding that we don't think they could handle that harm and that wounding when it comes?
That actually for our own sake, we need them to be OK and we need them to never have beenharmed.

(54:01):
Not saying it's true, not saying it happens to all the guys.
But I sat with a few where that has ended up being the unintended, want to do it right,want to do it perfect, so afraid of the harm and the sun has gone.
Is that because I won't be able to handle it when it comes?
Whoa.
oh
Well, that's the breeding ground for anxiety.

(54:22):
Right.
Sometimes in our fear of the thing, we run headlong.
Yeah.
So, gosh, there's so much more I could, I would want to ask you, but in a, and I want togive you the last word here, but in a practical sense, a, to, to, to meet each of us who

(54:47):
are listening in a very practical way, let's talk about campfires.
Okay.
I'm at a campfire.
Let's say there's 10 guys around the campfire and what we want to create in thisenvironment
where men feel safe to tell stories.
Okay, so now as you, as a guy who's been trained in a lot of this, uh if you were tocreate a fire to bring some hope and some healing and some benefit to men, what would you

(55:18):
do?
How would you as a facilitator create that environment and protect that environment sothat on a limited scale, what I experienced at Noble,
could be offered by a layman.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm going to do my best to make it practical on that firehouse.

(55:40):
How's that?
So I initially, the term is containment.
So we're all looking for safety, whether we're consciously aware of it or not, andengaging how much we can be at rest and how much we can be at play based off that safety.
So um

(56:01):
Containment in this context means creating the container within which we can rest Shareour stories trust feel safe and maybe risk something different and risk some healing and
some connection And so you're gonna win by making the containment as clear Both throughwhat you do and what you say as possible if I were to do it um Some of the containment I

(56:27):
would create would be there's a known
rhythm and unknown like, hey guys, what we're doing is this once a week or once a month,this Wednesday night, here's the two hours, this is what we're here for, let's respect
each other's time, be here by this X, um if you're coming.

(56:49):
Great if that doesn't happen for you this week, we've got mercy for you, but um ifsomeone's gonna roll in an hour into somebody's story,
Talk about a way to walk in, give them the nonverbal middle finger and sit down with a bagof chips and tell them, you don't matter and I don't care.

(57:09):
So I would rather someone, if they're gonna be late, mercy, bless you, we'd love to seeyou next time.
But the door metaphorically closes at a certain.
Mm-hmm.
OK.
Next, I would limit the scope at first and I would go first.
And by limit the scope, would mean almost like a zero entry pool.

(57:32):
My neighborhood, we've got that for like the little kids where it's just like the slopeentry for the little kids.
There's no stairs.
You just kind of like go on this gradual into the water.
I would do the same in terms of the story work.
I would go first and I would share in a way can begin with something.
Recent and that would take 30 minutes.

(57:53):
So hey guys like I'd love for you to share a story of what it's been like a win and a lossbeing a dad recently or being a brother or being a son couch in that context and we tell
you the win and I kind of give myself the time and give you the loss and again with thetime respecting like hey guys We're going to leave work.

(58:18):
We're gonna leave
our jobs, our titles at the door, and I just get to be Sam, you just get to be Jay, andwe're gonna honor that I'm gonna take about 30 minutes to tell that part, which we're kind
of focused on.
In that, I would then use that to couch at the close how we respond, how we hold space foreach other.
Because most of us, we're not taught these pieces.

(58:43):
There's different data on nonverbal communication.
Certainly it's more than 70, arguably it's more than 80%.
of all communication is nonverbal.
so as I'm telling and leading in my story, um I invite guys to just to be aware of likehow much eye contact they're making and what their body language is communicating and tell

(59:03):
them at the beginning of my story, what I'd like them to do to at the end is just to saythank you.
That's it.
Thank you, Sam, for what you shared tonight.
um
As opposed to
a wide open forum for responses.
I would literally go, here is your script.

(59:23):
We are going to practice with a script how to do this until it becomes natural to do it indifferent way.
Let me give you another example of ways that this happens.
There's an idea in the Eastern Christian Church of a prayer rule that you have a uhscripted, like the daybreak prayer, like the daybreak prayer, like the You pray that way
like a cast until you've

(59:45):
readjusted to that and you don't need it every time you don't need it anymore you'velearned similar this is true for holding space and communication that phrase holding space
kind of gets I don't know what you guys condensate as reasoning but this is the idea thatgive you the neuroscience on it to interpersonal neurobiology your reaction to somebody

(01:00:09):
else's story is actually going to let their brain
recalibrate to what was appropriate.
Your grimace, where there was something that was hard shared, but they just plowed rightthrough, is gonna cause a hiccup at a cellular and heart level that they go, wait a

(01:00:30):
second, why did Jay just get, it looked like I punched him when I said that thing my dadsaid, but I just cruised right by it.
The group without words will be creating a healing space.
by the correct emotional response.
So then, Jay, over the coming weeks, what I would do is I'd begin to uh loosen the reinson that responses from folks.

(01:00:54):
I'd have, so we got the set time in terms of containment.
We'd have the agreed upon length and scope of the story.
And if someone's going off, there's a timekeeper and like a gentle redirect by you orwhoever's guiding the group of, you hey, Todd.
uh
heads up you got 10 minutes left and we're just going to honor that space tonight.
I know you don't feel like you've gotten everything said but that's what we've got spacefor and that lets them go okay yeah I'll do that.

(01:01:19):
In our groups we have rules that we agree to group guidelines that it can be really simpleand one of the two I open with is ask permission to touch and ask permission to offer
tissues.
The ways that are non-verbal tells other people I need you to button it up so that I'mokay.
Yeah, okay, stop right there.

(01:01:40):
Go back.
Touching tissues.
Touching tissues, that's one of the rules that you touch on at the very beginning ofnoble.
Okay, so tell us why that is an essential rule.
Just unpack that a little bit because we don't carry tissues around the campfire.
Right.
But
There's so much wisdom in the rule that can be applied.

(01:02:03):
Yeah, yeah, so the rule is you do not offer tissues when someone clearly needs them, tearsor snot's coming down their face.
You don't offer them, wait for the person to ask.
And you don't offer touch, the hand on the knee, the hand on the shoulder, the hug, ahwhatever the degree of touch, unless there's permission given.

(01:02:29):
The reason why is that non-verbally that communicates to the person, need you to stop.
I need you to stop the tears, stop the snot.
I need you to stop the emotion that needs to come back into.
It looks like soothing.
It looks like, oh, I'm with you in this, know, like that friendly hand on the knee is theguy's head, that hard part.

(01:02:52):
What ends up happening though at a heart level is that it.
the person who has maybe fought quite hard to get access to those tears, to that emotion,experiences it as, oh, right, like this is a lot, I knew this was gonna be too much, folks
are uncomfortable, I need to reel this in and dial it back.

(01:03:13):
If it's agreed upon that those are only gonna be offered when people ask, it actually letsthe person that's maybe the focal sit in it without being abandoned.
Mm.
Because now they can choose to sit in the tiers without asking for people to come close.
But they know everyone that is there has agreed to not move towards them until they'reready.

(01:03:37):
And this frees us from the other thing that can happen if there's not this agreed uponrule where somebody gets tearful and people just kind of stare in silence and don't know
what to say and then that person has to button it up too.
No, no, there's an agreed upon, this is the flow.
We're gonna sit with you in this.
And when you're ready, you can ask.
or somebody can ask you, amen.

(01:03:57):
Can I give you a hug?
And you can say, not right now, actually, or yes, please.
Hey, can we lay hands on you and pray?
No, that's not what's needed, but you can do it from there.
Or yes, come closer.
Like that agency, that choice is such a dignifying act in the work of healing and the workof connection.
This lets us heal and commune.

(01:04:22):
Super valuable, super valuable right there.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
So, okay.
So, and I want you to continue.
So what we're hearing so far is you create space, you lead the way.
Um, you are, you, you are trusting, I say your, your eyes and your body, if you're not theone, if you are a hearer of another person's story,

(01:04:49):
It would be kind on your part to allow yourself to be expressive, you know?
Like it actually helps in the healing to smile at the points in their story that touch onjoy and to show a grimace when their story elicits, when it should elicit pain in them

(01:05:14):
because it communicates that you are tracking with their story, that you are empathetic.
to what's going on in their story.
And then at any point, if there are tears, if emotions are being shed, we in many ways, wehave to treat it like somebody who has...
Let's just say, been stopped up and needed the bathroom for a long, long, long, long, longtime.

(01:05:38):
It's a glorious moment once they can finally let all of that out.
And emotionally, I know that there have been years that have gone by that I wish I couldcry.
And once it's finally coming out, it pisses me off to have somebody say, this thing thatyou've been waiting for for a really long time, I'm kind of ready for you to be over it.

(01:06:02):
Yeah.
You worked for years potentially for that moment, hoping there would be a moment likethis, and somebody nips it off 10 seconds in.
You're like, oh, got it.
couple.
um I would also be really like with the responses I would have had some guidelinesinitially.

(01:06:29):
um And it would be things like we do it noble.
um Something that I connected with about your story.
One thing that struck me and you you want the communal response you don't want to let theperson share their story and then just hang out there for like no thanks Bob.
All right.
I'll see you guys next month.

(01:06:49):
Like that is a setup for like an emotional hangover and an overexposure.
We need to reflect back to them something, but I would have guidelines for that.
one of the things I connected with in your story was, and we use index cards, write themdown, sign them, hand them back.
So he's got something to carry with him.

(01:07:11):
Yeah, if you're listening and you're not watching, I've got a notebook from Noble that hasall of these precious notes that I will carry with me forever.
Little note cards with one or two sentence responses to my story.
And I love it.
Oh, it's often as appealing as the work.

(01:07:33):
You get five other voices speaking in.
This is what I saw.
This is what I connected with.
If there's space, Jay, I'll add this.
As the group builds trust and the containment's felt, we know the hour, we know what toexpect.
We started with like a hard thing and a good thing.
We went into our stories a bit longer of a story time.

(01:07:54):
And then there's maybe just some connecting.
A couple of things that are graduate level class in a couple of questions.
One, your experience of the other person is data.
How do they make you feel as they tell their story?
Do they seem pissed?
Do they seem quick?
Do they seem embarrassed?

(01:08:16):
Do you feel disinterested?
Something's not wrong with you.
You are getting the blood splatter of their life across you.
Read it.
What does it say?
If you can tactfully reflect it back, that may be a great gift.
Bob, I noticed you seemed really fast paced, like you wanted to get it over with.

(01:08:37):
Is that true?
Second thing, ask the obvious question.
This is that back to that, be afraid of getting somewhere you can't solve.
Bob, I'm pick on this guy named Bob.
I don't know who this person is.
Let's change that.
Steve, Steve, I noticed you had some tears.
ah

(01:08:58):
Could you say where those are coming from?
I mean, name the elephant in the room and give them the option if they want to, to takeanother step.
I, you guys, if it seems obvious, but we were back away from it, we just continue toabandon each other.
Be willing to have the courage to ask that question and you don't have to solve what comesnext.

(01:09:24):
Hmm.
Thank you, Sam.
I've got one more quick question for you, but first I want to ask, how do we find out moreabout your podcast?
I mean, the resources that you offer and how to just begin exploring the idea thatpotentially investing in ourselves in a way like this might be the right path for us.

(01:09:54):
Yeah.
Thank you, Jay.
I have folks go over to nobleworkshops.com.
There's a free PDF in the header there called the Inner Child Exercise.
I'd begin there, download that and do that kind of workshop with yourself.
It's a guided inner healing exercise.
The podcast is at the footer, the blog is at the footer, and information about our comingevents are there on the events page.

(01:10:22):
So you can get everything you need to.
if you go to nobleworkshops.com.
Why did you name it Noble?
couple reasons.
The first was that there were told we were given that a good and noble heart and thatthere is this invitation to the noble work is this edifying, dignifying, courageous saying

(01:10:51):
yes to pressing forward and being true.
The second tongue in cheek is because this is a no bull workshop.
You
I can testify to that.
Friends, sons, uh daughters, whoever's listening in on this podcast, I'm really glad thatyou're here to join Sam and I as we have walked and talked a mile along the tried and true

(01:11:21):
road to being sons.
We hope to see you again in the future or at least share another conversation with you.
Sam, thank you so much for uh being a part of my story.
uh
for coming and sharing generously and thank you for having the courage to.

(01:11:43):
ask God to make your sonship real and to partner with Him in what He's doing.
You are your Father's Son.
And that's a glorious thing.
Okay, friends, till next time, take care.
Bye.