December 11, 2024 • 46 mins
This week, I’m joined by the incredible Tori Hope Petersen. She is an author, speaker, Bible teacher and fierce advocate for foster care, adoption, and vulnerable children. Raised in and out of the foster care system herself, she has dedicated her life to sharing her testimony and offering hope to others. Tori is also a wife, mom, and lover of people, with a deep appreciation for cooking, family, community, and hospitality.
Tori has so many incredible insights to share about healing from the past, breaking destructive patterns, and finding lasting hope. Plus, we talk about her upcoming book, Breaking the Patterns That Break You, which is set to release on February 4th, 2025.
I was so moved and inspired by this conversation and I’m so excited to share it with you!
5:36 – Tori 101
· Growing up in and out of the foster care system
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Tori, welcome to the show.
I'm so happy to have you.
Thanks for being here.
I am so happy to be here with you.
People were not here before we started, but I didn't put together that you're the authorof If I Don't Laugh, I'll Cry.
And you have to know, I say that all the time, because I love trauma jokes.
Trauma jokes are my favorite.
(00:22):
And I always say, like, people are like, my god, I can't believe you just said that.
I'm like, if I don't laugh about it, I'm going to cry about it.
And that is how I came across your book, is it was just like, that is literally like aquote of mine.
And I love memoirs.
are like my favorite category.
Well, that was like such a sweet coincidence.
(00:42):
Yeah, because were just, she was like, she saw my book behind me and she was like, wait asecond.
I put it together.
Yeah, was like, whoa, wait, that's her.
Yeah, it is so cool when other authors have read your book.
That does feel like extra special.
Because when you're an author, you become a little bit more picky about the books youread.
(01:03):
Yes, yes.
And I don't know about you.
Do you have a hard time reading while you're writing or is that not a thing for you?
No, I do.
If I am writing, I need to kind of like, if I'm reading while I'm writing, I'm usually inthe kind of topic that I'm writing in.
(01:23):
But even in that, can just be, yeah, it's hard to focus.
Yeah, I'm a big reader and I was really sad because like while I was working on mymanuscript, I like couldn't really focus to read and then I like almost was worried that I
would somehow accidentally like implant someone else's idea in my book.
So then I was like, I can't I can't do this.
(01:45):
But then as soon as I turned in my manuscript, I was like, give me the books.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, I used to be a really big reader.
I would read multiple books a month.
since, it's hard because I really believe that if you want to be a good writer, then youhave to be a good reader.
But when you really are writing books, it is very challenging.
(02:06):
And I'm like, am I bad writer?
Because I'm not reading a lot.
Well, and then I think too, mean, again, I think this is more to my own insecurities.
But then I remember, like, because I also really love memoir and I love nonfiction.
And so I would like read someone else's memoir and I'd be like, man, I really love theirwriting style.
(02:29):
Like, I really love the way this person writes.
Like, I wish I could write like that.
But then just remembering, like, I got to stay in my lane.
I just got to write the way I write and like in my own voice, I'm not writing somebodyelse's book.
I'm writing mine.
And
And I just, I feel like that's probably you went through a similar thing.
Yeah, especially I think because I mean, we haven't told these people how I grew up yet,but I grew up in the foster care system.
(02:54):
And in that experience, my voice was very silenced.
And so you're trying to as a writer, you're trying to find your voice.
And I started publishing writing at a very young age.
I'm 28 now.
And my first book released when I was 24, 25, 25.
(03:15):
And, I started writing that when I was like 22.
And so I can see how other authors, you know, influenced my work, which I think we allhave that.
But it is you have to kind of walk the fine line of like, you have to find your own voice.
And that can be really hard to do when people have experienced like a silencing of theirvoice or an oppression of their voice.
(03:36):
Well, that is a perfect transition to you giving us the Tory 101.
So you kind of briefly mentioned it here, but yeah, tell us your story, who you are, whatyou do, and how you got to where you are today.
Yes, I'm most known for growing up in and out of the foster care system.
So first went into care when I was four, was reunited with my bio mom, and then came backinto the system when I was 12 and emancipated or aged out when I turned 18.
(04:03):
And when I aged out, I didn't have a forever family, didn't have a home, was instantlyhomeless.
Like 20 % of kids who age out of the foster care system are.
And I mean, my experience in foster care combined with
the very dysfunctional upbringing I had with my bio mom just had a wreckage on my identityand how I saw myself.
(04:27):
And it was just hard.
But I had a track coach who encouraged me and loved me and believed in me.
And under his training, I became a four time state champion in track.
He allowed me to come live with him and his family.
He's my adoptive dad now.
He's seen my kids call grandpa walking down the aisle at my wedding.
(04:48):
And now I do foster care advocacy.
So I advocate for foster care in Christian spaces, at churches, in secular spaces, ingovernment spaces, really wherever I'm asked.
Sometimes I help churches get connected with organizations, their local organizations, sotheir congregants can become more involved in foster care adoption.
(05:09):
And then there are other times when I am going to like a think tank event and I ampresenting how
like policy suggestions on how the foster care system can improve.
And I wrote my first book, Fostered.
That was the first book that I mentioned.
(05:30):
And I wrote it because I wanted to, my hope was that it would be for like a Tory, a teenTory or a young adult Tory.
But God was so faithful and so good and he now uses it as a resource.
It's used as a resource for really anyone.
who is serving kids and people who are coming from hard places, vulnerable populations.
(05:54):
God has made it so much broader than I could have ever expected.
And my second book releases in February, it's called Breaking the Patterns that Break You.
I like my first book was really a journey about what happened to me.
And then my second book is a journey of how I dealt with that in some of the worst andbest ways, how I healed ultimately.
(06:15):
Well, I love that pattern, first of all, is just being able to so vulnerably share yourstory in the hopes that it is going to help other people on their own journeys.
And I love too that you speak to, like you said, like kind of teenage Tory or the Tory ofyesteryear.
(06:39):
But then also helping equip people who are in spaces who
you know, want to advocate for kids in foster care or things like that.
And then obviously releasing, breaking the patterns that break you just helping to showthat this is, you know, none of this is linear.
This is a, it is a roller coaster that all of us go to, especially when we deal withtrauma, whether that's big T or little T trauma, like it's, it's all gonna, it's gonna
(07:08):
manifest itself in different ways over the course of our lifetimes.
Good day.
I want to kind of, before we really get into, you know, talking about the book, I want tojust get into a little bit of that kind of pivotal moment in your own foster care journey
that really shaped your own perspective on resilience and hope.
(07:31):
And you mentioned obviously the track coach, but that obviously, that was a big turningpoint for you.
And so I'd love for you to kind of share a little bit more about that.
when you were going from home to home and just really struggling with, like you said,finding identity and that solid foundation, there was this track coach that really began
(07:58):
to shift things for you.
So can you just talk about that story a little bit?
And what was it that really, again, shaped your perspective on resilience and hope?
Yeah.
So I am no psychologist.
I minored in psychology, but in my undergrad, but I am no psychologist.
But when I look back at what I got to do in my sport, combined with having a fatherfigure, which I never had, there was just something like supernatural, some kind of
(08:30):
supernatural healing in my brain, in my body.
I really feel like it had to do with, you know, that book.
we think about that book, The Body Heaps the Score, right?
And the title is so good.
Like we just totally get what that means.
The body keeps the score for our trauma, for our healing.
And I really believe that there was something that happened to my body and to my brainthrough running track.
(08:55):
And I did, I became a four-time state champion, but I think if I wouldn't have won, therestill would have been so much healing that happened.
And to this day, athletics, working out has just been a huge part of my life.
Surprisingly, that's not something I write about in Breaking the Patterns I Break You.
(09:16):
And it's not really something that I heavy-handedly write about even in my first book.
But I do think there's something for me.
I would say if there's one thing that I continually struggle with, it would be anxiety.
It would be those looping kind of...
things that were spoken over me, whether it was the labels placed on me when I was in thefoster care system, like in my file, or whether it was the things that my mom spoke over
(09:42):
me.
My biological mom was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia as I was growing up.
And she had a tendency, you know, she was physically abusive.
But I think the things that really left such a big imprint on me were actually the wordsshe said.
She was very verbally abusive.
that those things really left a mark on me combined with the things that were spoken overme in the foster care system.
(10:06):
And so sometimes those words, just like loop over and over and over again.
So I one of the things that working out in athletics does moving your body is it's justlike so simple, right?
It's just like reps, numbers, like this is what you're doing.
You're just like inserting your body and your brain literally shuts off.
your brain is literally just focused on like accomplishing this very hard task at hand,like almost in a,
(10:30):
survival mode, but in a healthy way, not this like fight or flight.
But this like accomplish and like you can succeed and the right, like it was like thenarrative, like you're not worthy, you're not loved, you're gonna fail, you suck to like,
you can succeed, you can accomplish this, keep pushing yourself.
Like those scripts are literally so like they are the exact opposite.
(10:54):
And I think when you have those in a workout context, they do, they have to bleed over.
into your everyday life and you start to realize like, these are the scripts that I havehere in one area of my life, but these are the scripts that I could have in my mind, you
know, and I really think that track my athletic career did just change.
(11:17):
Like it just changed my brain so much and not to say after that I didn't.
There are still things that I struggled with immensely, but I would say.
It was my track career that was one of the most transformational, especially in highschool aspects of their life.
cause it was also confined with a father figure who believed in me.
There was, it felt like, you know, when I was in the system, there were so many terriblethings spoken over me.
(11:42):
And it was just the statistics for kids aging out of foster care.
I'm really, really sad.
many end up in prison on drugs, homeless.
I mean, the list goes on and on and it is really, really sad.
And I think to have people and because of that people just don't believe in us thatpopulation of people sadly.
(12:05):
Sometimes they don't even give us the time.
And so to have my track coach say you are worthy of my time day in and day out in the offseason and say it continually say throughout the year, I believe in you, I believe in you,
I believe in you, I know you can accomplish this, I'm here for you.
I mean, that was something that.
I really had an experience to that extent.
(12:28):
Yeah.
mean, when you said just like the things that, you you experienced abuse in a lot of ways,you know, not just, physical, but also emotional and that, and how that emotional abuse
really does.
it, mean, words last, I mean, and I was actually talking with a friend, this week aboutjust even, I mean, I've been married for almost 13 years, my husband and I've been
(12:53):
together, you know, almost 14 years or over almost 15 years and
how I am still in a lot of ways like healing from things that were said to me in pastrelationships, even though my husband has never said those things to me.
But those narratives play in our head.
the, I mean, the, the, the way that neural pathways in our brain are formed when, whenthings are set over this, I mean, that is so powerful when you shared that it's just
(13:20):
those, those patterns and those, those narratives will replay over and over and overagain.
And it takes
constant work and reflection to be able to heal from that.
that is, and it takes work.
takes, it takes time and it is, and none of it is fun or easy.
You just wish that, those things would, you, you almost like want an easy button, like astaples easy button to just like move faster.
(13:53):
Any day.
Well, I mean, think that that kind of leads me to the next thing I wanted to ask youabout.
that's, you know, in your newest book, Breaking the Patterns that Break You, you know, youobviously a lot of it is really focusing on finding healing that is lasting, that healing
that is not just a temporary bandaid, but something that is deep, it's at a soul level,where you're really looking to, to
(14:22):
for transformation, not just reformation.
And so I'd love for you to kind of share, I mean, I feel like you've kind of alluded tothis too, especially in your track journey, but on your healing journey, especially in
adulthood, because our brains, especially as we enter adulthood, so much changes.
So for you, were kind of some of those first steps on your long-term healing journey thatled to...
(14:50):
more lasting change and not the like band-aid quick fix.
Yeah, well, and I say that like in this book, people are going to find real healingbecause I think as trauma survivors, as people who have experienced hardship and pain,
it's like we try everything on the list.
(15:12):
Like therapy, check.
Working out, check.
Sleep, check.
Community, check.
Church, check.
Praying, check.
Like we just do all the things and then it's like,
I still feel absolutely broken at end of the day.
And so honestly, part of the book is just saying, me too.
(15:35):
You know, like that's healing to accept sometimes like the sad version of ourselves andnot to try and change her or, you know, like sometimes the most healing thing is to
when someone's going through something really hard is like just to sit with them.
(15:56):
And I think sometimes we don't even do that with ourselves.
We're just trying to always fix ourselves and we just need to be better.
We just need to fix ourselves.
And I think that mentality again, there was the blessing of track.
There was also the curse of track is that you can always be better.
And like, if you accomplish enough, then people will love you because I have fosterparents who, you know, they kicked me out of their house.
But when I became a four time state champion, they came swooping back into my life.
(16:21):
when I went to college on a full ride scholarship and was becoming an All-American, theystarted coming to my track meets.
When I graduated college, they showed up.
And so what I learned throughout my upbringing was, and even into my young adult life,especially actually, is if you accomplish enough, you will earn people's love.
It was literally like classical, it's like classical conditioning.
(16:43):
It was, that's a psychology theory by the way.
And it's literally like, if you do something, if you do X, it'll produce Y.
And usually it's used on animals.
But in this case, it really was what happened.
And so I think, you know, when I look at my own healing journey, the first thing wasnoticing these patterns, right?
(17:07):
these usually they thought patterns that then bleed it into behavioral patterns.
And it was noticing them and then having to sometimes like
see, okay, there is some good in this.
But oftentimes, again, think another thing about trauma survivors is like, so impulsivityis a trauma response.
(17:28):
Being super radical about things is a trauma response.
So like wanting to accomplish things, being ambitious is so good.
But it's also like this two edged sword that can so easily bleed into success becoming ouridentity and wanting to earn people back.
Through success and so having to acknowledge.
(17:49):
Okay.
What are the good parts of?
These misconceptions what can I take from these but also what can I throw out?
So the book actually has 14 lies That we just they're subtle lies.
So these are not lies that you're come across in other books They're the subtle lies thatjust kind of seep into our minds into our brains and That we function from and we don't
(18:13):
even really know it and my hope is that the book
you know, that it's compassionate because that's what I needed to be for myself.
Again, being an athlete, you are really hard on yourself as an athlete.
You're a good athlete.
You're hard on yourself.
And there's again, there's a blessing to that.
the there's this book, another book called Grit.
(18:34):
It's one of my favorite books.
And yes, I love it.
And, know, she talks about the importance of discipline, the importance of being hard onyourself, the importance of resilience, like
these are all really, really good things.
But I think when we become radical with them, they can actually be like a way ofself-harming.
(18:55):
And so it all just, a lot of it just, a lot of my healing journey has had to be, I had togrow in compassion for myself and see where my radicalness was harming myself.
Yeah, and I almost wonder, like, I'd be curious, when you began to really recognize yourown kind of the harmful patterns that you found yourself in, because I think, I mean, not
(19:33):
I think, we know that people more often than not are unable to recognize when they arestuck.
in cycles of harmful patterns.
And so there's subtle signs.
I like how you said you referred to them as quiet lies.
(19:53):
Like what are some of the subtle signs of these harmful patterns, these harmful cycles,and how can somebody begin to address them?
Yeah, I just look at that.
that's such a good point.
I think that's why this book is like a hard sell almost because people don't even likeoftentimes we don't even know we are in the patterns that we're in.
So I, my husband and I, when we got married, we were just so poor, like all people who,you know, get married when they're super young.
(20:22):
And we just took up like free everything, free workout, free like luncheon, like free
stuff off the side of the road to put in our house for furniture.
Like whatever was free, we took it.
So there was this free luncheon.
We're like, free food.
Okay, we're going to that.
And I didn't know that there was going to be a speaker there.
There was a speaker there and he talked about trauma.
And I was like, yeah, like I so you asked like, are some of the things that kind of putyou where you are?
(20:48):
One of those things is I actually started therapy at a very young age.
The judge when I was in foster care, he actually mandated therapy when I was 12 years oldbecause
he said, like, what you've been through, you have to go to therapy.
And so they mandated therapy as a part of my case plan.
And that is definitely one of the things that I started to process so much of what I hadbeen through at such a young age.
(21:09):
And I just learned, like, at a young age, how to process, how to journal.
And that was a great, great asset to me, a great benefit to me.
And so we got to this luncheon and I'm like, yeah, I've heard it before.
Like, I'm kind of like rolling my eyes.
Then the presenter, he said that those who grow up in dysfunction and abuse are two timesor three times more likely to get into relationships with people who are dysfunctional,
(21:49):
who are abusive, who are hurtful.
And that's any kind of relationship.
That's our friendships, our marriages.
You oftentimes we...
We only think about that in terms of marriage, but it's anything.
And for me, I was in very dysfunctional relationships when I was dating.
And then when I got married, that relationship, well, I should say in college, my firstyear of college, went to go run track.
(22:20):
I did not necessarily go to college for an education.
I was like, I'm going to college to run track.
And so didn't really think about like, this a good school?
I just wanted to, I only cared about the coach.
I cared about the program.
And so the coach that I had at the first college I went to, he was actually fired for whatthey said was quote unquote athlete abuse.
(22:44):
Never heard that term before.
Would absolutely say now looking back that I was one of his victims, but when I was in it,couldn't even recognize it.
Then I got married.
And there was this mother figure in our church that I just latched onto and I wanted herto give me all the advice and I wanted her to love me.
(23:06):
again, looking back on that relationship, it was very dysfunctional.
We were very mean to each other, like it was bad.
And I look back and I see that relationship was a lot like the relationship with my mom.
And so I think sometimes we think, we're.
the people who grow up in dysfunction, of course, yeah, they're going to like enter intodysfunctional relationships with their significant others.
But we actually don't see like our relational patterns can transfer to any relationship inour lives.
(23:32):
And when he said that, like you and he said, trauma survivors often enter into these kindof relationships, it's because it's where they find comfort.
It's familiar to them and they don't even recognize the dysfunction.
And that just like blew my mind because I recognized like at the time I was in thisrelationship with this mother figure in my life.
(23:58):
And I was like, no, like that relationship looks so much like.
And I didn't recognize it until someone said it.
And so I think part of it is just having people around you who can point these things outand being open to criticism, being open to feedback.
I will say that that is something that I've always been able to do.
(24:20):
And I don't like that sounds braggy, but I think again, it's that it's the track thing.
Like I was coachable, I was teachable.
then
these things transfer into your adult life in another way.
So when people give me criticism and when people give me feedback, sometimes I can take itto the point where it crushes me and it stays with me forever and that's not healthy
either.
But there are a lot of times where I take it and it has helped me.
(24:44):
And so if you can be someone that can be a good listener, that can receive feedback andcriticism and actually say, is this applicable to my life?
And if you can be honest and reflective with yourself, that's gonna show you a lot ofthose subtle patterns.
Yeah, the honesty and the reflection piece are so key.
(25:05):
And the reality is, and this is something I had to realize in my own life, and I thinkyou've kind of alluded to this, also just as we, know, whenever we have these kinds of
conversations, like all of us have other people too that like pop into our head are like,man, this person really needs to hear this conversation, you know.
And the reality is, that, you know, because my, both my parents were recoveringalcoholics.
(25:28):
And so I grew up
all around people in recovery.
the one thing that really separated in all honesty, the one thing that truly separatedpeople who were quote unquote successful in their recovery and really stayed on a journey
of sobriety or free from drug addiction or whatever it was versus people who were not assuccessful.
(25:55):
It was a, it was a
the one of the first steps, know, I think it's the first step.
Yeah, it is the first step in the 12 step program is admitting that you are powerless overalcohol and admitting that you are powerless over insert whatever the thing is here,
whatever the harmful pattern is, whatever the cycle that you're trying to break, you haveto want to get help.
(26:21):
and I mean, my dad who's been, you know, he's 80.
I talk about this a lot.
My dad is 80.
He's been, he's been sober for 45 years.
you know, for him, like he's, he's sponsored a ton of, of men and he's like, and thereality is, is the ones who stay sober are the ones who admit that they have a problem and
(26:42):
want to get better.
And the ones who don't, the ones who end up continuing into patterns of drinking.
don't can't admit they have a problem and don't want to get better.
And I think again, I think you can alcohol, drug addiction, porn use, abuse, whatever thething is, it's admitting that there is a problem and wanting to get better.
(27:05):
And that is that first step.
But man, that is like for a lot of people, for all of us, that is a mountain that justfeels impossible to climb.
But I think this actually segues well into the next piece that I really wanted to touchon.
And that is how you regularly talk about inviting Jesus into this process.
(27:30):
And that can, especially for people who are not coming from a faith perspective, that canfeel really like, I don't know about that.
But the reality is the power that Jesus provides and how.
One thing you talk about in the book is how God is like constantly rebuilding us intopalaces rather than cottages, which I just love that imagery.
(27:54):
But I'd love for you to just kind of touch on that.
Like, what does that look like to invite God and invite Jesus into this process and allowhim to rebuild you, to make you into something new?
Because that feels so vulnerable.
So when I was in college, there was this girl, name was Alexis, and she was like popularand she's beautiful.
(28:21):
The boys loved her.
And I just kind of looked at her and said, she's just perfect.
And we weren't really, she was on my track team.
We were really very close because I felt like our lives were so different.
And I just created this really big wall.
And then I found out that her dad was an alcoholic.
(28:42):
that her dad had actually, so her dad was an alcoholic throughout her upbringing and thenfinding that out we became friends.
I was like, okay, I can like you.
You've been through something hard, me too.
And then her dad sadly passed away.
(29:02):
He was trying to get sober, but like on his own, which I had no idea that that wassomething we could.
cast from at the time.
That was crazy to me.
And I quote unquote worked as this person who watched the weight room when I was incollege.
I just did homework.
I was supposed to be watching the weight room.
(29:22):
I don't, that's what all of us did.
All of us who have that job, we just watched, we just did homework even though we'resupposed to quote unquote watch the weight room.
I don't know.
Anyway, so was doing that.
was watching the weight, watching the weight room and Alexis came out of
her class and she was just leaving.
I knew that her dad had passed away.
And she just fell into my arms and she was just bawling.
(29:48):
And I told her, I said, Alexis, you just need to trust God.
And she said, Tori, my dad just died.
And my heart just sunk and I knew that it was not the right thing.
I knew that that was not what I was supposed to say, but it was just what I had heardother ministry leaders say.
(30:12):
It was what I heard the really godly people say.
I didn't know it was the wrong thing.
And then I just didn't say anything for the rest of our time together.
I just held her and she just kept crying.
And it was something that stuck with me.
That story will stick with me forever because I knew that I said something that was maybetheologically right.
(30:35):
but not pastorally right or not love your neighbor right, you know?
And I think sometimes we don't let God in, we don't let Jesus in because we, you know, Iuse the analogy of a house in my book.
And I think that sometimes we don't let him in because we have this perception of him thathe's just gonna like shrug his shoulders and say, just trust me, right?
(31:03):
our home, it's like wreckage, you know, the home that we feel like we are living in withinourselves is just wreckage.
And there's so much damage because of what people have done to us and maybe some of thethings that we've done.
And we think that Jesus is coming in and just slapping a bandaid on it.
But really, that's sometimes what his people do, but that's not who Jesus is.
(31:27):
And so I think we just need to change our perspective and understand that like
God is coming in and He wants to truly repair the home.
He wants to make us a safe house because He wants us to be a safe place for other peopleand ultimately because He is like, the Psalms actually say like that God is our safe
(31:50):
house.
And so He wants us to reflect that because He also wants us to understand that that's whoHe is and He wants us to feel safe within Him.
And so I think really it's
We have to just change our perspective and see God for who He truly is, which is not aband-aid-slapping God.
It's a God who comes alongside us, holds our hand, walks with us, and to repair the thingsthat truly need repaired and to make new what needs to be.
(32:21):
love the way that you use that analogy, mainly because I'm also just like very visualperson.
And so being able to hear and see that analogy kind of come to light is just reallypowerful.
And especially as somebody who has, we've done some renovations on this house as well.
(32:42):
And like, when we've discovered, you know, areas that like
they, the original builders, like maybe cut some corners.
We're like, well, this is not helpful at all.
And I remember when we bought the house that we're living in and we were renovating thekitchen and it was like, we had pulled up some old tile that was like from the eighties
(33:05):
and it, you know, needed, it needed to be gone.
And we lifted up that tile and underneath the subfloor had completely rotted away.
And so we had to completely replace all the subfloor.
And it was like, you know, just the least fun part of a renovation when it's like, why doyou want to spend all this money on what is not exciting?
(33:26):
And I remember the other thing too, is we were taking down some walls and opening up somerooms, but a couple of the walls were load bearing.
And so we had to put it
wait, you took down the bearing.
Yes.
Well, well, well, so yes, but we had well, okay, so no, as it sounds, is that a couple ofthe walls that we wanted to take down were load bearing.
(33:57):
So in order to do it, we had to hire this engineer to come in.
Yeah.
So no, we didn't do it.
No, no, I realized as I was saying it, I was like, I probably said this wrong.
No, so we knew we wanted to take them down, but we had to this engineer come in and he waslike, these walls are load bearing.
(34:18):
In order to do this or to like open up some of these walls, we're going to have to put innot only a beam, like on the top, but they had to go in the crawl space of the house, like
underneath of the house to put another beam there.
And it was like, I remember thinking to myself, because it was like astronomicallyexpensive to put in
(34:39):
two pieces of wood, Tori.
These are two pieces of wood.
could like, these are like, two inch by 10 inch boards.
And it was insanely expensive to put in two pieces of wood.
I was like, the wood itself probably costs like 10 bucks, but this feels stupid expensiveto be able to take out this wall.
(35:02):
But it was this beautiful analogy of like, you have to put the work in.
to the really unsexy parts in order so that everything doesn't collapse on itself.
And so it's not fun.
It's not sexy to like do inner soul work.
(35:22):
It is not fun or sexy to sit there and to confess your sins to one another.
It is not fun or sexy to sit there and to really like real recognize the unhealthy sinpatterns that you're in and work to break out of them.
But if you don't do that, like you said, you cannot peel beyond that.
You have to do the foundational work in order to do it right.
(35:48):
man, it's...
And that's what I say.
So my husband, these analogies became very apparent to me because my husband and I loveold homes.
And we have a few old homes that we have renovated.
Our first one was a 100-year-old duplex.
And then the second one is a 200-year-old house.
And the second one, the 200-year-old house, we actually live in it.
(36:12):
And you know, it had like...
The people that we bought it from, the husband, was a contractor.
And so there was just such a good foundation to it, such good bones, like they had takensuch good care of it.
The first one that we bought, the Duplex, I mean, it was rented out, you know, for yearsand years and years, just by landlords who were like putting tenants in it, not really
(36:33):
keeping up with the beauty of, you know, the nostalgia of the home.
And so with that home, we really had to put so much work in it for it to be a place thatyou could really appreciate and to restore it, to bring it back to its original beauty.
(36:55):
And what I realized is once we restore that, there will always be, when you have an oldhouse, there will always be things that you have to fix, that you have to maintain, that
you have to keep up with.
But because of the beauty of those homes, we wouldn't tear them down.
We wouldn't throw them away.
And right, same thing for us as like our past selves, the people we were when we weregrowing up.
(37:18):
Like, it's not to say like, just throw that person out.
Like those those ideas or those things that you went through just just become somethingnew.
The idea is that actually those things they they teach you and they help you become, youknow, who you are.
There's still value in them.
(37:39):
But at the same time, we have to recognize that those old, old patterns, like tryingreally hard to earn people's love, doesn't always transfer.
Yeah, it was my survival mechanism when I was a kid and it worked really well for me, butdoesn't always transfer very well when you're an adult in public facing ministry.
Or when you're a mom trying to take all this different mom advice and some just ain't it.
(38:02):
So yeah, it's really just saying like, you know, some of these things worked and
some of these things are still working, some of them aren't.
And then once we have that foundation right now with that duplex, it's a foundation.
moving forward, we'll always have that maintenance, but it never be as hard as it firstwas.
(38:23):
And so when we do that foundational work, everything gets easier from there.
And I read this article, Molly, I didn't like it.
It said, the article was like,
this the name of it?
It was like, if you avoid your triggers, you're not healed.
(38:43):
And I was just like, I just didn't like that.
Because the reality is, like, if you are a former drug addict, we want to tell a formerdrug addict, like, go to your local dispensary, we wouldn't tell a former alcoholic, like,
go to your local bar.
It's like the same is true for people or for relationships or other triggers.
(39:04):
Like if someone struggles with co-dependency and like addiction to relationships, wewouldn't be like, go enter back into that very dysfunctional relationship.
And so, you know, as that, like that is foundational.
And I think sometimes we can be so like these, these self-help books, like that my bookwould fall into the genre of they are just so harsh.
They're just so hard.
(39:24):
They are not filled with
compassion and it's like we just need to be a little bit more gentler with ourselves andsee that like, okay, the foundation that I've built is actually better than what I thought
it was.
And we do that by looking back, not at, you know, we do that not by looking at someoneelse's healing, but we do that by looking at, you know, the people we were, the person we
(39:47):
were five years ago, the person we were 10 years ago.
And then when we do that, we see that we've actually come a really long way.
We can be compassionate with ourselves and we can be more cautious to not step into theseharmful places, these dysfunctional places, and that's what keeps that foundation firm and
strong so that it's easier to heal.
(40:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
man.
That's so good.
Well, Tori, I I have like 20 other questions I wanted to ask you, and I know we're runningout of time.
there was what I would like to end with is for you to speak just kind of briefly to twogroups of people.
And that's one, people who are maybe in the support role for someone who is
(40:36):
breaking out of these patterns or you know what I mean?
Because like the reality is is like, yes, there's a lot of inner work and there's a lot ofwork that has to be done alone.
But a lot of this work is done in community as well.
And so it can be hard for people who are walking alongside or coming, coming alongsidesomebody who is doing some serious inner work, healing from some trauma, all that kind of
(40:59):
stuff.
So I'm kind of I would like for you to speak to those people about how you know, just youradvice, your
thoughts on how to best do that in a loving, gracious way.
And then the other group is just the people who are currently like in the midst of it andit and feel like they want to just throw in the towel.
(41:19):
so I would love for you to just kind of, I think that'd be a beautiful way to end.
Yeah, to the support people, I would say, I want to say just like watch your shallowmaxims, like watch those quick fixes.
Like I told Alexis, just trust God.
(41:39):
We do that as a church way too often and we don't recognize how truly hurtful it is.
More than people need advice, people need someone to sit with them and walk with them.
listen to them.
My mother figure who I do talk about in the book is Tonya.
And she is not someone who gives a lot of advice, like at all.
(42:04):
But I've sat with her for many hours and talked and she's just such a wonderful listener.
She's helped me process through a lot of things and she asked good questions that thenhelped me again continue to process and bring about the right good answers as I'm working
through these hard things.
And so
Be a good listener even more than you're a good advice giver and be a good question asker.
(42:28):
Jesus was a good question asker.
According to the Gospels, think he asked like, it was like 300, I might get these numberswrong, think Jesus asked 307 questions and he only answered three of the 180 questions he
was asked himself.
And so I think, you know, Jesus was a good question asker and so we should be goodquestion askers too, especially when we're walking with.
(42:52):
who are, who have a lot of questions, who are still working through hard things.
And what I would say to the people who want to throw in the towel, and I'm going to, youknow, oftentimes we say throw in the towel and we think like, give up and go to sleep.
But something I talk about in my book that I'm going to, I want to say it here because Ithink it's just not brought up in Christian spaces enough.
(43:21):
I bring up suicidal ideation.
talk about how I have struggled with suicidal ideation from a very young age.
so people who really want to throw in the towel, I would tell you that your life haspurpose.
There's a beautiful plan for your life that God loves you and that for you to stay herevery well may be the thing that someone else needs.
(43:50):
Like it's so simple, it's so hard, but you really just have to keep pushing through andget people around you who love you.
I think one of the biggest lies that we believe is that we're not lovable, that we're notloved because we have experienced people not loving us in the way that we thought they
should or really we experienced people who were supposed to love us harm us.
(44:17):
And so my advice to you is to
Continue to fight to find your people who truly love you and who can speak words of lifeover you because your life has value and you are truly loved.
Tori, that's so good.
Thank you so much for being here.
I just love your heart and the work you're doing and especially just your advocacy workfor the foster care system.
(44:46):
We are not foster parents yet.
I don't know if God's opening that door, but we have a lot of friends at our church whoare, and so we always try to support the foster families and just
So good.
because it it's hard, holy work.
And so, you you know that more than anybody.
So thank you so much for everything and for being here.
(45:11):
Thank you for having me.
Tori, welcome to the show.
I'm so happy to have you.
Thanks for being here.
I am so happy to be here with you.
People were not here before we started, but I didn't put together that you're the authorof If I Don't Laugh, I'll Cry.
And you have to know, I say that all the time, because I love trauma jokes.
Trauma jokes are my favorite.
(00:22):
And I always say, like, people are like, my god, I can't believe you just said that.
I'm like, if I don't laugh about it, I'm going to cry about it.
And that is how I came across your book, is it was just like, that is literally like aquote of mine.
And I love memoirs.
are like my favorite category.
Well, that was like such a sweet coincidence.
(00:42):
Yeah, because were just, she was like, she saw my book behind me and she was like, wait asecond.
I put it together.
Yeah, was like, whoa, wait, that's her.
Yeah, it is so cool when other authors have read your book.
That does feel like extra special.
Because when you're an author, you become a little bit more picky about the books youread.
(01:03):
Yes, yes.
And I don't know about you.
Do you have a hard time reading while you're writing or is that not a thing for you?
No, I do.
If I am writing, I need to kind of like, if I'm reading while I'm writing, I'm usually inthe kind of topic that I'm writing in.
(01:23):
But even in that, can just be, yeah, it's hard to focus.
Yeah, I'm a big reader and I was really sad because like while I was working on mymanuscript, I like couldn't really focus to read and then I like almost was worried that I
would somehow accidentally like implant someone else's idea in my book.
So then I was like, I can't I can't do this.
(01:45):
But then as soon as I turned in my manuscript, I was like, give me the books.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, I used to be a really big reader.
I would read multiple books a month.
since, it's hard because I really believe that if you want to be a good writer, then youhave to be a good reader.
But when you really are writing books, it is very challenging.
(02:06):
And I'm like, am I bad writer?
Because I'm not reading a lot.
Well, and then I think too, mean, again, I think this is more to my own insecurities.
But then I remember, like, because I also really love memoir and I love nonfiction.
And so I would like read someone else's memoir and I'd be like, man, I really love theirwriting style.
(02:29):
Like, I really love the way this person writes.
Like, I wish I could write like that.
But then just remembering, like, I got to stay in my lane.
I just got to write the way I write and like in my own voice, I'm not writing somebodyelse's book.
I'm writing mine.
And
And I just, I feel like that's probably you went through a similar thing.
Yeah, especially I think because I mean, we haven't told these people how I grew up yet,but I grew up in the foster care system.
(02:54):
And in that experience, my voice was very silenced.
And so you're trying to as a writer, you're trying to find your voice.
And I started publishing writing at a very young age.
I'm 28 now.
And my first book released when I was 24, 25, 25.
(03:15):
And, I started writing that when I was like 22.
And so I can see how other authors, you know, influenced my work, which I think we allhave that.
But it is you have to kind of walk the fine line of like, you have to find your own voice.
And that can be really hard to do when people have experienced like a silencing of theirvoice or an oppression of their voice.
(03:36):
Well, that is a perfect transition to you giving us the Tory 101.
So you kind of briefly mentioned it here, but yeah, tell us your story, who you are, whatyou do, and how you got to where you are today.
Yes, I'm most known for growing up in and out of the foster care system.
So first went into care when I was four, was reunited with my bio mom, and then came backinto the system when I was 12 and emancipated or aged out when I turned 18.
(04:03):
And when I aged out, I didn't have a forever family, didn't have a home, was instantlyhomeless.
Like 20 % of kids who age out of the foster care system are.
And I mean, my experience in foster care combined with
the very dysfunctional upbringing I had with my bio mom just had a wreckage on my identityand how I saw myself.
(04:27):
And it was just hard.
But I had a track coach who encouraged me and loved me and believed in me.
And under his training, I became a four time state champion in track.
He allowed me to come live with him and his family.
He's my adoptive dad now.
He's seen my kids call grandpa walking down the aisle at my wedding.
(04:48):
And now I do foster care advocacy.
So I advocate for foster care in Christian spaces, at churches, in secular spaces, ingovernment spaces, really wherever I'm asked.
Sometimes I help churches get connected with organizations, their local organizations, sotheir congregants can become more involved in foster care adoption.
(05:09):
And then there are other times when I am going to like a think tank event and I ampresenting how
like policy suggestions on how the foster care system can improve.
And I wrote my first book, Fostered.
That was the first book that I mentioned.
(05:30):
And I wrote it because I wanted to, my hope was that it would be for like a Tory, a teenTory or a young adult Tory.
But God was so faithful and so good and he now uses it as a resource.
It's used as a resource for really anyone.
who is serving kids and people who are coming from hard places, vulnerable populations.
(05:54):
God has made it so much broader than I could have ever expected.
And my second book releases in February, it's called Breaking the Patterns that Break You.
I like my first book was really a journey about what happened to me.
And then my second book is a journey of how I dealt with that in some of the worst andbest ways, how I healed ultimately.
(06:15):
Well, I love that pattern, first of all, is just being able to so vulnerably share yourstory in the hopes that it is going to help other people on their own journeys.
And I love too that you speak to, like you said, like kind of teenage Tory or the Tory ofyesteryear.
(06:39):
But then also helping equip people who are in spaces who
you know, want to advocate for kids in foster care or things like that.
And then obviously releasing, breaking the patterns that break you just helping to showthat this is, you know, none of this is linear.
This is a, it is a roller coaster that all of us go to, especially when we deal withtrauma, whether that's big T or little T trauma, like it's, it's all gonna, it's gonna
(07:08):
manifest itself in different ways over the course of our lifetimes.
Good day.
I want to kind of, before we really get into, you know, talking about the book, I want tojust get into a little bit of that kind of pivotal moment in your own foster care journey
that really shaped your own perspective on resilience and hope.
(07:31):
And you mentioned obviously the track coach, but that obviously, that was a big turningpoint for you.
And so I'd love for you to kind of share a little bit more about that.
when you were going from home to home and just really struggling with, like you said,finding identity and that solid foundation, there was this track coach that really began
(07:58):
to shift things for you.
So can you just talk about that story a little bit?
And what was it that really, again, shaped your perspective on resilience and hope?
Yeah.
So I am no psychologist.
I minored in psychology, but in my undergrad, but I am no psychologist.
But when I look back at what I got to do in my sport, combined with having a fatherfigure, which I never had, there was just something like supernatural, some kind of
(08:30):
supernatural healing in my brain, in my body.
I really feel like it had to do with, you know, that book.
we think about that book, The Body Heaps the Score, right?
And the title is so good.
Like we just totally get what that means.
The body keeps the score for our trauma, for our healing.
And I really believe that there was something that happened to my body and to my brainthrough running track.
(08:55):
And I did, I became a four-time state champion, but I think if I wouldn't have won, therestill would have been so much healing that happened.
And to this day, athletics, working out has just been a huge part of my life.
Surprisingly, that's not something I write about in Breaking the Patterns I Break You.
(09:16):
And it's not really something that I heavy-handedly write about even in my first book.
But I do think there's something for me.
I would say if there's one thing that I continually struggle with, it would be anxiety.
It would be those looping kind of...
things that were spoken over me, whether it was the labels placed on me when I was in thefoster care system, like in my file, or whether it was the things that my mom spoke over
(09:42):
me.
My biological mom was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia as I was growing up.
And she had a tendency, you know, she was physically abusive.
But I think the things that really left such a big imprint on me were actually the wordsshe said.
She was very verbally abusive.
that those things really left a mark on me combined with the things that were spoken overme in the foster care system.
(10:06):
And so sometimes those words, just like loop over and over and over again.
So I one of the things that working out in athletics does moving your body is it's justlike so simple, right?
It's just like reps, numbers, like this is what you're doing.
You're just like inserting your body and your brain literally shuts off.
your brain is literally just focused on like accomplishing this very hard task at hand,like almost in a,
(10:30):
survival mode, but in a healthy way, not this like fight or flight.
But this like accomplish and like you can succeed and the right, like it was like thenarrative, like you're not worthy, you're not loved, you're gonna fail, you suck to like,
you can succeed, you can accomplish this, keep pushing yourself.
Like those scripts are literally so like they are the exact opposite.
(10:54):
And I think when you have those in a workout context, they do, they have to bleed over.
into your everyday life and you start to realize like, these are the scripts that I havehere in one area of my life, but these are the scripts that I could have in my mind, you
know, and I really think that track my athletic career did just change.
(11:17):
Like it just changed my brain so much and not to say after that I didn't.
There are still things that I struggled with immensely, but I would say.
It was my track career that was one of the most transformational, especially in highschool aspects of their life.
cause it was also confined with a father figure who believed in me.
There was, it felt like, you know, when I was in the system, there were so many terriblethings spoken over me.
(11:42):
And it was just the statistics for kids aging out of foster care.
I'm really, really sad.
many end up in prison on drugs, homeless.
I mean, the list goes on and on and it is really, really sad.
And I think to have people and because of that people just don't believe in us thatpopulation of people sadly.
(12:05):
Sometimes they don't even give us the time.
And so to have my track coach say you are worthy of my time day in and day out in the offseason and say it continually say throughout the year, I believe in you, I believe in you,
I believe in you, I know you can accomplish this, I'm here for you.
I mean, that was something that.
I really had an experience to that extent.
(12:28):
Yeah.
mean, when you said just like the things that, you you experienced abuse in a lot of ways,you know, not just, physical, but also emotional and that, and how that emotional abuse
really does.
it, mean, words last, I mean, and I was actually talking with a friend, this week aboutjust even, I mean, I've been married for almost 13 years, my husband and I've been
(12:53):
together, you know, almost 14 years or over almost 15 years and
how I am still in a lot of ways like healing from things that were said to me in pastrelationships, even though my husband has never said those things to me.
But those narratives play in our head.
the, I mean, the, the, the way that neural pathways in our brain are formed when, whenthings are set over this, I mean, that is so powerful when you shared that it's just
(13:20):
those, those patterns and those, those narratives will replay over and over and overagain.
And it takes
constant work and reflection to be able to heal from that.
that is, and it takes work.
takes, it takes time and it is, and none of it is fun or easy.
You just wish that, those things would, you, you almost like want an easy button, like astaples easy button to just like move faster.
(13:53):
Any day.
Well, I mean, think that that kind of leads me to the next thing I wanted to ask youabout.
that's, you know, in your newest book, Breaking the Patterns that Break You, you know, youobviously a lot of it is really focusing on finding healing that is lasting, that healing
that is not just a temporary bandaid, but something that is deep, it's at a soul level,where you're really looking to, to
(14:22):
for transformation, not just reformation.
And so I'd love for you to kind of share, I mean, I feel like you've kind of alluded tothis too, especially in your track journey, but on your healing journey, especially in
adulthood, because our brains, especially as we enter adulthood, so much changes.
So for you, were kind of some of those first steps on your long-term healing journey thatled to...
(14:50):
more lasting change and not the like band-aid quick fix.
Yeah, well, and I say that like in this book, people are going to find real healingbecause I think as trauma survivors, as people who have experienced hardship and pain,
it's like we try everything on the list.
(15:12):
Like therapy, check.
Working out, check.
Sleep, check.
Community, check.
Church, check.
Praying, check.
Like we just do all the things and then it's like,
I still feel absolutely broken at end of the day.
And so honestly, part of the book is just saying, me too.
(15:35):
You know, like that's healing to accept sometimes like the sad version of ourselves andnot to try and change her or, you know, like sometimes the most healing thing is to
when someone's going through something really hard is like just to sit with them.
(15:56):
And I think sometimes we don't even do that with ourselves.
We're just trying to always fix ourselves and we just need to be better.
We just need to fix ourselves.
And I think that mentality again, there was the blessing of track.
There was also the curse of track is that you can always be better.
And like, if you accomplish enough, then people will love you because I have fosterparents who, you know, they kicked me out of their house.
But when I became a four time state champion, they came swooping back into my life.
(16:21):
when I went to college on a full ride scholarship and was becoming an All-American, theystarted coming to my track meets.
When I graduated college, they showed up.
And so what I learned throughout my upbringing was, and even into my young adult life,especially actually, is if you accomplish enough, you will earn people's love.
It was literally like classical, it's like classical conditioning.
(16:43):
It was, that's a psychology theory by the way.
And it's literally like, if you do something, if you do X, it'll produce Y.
And usually it's used on animals.
But in this case, it really was what happened.
And so I think, you know, when I look at my own healing journey, the first thing wasnoticing these patterns, right?
(17:07):
these usually they thought patterns that then bleed it into behavioral patterns.
And it was noticing them and then having to sometimes like
see, okay, there is some good in this.
But oftentimes, again, think another thing about trauma survivors is like, so impulsivityis a trauma response.
(17:28):
Being super radical about things is a trauma response.
So like wanting to accomplish things, being ambitious is so good.
But it's also like this two edged sword that can so easily bleed into success becoming ouridentity and wanting to earn people back.
Through success and so having to acknowledge.
(17:49):
Okay.
What are the good parts of?
These misconceptions what can I take from these but also what can I throw out?
So the book actually has 14 lies That we just they're subtle lies.
So these are not lies that you're come across in other books They're the subtle lies thatjust kind of seep into our minds into our brains and That we function from and we don't
(18:13):
even really know it and my hope is that the book
you know, that it's compassionate because that's what I needed to be for myself.
Again, being an athlete, you are really hard on yourself as an athlete.
You're a good athlete.
You're hard on yourself.
And there's again, there's a blessing to that.
the there's this book, another book called Grit.
(18:34):
It's one of my favorite books.
And yes, I love it.
And, know, she talks about the importance of discipline, the importance of being hard onyourself, the importance of resilience, like
these are all really, really good things.
But I think when we become radical with them, they can actually be like a way ofself-harming.
(18:55):
And so it all just, a lot of it just, a lot of my healing journey has had to be, I had togrow in compassion for myself and see where my radicalness was harming myself.
Yeah, and I almost wonder, like, I'd be curious, when you began to really recognize yourown kind of the harmful patterns that you found yourself in, because I think, I mean, not
(19:33):
I think, we know that people more often than not are unable to recognize when they arestuck.
in cycles of harmful patterns.
And so there's subtle signs.
I like how you said you referred to them as quiet lies.
(19:53):
Like what are some of the subtle signs of these harmful patterns, these harmful cycles,and how can somebody begin to address them?
Yeah, I just look at that.
that's such a good point.
I think that's why this book is like a hard sell almost because people don't even likeoftentimes we don't even know we are in the patterns that we're in.
So I, my husband and I, when we got married, we were just so poor, like all people who,you know, get married when they're super young.
(20:22):
And we just took up like free everything, free workout, free like luncheon, like free
stuff off the side of the road to put in our house for furniture.
Like whatever was free, we took it.
So there was this free luncheon.
We're like, free food.
Okay, we're going to that.
And I didn't know that there was going to be a speaker there.
There was a speaker there and he talked about trauma.
And I was like, yeah, like I so you asked like, are some of the things that kind of putyou where you are?
(20:48):
One of those things is I actually started therapy at a very young age.
The judge when I was in foster care, he actually mandated therapy when I was 12 years oldbecause
he said, like, what you've been through, you have to go to therapy.
And so they mandated therapy as a part of my case plan.
And that is definitely one of the things that I started to process so much of what I hadbeen through at such a young age.
(21:09):
And I just learned, like, at a young age, how to process, how to journal.
And that was a great, great asset to me, a great benefit to me.
And so we got to this luncheon and I'm like, yeah, I've heard it before.
Like, I'm kind of like rolling my eyes.
Then the presenter, he said that those who grow up in dysfunction and abuse are two timesor three times more likely to get into relationships with people who are dysfunctional,
(21:49):
who are abusive, who are hurtful.
And that's any kind of relationship.
That's our friendships, our marriages.
You oftentimes we...
We only think about that in terms of marriage, but it's anything.
And for me, I was in very dysfunctional relationships when I was dating.
And then when I got married, that relationship, well, I should say in college, my firstyear of college, went to go run track.
(22:20):
I did not necessarily go to college for an education.
I was like, I'm going to college to run track.
And so didn't really think about like, this a good school?
I just wanted to, I only cared about the coach.
I cared about the program.
And so the coach that I had at the first college I went to, he was actually fired for whatthey said was quote unquote athlete abuse.
(22:44):
Never heard that term before.
Would absolutely say now looking back that I was one of his victims, but when I was in it,couldn't even recognize it.
Then I got married.
And there was this mother figure in our church that I just latched onto and I wanted herto give me all the advice and I wanted her to love me.
(23:06):
again, looking back on that relationship, it was very dysfunctional.
We were very mean to each other, like it was bad.
And I look back and I see that relationship was a lot like the relationship with my mom.
And so I think sometimes we think, we're.
the people who grow up in dysfunction, of course, yeah, they're going to like enter intodysfunctional relationships with their significant others.
But we actually don't see like our relational patterns can transfer to any relationship inour lives.
(23:32):
And when he said that, like you and he said, trauma survivors often enter into these kindof relationships, it's because it's where they find comfort.
It's familiar to them and they don't even recognize the dysfunction.
And that just like blew my mind because I recognized like at the time I was in thisrelationship with this mother figure in my life.
(23:58):
And I was like, no, like that relationship looks so much like.
And I didn't recognize it until someone said it.
And so I think part of it is just having people around you who can point these things outand being open to criticism, being open to feedback.
I will say that that is something that I've always been able to do.
(24:20):
And I don't like that sounds braggy, but I think again, it's that it's the track thing.
Like I was coachable, I was teachable.
then
these things transfer into your adult life in another way.
So when people give me criticism and when people give me feedback, sometimes I can take itto the point where it crushes me and it stays with me forever and that's not healthy
either.
But there are a lot of times where I take it and it has helped me.
(24:44):
And so if you can be someone that can be a good listener, that can receive feedback andcriticism and actually say, is this applicable to my life?
And if you can be honest and reflective with yourself, that's gonna show you a lot ofthose subtle patterns.
Yeah, the honesty and the reflection piece are so key.
(25:05):
And the reality is, and this is something I had to realize in my own life, and I thinkyou've kind of alluded to this, also just as we, know, whenever we have these kinds of
conversations, like all of us have other people too that like pop into our head are like,man, this person really needs to hear this conversation, you know.
And the reality is, that, you know, because my, both my parents were recoveringalcoholics.
(25:28):
And so I grew up
all around people in recovery.
the one thing that really separated in all honesty, the one thing that truly separatedpeople who were quote unquote successful in their recovery and really stayed on a journey
of sobriety or free from drug addiction or whatever it was versus people who were not assuccessful.
(25:55):
It was a, it was a
the one of the first steps, know, I think it's the first step.
Yeah, it is the first step in the 12 step program is admitting that you are powerless overalcohol and admitting that you are powerless over insert whatever the thing is here,
whatever the harmful pattern is, whatever the cycle that you're trying to break, you haveto want to get help.
(26:21):
and I mean, my dad who's been, you know, he's 80.
I talk about this a lot.
My dad is 80.
He's been, he's been sober for 45 years.
you know, for him, like he's, he's sponsored a ton of, of men and he's like, and thereality is, is the ones who stay sober are the ones who admit that they have a problem and
(26:42):
want to get better.
And the ones who don't, the ones who end up continuing into patterns of drinking.
don't can't admit they have a problem and don't want to get better.
And I think again, I think you can alcohol, drug addiction, porn use, abuse, whatever thething is, it's admitting that there is a problem and wanting to get better.
(27:05):
And that is that first step.
But man, that is like for a lot of people, for all of us, that is a mountain that justfeels impossible to climb.
But I think this actually segues well into the next piece that I really wanted to touchon.
And that is how you regularly talk about inviting Jesus into this process.
(27:30):
And that can, especially for people who are not coming from a faith perspective, that canfeel really like, I don't know about that.
But the reality is the power that Jesus provides and how.
One thing you talk about in the book is how God is like constantly rebuilding us intopalaces rather than cottages, which I just love that imagery.
(27:54):
But I'd love for you to just kind of touch on that.
Like, what does that look like to invite God and invite Jesus into this process and allowhim to rebuild you, to make you into something new?
Because that feels so vulnerable.
So when I was in college, there was this girl, name was Alexis, and she was like popularand she's beautiful.
(28:21):
The boys loved her.
And I just kind of looked at her and said, she's just perfect.
And we weren't really, she was on my track team.
We were really very close because I felt like our lives were so different.
And I just created this really big wall.
And then I found out that her dad was an alcoholic.
(28:42):
that her dad had actually, so her dad was an alcoholic throughout her upbringing and thenfinding that out we became friends.
I was like, okay, I can like you.
You've been through something hard, me too.
And then her dad sadly passed away.
(29:02):
He was trying to get sober, but like on his own, which I had no idea that that wassomething we could.
cast from at the time.
That was crazy to me.
And I quote unquote worked as this person who watched the weight room when I was incollege.
I just did homework.
I was supposed to be watching the weight room.
(29:22):
I don't, that's what all of us did.
All of us who have that job, we just watched, we just did homework even though we'resupposed to quote unquote watch the weight room.
I don't know.
Anyway, so was doing that.
was watching the weight, watching the weight room and Alexis came out of
her class and she was just leaving.
I knew that her dad had passed away.
And she just fell into my arms and she was just bawling.
(29:48):
And I told her, I said, Alexis, you just need to trust God.
And she said, Tori, my dad just died.
And my heart just sunk and I knew that it was not the right thing.
I knew that that was not what I was supposed to say, but it was just what I had heardother ministry leaders say.
(30:12):
It was what I heard the really godly people say.
I didn't know it was the wrong thing.
And then I just didn't say anything for the rest of our time together.
I just held her and she just kept crying.
And it was something that stuck with me.
That story will stick with me forever because I knew that I said something that was maybetheologically right.
(30:35):
but not pastorally right or not love your neighbor right, you know?
And I think sometimes we don't let God in, we don't let Jesus in because we, you know, Iuse the analogy of a house in my book.
And I think that sometimes we don't let him in because we have this perception of him thathe's just gonna like shrug his shoulders and say, just trust me, right?
(31:03):
our home, it's like wreckage, you know, the home that we feel like we are living in withinourselves is just wreckage.
And there's so much damage because of what people have done to us and maybe some of thethings that we've done.
And we think that Jesus is coming in and just slapping a bandaid on it.
But really, that's sometimes what his people do, but that's not who Jesus is.
(31:27):
And so I think we just need to change our perspective and understand that like
God is coming in and He wants to truly repair the home.
He wants to make us a safe house because He wants us to be a safe place for other peopleand ultimately because He is like, the Psalms actually say like that God is our safe
(31:50):
house.
And so He wants us to reflect that because He also wants us to understand that that's whoHe is and He wants us to feel safe within Him.
And so I think really it's
We have to just change our perspective and see God for who He truly is, which is not aband-aid-slapping God.
It's a God who comes alongside us, holds our hand, walks with us, and to repair the thingsthat truly need repaired and to make new what needs to be.
(32:21):
love the way that you use that analogy, mainly because I'm also just like very visualperson.
And so being able to hear and see that analogy kind of come to light is just reallypowerful.
And especially as somebody who has, we've done some renovations on this house as well.
(32:42):
And like, when we've discovered, you know, areas that like
they, the original builders, like maybe cut some corners.
We're like, well, this is not helpful at all.
And I remember when we bought the house that we're living in and we were renovating thekitchen and it was like, we had pulled up some old tile that was like from the eighties
(33:05):
and it, you know, needed, it needed to be gone.
And we lifted up that tile and underneath the subfloor had completely rotted away.
And so we had to completely replace all the subfloor.
And it was like, you know, just the least fun part of a renovation when it's like, why doyou want to spend all this money on what is not exciting?
(33:26):
And I remember the other thing too, is we were taking down some walls and opening up somerooms, but a couple of the walls were load bearing.
And so we had to put it
wait, you took down the bearing.
Yes.
Well, well, well, so yes, but we had well, okay, so no, as it sounds, is that a couple ofthe walls that we wanted to take down were load bearing.
(33:57):
So in order to do it, we had to hire this engineer to come in.
Yeah.
So no, we didn't do it.
No, no, I realized as I was saying it, I was like, I probably said this wrong.
No, so we knew we wanted to take them down, but we had to this engineer come in and he waslike, these walls are load bearing.
(34:18):
In order to do this or to like open up some of these walls, we're going to have to put innot only a beam, like on the top, but they had to go in the crawl space of the house, like
underneath of the house to put another beam there.
And it was like, I remember thinking to myself, because it was like astronomicallyexpensive to put in
(34:39):
two pieces of wood, Tori.
These are two pieces of wood.
could like, these are like, two inch by 10 inch boards.
And it was insanely expensive to put in two pieces of wood.
I was like, the wood itself probably costs like 10 bucks, but this feels stupid expensiveto be able to take out this wall.
(35:02):
But it was this beautiful analogy of like, you have to put the work in.
to the really unsexy parts in order so that everything doesn't collapse on itself.
And so it's not fun.
It's not sexy to like do inner soul work.
(35:22):
It is not fun or sexy to sit there and to confess your sins to one another.
It is not fun or sexy to sit there and to really like real recognize the unhealthy sinpatterns that you're in and work to break out of them.
But if you don't do that, like you said, you cannot peel beyond that.
You have to do the foundational work in order to do it right.
(35:48):
man, it's...
And that's what I say.
So my husband, these analogies became very apparent to me because my husband and I loveold homes.
And we have a few old homes that we have renovated.
Our first one was a 100-year-old duplex.
And then the second one is a 200-year-old house.
And the second one, the 200-year-old house, we actually live in it.
(36:12):
And you know, it had like...
The people that we bought it from, the husband, was a contractor.
And so there was just such a good foundation to it, such good bones, like they had takensuch good care of it.
The first one that we bought, the Duplex, I mean, it was rented out, you know, for yearsand years and years, just by landlords who were like putting tenants in it, not really
(36:33):
keeping up with the beauty of, you know, the nostalgia of the home.
And so with that home, we really had to put so much work in it for it to be a place thatyou could really appreciate and to restore it, to bring it back to its original beauty.
(36:55):
And what I realized is once we restore that, there will always be, when you have an oldhouse, there will always be things that you have to fix, that you have to maintain, that
you have to keep up with.
But because of the beauty of those homes, we wouldn't tear them down.
We wouldn't throw them away.
And right, same thing for us as like our past selves, the people we were when we weregrowing up.
(37:18):
Like, it's not to say like, just throw that person out.
Like those those ideas or those things that you went through just just become somethingnew.
The idea is that actually those things they they teach you and they help you become, youknow, who you are.
There's still value in them.
(37:39):
But at the same time, we have to recognize that those old, old patterns, like tryingreally hard to earn people's love, doesn't always transfer.
Yeah, it was my survival mechanism when I was a kid and it worked really well for me, butdoesn't always transfer very well when you're an adult in public facing ministry.
Or when you're a mom trying to take all this different mom advice and some just ain't it.
(38:02):
So yeah, it's really just saying like, you know, some of these things worked and
some of these things are still working, some of them aren't.
And then once we have that foundation right now with that duplex, it's a foundation.
moving forward, we'll always have that maintenance, but it never be as hard as it firstwas.
(38:23):
And so when we do that foundational work, everything gets easier from there.
And I read this article, Molly, I didn't like it.
It said, the article was like,
this the name of it?
It was like, if you avoid your triggers, you're not healed.
(38:43):
And I was just like, I just didn't like that.
Because the reality is, like, if you are a former drug addict, we want to tell a formerdrug addict, like, go to your local dispensary, we wouldn't tell a former alcoholic, like,
go to your local bar.
It's like the same is true for people or for relationships or other triggers.
(39:04):
Like if someone struggles with co-dependency and like addiction to relationships, wewouldn't be like, go enter back into that very dysfunctional relationship.
And so, you know, as that, like that is foundational.
And I think sometimes we can be so like these, these self-help books, like that my bookwould fall into the genre of they are just so harsh.
They're just so hard.
(39:24):
They are not filled with
compassion and it's like we just need to be a little bit more gentler with ourselves andsee that like, okay, the foundation that I've built is actually better than what I thought
it was.
And we do that by looking back, not at, you know, we do that not by looking at someoneelse's healing, but we do that by looking at, you know, the people we were, the person we
(39:47):
were five years ago, the person we were 10 years ago.
And then when we do that, we see that we've actually come a really long way.
We can be compassionate with ourselves and we can be more cautious to not step into theseharmful places, these dysfunctional places, and that's what keeps that foundation firm and
strong so that it's easier to heal.
(40:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
man.
That's so good.
Well, Tori, I I have like 20 other questions I wanted to ask you, and I know we're runningout of time.
there was what I would like to end with is for you to speak just kind of briefly to twogroups of people.
And that's one, people who are maybe in the support role for someone who is
(40:36):
breaking out of these patterns or you know what I mean?
Because like the reality is is like, yes, there's a lot of inner work and there's a lot ofwork that has to be done alone.
But a lot of this work is done in community as well.
And so it can be hard for people who are walking alongside or coming, coming alongsidesomebody who is doing some serious inner work, healing from some trauma, all that kind of
(40:59):
stuff.
So I'm kind of I would like for you to speak to those people about how you know, just youradvice, your
thoughts on how to best do that in a loving, gracious way.
And then the other group is just the people who are currently like in the midst of it andit and feel like they want to just throw in the towel.
(41:19):
so I would love for you to just kind of, I think that'd be a beautiful way to end.
Yeah, to the support people, I would say, I want to say just like watch your shallowmaxims, like watch those quick fixes.
Like I told Alexis, just trust God.
(41:39):
We do that as a church way too often and we don't recognize how truly hurtful it is.
More than people need advice, people need someone to sit with them and walk with them.
listen to them.
My mother figure who I do talk about in the book is Tonya.
And she is not someone who gives a lot of advice, like at all.
(42:04):
But I've sat with her for many hours and talked and she's just such a wonderful listener.
She's helped me process through a lot of things and she asked good questions that thenhelped me again continue to process and bring about the right good answers as I'm working
through these hard things.
And so
Be a good listener even more than you're a good advice giver and be a good question asker.
(42:28):
Jesus was a good question asker.
According to the Gospels, think he asked like, it was like 300, I might get these numberswrong, think Jesus asked 307 questions and he only answered three of the 180 questions he
was asked himself.
And so I think, you know, Jesus was a good question asker and so we should be goodquestion askers too, especially when we're walking with.
(42:52):
who are, who have a lot of questions, who are still working through hard things.
And what I would say to the people who want to throw in the towel, and I'm going to, youknow, oftentimes we say throw in the towel and we think like, give up and go to sleep.
But something I talk about in my book that I'm going to, I want to say it here because Ithink it's just not brought up in Christian spaces enough.
(43:21):
I bring up suicidal ideation.
talk about how I have struggled with suicidal ideation from a very young age.
so people who really want to throw in the towel, I would tell you that your life haspurpose.
There's a beautiful plan for your life that God loves you and that for you to stay herevery well may be the thing that someone else needs.
(43:50):
Like it's so simple, it's so hard, but you really just have to keep pushing through andget people around you who love you.
I think one of the biggest lies that we believe is that we're not lovable, that we're notloved because we have experienced people not loving us in the way that we thought they
should or really we experienced people who were supposed to love us harm us.
(44:17):
And so my advice to you is to
Continue to fight to find your people who truly love you and who can speak words of lifeover you because your life has value and you are truly loved.
Tori, that's so good.
Thank you so much for being here.
I just love your heart and the work you're doing and especially just your advocacy workfor the foster care system.
(44:46):
We are not foster parents yet.
I don't know if God's opening that door, but we have a lot of friends at our church whoare, and so we always try to support the foster families and just
So good.
because it it's hard, holy work.
And so, you you know that more than anybody.
So thank you so much for everything and for being here.
(45:11):
Thank you for having me.
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