Is healing from trauma ever really “finished?" In this compelling episode of Hey Tabi, trauma therapist and host Tabitha Westbrook sits down with Dr. Chuck DeGroat—therapist, pastor, and author of "Healing What’s Within"—to unpack the long journey of trauma recovery, especially in faith-based spaces.
Together, they explore:
- What it means when trauma lingers for decades
- Why “getting over it” isn’t always the goal
- How to practice self-compassion when your nervous system says you're not safe
- The connection between developmental trauma, spiritual abuse, and physical illness
- What churches often get wrong about trauma—and what survivors really need
Whether you're a survivor, a spiritual leader, or someone walking alongside others in pain, this episode offers deep validation, wisdom, and hope for the slow, sacred work of healing.
👉 Don’t forget to subscribe for more conversations that blend trauma-informed care with real, faith-integrated dialogue.
📘 Learn more about Chuck’s book & grab a copy: "Healing What’s Within" - https://amzn.to/3SilvN7
#heytabipodcast #ChuckDeGroat #TraumaHealing #SpiritualAbuse #ChristianTherapist #FaithAndTrauma #ComplexTrauma #HealingJourney #ChurchHurt #NarcissismInTheChurch
🎧 Subscribe to Hey Tabi for more expert conversations on trauma, faith, and healing.
📩 Connect with Tabitha:
💻 Tabitha's Website - www.tabithawestbrook.com
📲 Tabitha's Instagram - www.instagram.com/tabithathecounselor
🎙️ Podcast Homepage - https://heytabi.buzzsprout.com
💻 The Journey & The Process Website - www.thejourneyandtheprocess.com
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👍 If this episode resonated with you, please like, subscribe, and share to help others who need this information!
🚨 Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy and is intended for educational purposes only. If you're in crisis or need therapy, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about
the hard things out loud, withour actual lips.
We'll cover all kinds of topicsacross the mental health
spectrum, including how itintersects with the Christian
faith.
Nothing is off limits here andwe are not.
Take two verses and call me inthe morning.
I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm alicensed trauma therapist.
But I'm not your traumatherapist.
(00:21):
I'm an expert in domestic abuseand coercive control and how
complex trauma impacts ourhealth and well-being.
Our focus here is knowledge andhealing.
Trauma doesn't have to eat yourlunch forever.
There is hope.
Now let's get going.
Well, welcome to this week's heyTabby.
I am so excited to be here withan author and pastor and
(00:45):
professor.
I think he does all the things,but I'm going to tell you a
little bit more about him.
I am here with Chuck DeGrooteand he is a follower of Jesus, a
husband to Sarah for 30 years,he's a father to two amazing
daughters and he serves as aprofessor of counseling and
Christian spirituality as wellas the executive director of the
clinical mental healthcounseling program at Western
(01:08):
Theological Seminary in Holland,michigan.
He's a faculty member as wellfor the Soul Care Institute.
He's a licensed therapist, aspiritual director he's authored
six books, which is amazing anda retreat leader as well as
speaker.
He's a therapist thatspecializes in pastoral and
leadership, health, abuse andtrauma, navigating spiritual and
(01:28):
emotional obstacles on thefaith journey, and he doesn't
only work with pastors, but withanybody longing for flourishing
and wholeness in their lives,which is so good.
He's also a minister of theword and sacrament in the
Reformed Church in America.
He's pastored in Orlando, sanFrancisco, and then transitioned
to training and forming pastors.
He's got more than 20 yearsexperience training clergy in
(01:51):
issues of abuse and trauma,which we know is something that
is so needed.
He's also conducted pastor andplanter assessments and he's
facilitated church consultationsand inquiries of abuse among
pastors and within congregations.
He's got a bunch of books wewill make sure to link them all
in the show notes and his newestbook is Healing what's Within,
(02:11):
which is one of the things we'regoing to talk about today.
Chuck, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, thank you.
Great to be with you, Tabby.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We are going to have such a good time, hopefully on
the podcast, so tell me what ledyou to write Healing what's?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Within.
Well, so I feel like this isone of those books that has sort
of been in me, but it hasn't.
It didn't quite emerge earlier,it took some time, it was in
the crockpot, so to speak.
Right, and because, as you know, I work with three questions
that come from Genesis 3 that Ifind incredibly curious and
compassionate when are you whotold you and where have you
(02:50):
taken your hunger and thirst?
And those are questions I'vebeen working with for a long
time in retreat settings.
But I don't think I quite had asense that it was all coming
together until the last fewyears.
I had written this book onnarcissism in the church and
abuse in the church really, andI think one of the questions
that came up after that was well, how do we heal?
And I was talking often aboutthe difference between abuse and
(03:14):
trauma, right, abuse being whathappened to you, trauma, the
lingering impact within whichrequires a bit of nuance, right,
in terms of how we deal.
I really emerged out of thatquestion how do we heal?
But I also knew that at somepoint this was with the
encouragement of editors and Iknew I had to write a little bit
more about my own story I don'twrite a ton about my own story,
(03:35):
but my own experience of abusewithin the church too, and so it
all sort of came together atthe right moment.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's awesome, not that you were abused, but that
it all came together.
I think that's.
It's actually really comfortingto hear parts of your story.
I think, as a fellow survivorand as someone who works with a
lot of survivors, that knowingsomeone's got the street cred,
if you will, and is working oncoming out the other side,
(04:04):
because I don't know that we arealways fully out the other side
.
You know, I think things comeup as we hit different
activation points and thingslike that.
What is your sense of that forfolks?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, I don't think we fully come out the other side
.
It's always there, right, thebody keeps the score.
And really the night before thenarcissism book was published,
I mean, I didn't sleep thatnight and I had a sense that the
pastor that fired me many yearsbefore would come after me.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Like in my body.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I had said it wasn't rational, right?
But we don't.
We know how that works, right?
Like my body was screaming hewill come after you, he wants to
hurt you, and I do think thatthat surprised me, because that
all goes back to 2003.
That other book came out in2020.
So that's 17 years, right, andlots of therapy, and so it still
(04:54):
lingers.
But through some of the work Italk about in the book, the work
that you and I do, I do thinkthat it diminishes in terms of
its power and we grow in a senseof resilience.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Absolutely.
I think that's such aninteresting thing.
Backing up to when narcissismcomes to church, like that was a
profound book for so manypeople because it gave language
to their experience, their livedexperience.
And I think it's interestingthat even with the distance
between when your struggleoccurred, when the harm occurred
, to releasing the book, evenwith lots of healing, there was
that body activation.
(05:31):
I know a lot of people are likeI wish the body would stop
keeping the score because thisis not a competition, but we
know that it happens and thesethings get buried so deep within
that they can pop up.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think this is why we, on our
work, we invite people toself-compassion, because I do
think that there, you know thisvery well.
I'm sure there are times whensome of this will be activated
for me and I'll think, gosh, whyaren't you over this by now?
Other people have done betterwork.
They've probably done harderwork than you, or they've.
(06:03):
You know all the comparisonthat we get into.
I can still be hard on myselfwhen it comes to my own healing
journey.
So when I'm working withsomeone who's like a year out of
church harm and abuse right andthey're like I should be over
it by now, sometimes it'shelpful for them to hear from me
.
Well, I'm about 20 years, 22years now, and it still lingers
(06:25):
within in different ways Now,and I also want to convey to
folks that there's a hopefulpath too.
It's not the same as it was inyear one or five or 10.
It's certainly a lot different.
I'm growing, becoming moreresilient, but there's still
that lingering memory within,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And I think people underestimate the compound
nature of traumatic experiences.
So a lot of folks I work withand I'm sure you work with as
well have developmental trauma,which is trauma that happened
when they were kids and theirattachment ruptures and all
kinds of shenanigans that takeplace.
And so then you add church harmon top of it, or domestic abuse
(07:05):
or any other kind of trauma,and you've got this layered
effect.
And so it takes time to peelthat onion back.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I'll often say for me in my ownstory there's early
developmental trauma, there'scomplex relational trauma
throughout my life.
I think, in some ways, what Iwent through in 2003, maybe
someone who was more securelyattached might have been more
resilient coming out of that,might have looked for the kinds
of resources, but my body, Imean.
(07:34):
I look back now and I was atrained therapist at the time,
trying to say and do all theright things that we try to say
and do, and something inside mesaid, nope, I am going inward
and I'm buckling down and noone's going to know or see.
I'm just going to forge my wayahead and for the next number of
(07:56):
years after that it took a tollon my body and so we can have
all kinds of resources, but it'stough to tease out these layers
that you're talking about, thiscompounding trauma, and that's
why I think early on in myjourney I'm curious if you've
experienced this in your work Ithink I was looking for the
smoking gun.
What's that one thing thathappened that I can look at and
(08:17):
I can grieve and I can do allthe things that we were taught
to do 25 years ago in counselingcathart and cry and be through
it and be done with it foreverright, and you realize.
Oh no, it's so much morecomplex and layered than that
and we just need a lot ofkindness and self-compassion
along the way.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
We do, and I think the church the big C church of
the 80s and 90s and early 2000s,I think struggled in some ways
with that and I think that alsocontributed to a lot of the pull
up your bootstraps theologythat I know I had growing up,
and as a young adult as well ofjust like, well, you have to get
over it and it's not that bad,and you're a sinner.
(08:56):
All you deserve is hell anddeath.
And you didn't even get that,so like suck it up buttercup.
And so you shove inside andshove inside, and some people
move to addiction, some peoplemove to overachieving, which can
also be a problem I woulddefinitely be on the
over-functioner side of thingsand then you realize at some
point, like none of this isworking and it's all still there
(09:16):
and I just stuck a bandaid on abullet wound.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's it , and I'm with you on that
over-functioner side, but thatlooks better in some ways to
folks.
I did that as a pastor and Iwas commended for my
quote-unquote resilience amisunderstanding of resilience,
right and for how productive Iwas.
But that season of productivitywas really born out of.
(09:40):
I will never let what happenedto me before happen again.
You will never be able to sayto me fill in the blank, you
know you didn't do enough, youdidn't come through, you didn't.
Well, by then I was in my earlyforties and it takes a toll in
your late thirties, earlyforties.
In a way.
It doesn't take at times inyour late twenties, early
thirties, right.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So yeah, yeah, when we were in our twenties we could
, like sleep on a tree root, getup and go to work at like 5am.
In my late forties Now almost50, I can turn the wrong way and
harm some part of my body,which is, like, I think,
honestly God's irony and in someways, his delight, because if
we could just keep sleeping likea pretzel or shoving it down,
(10:22):
then we wouldn't reach out forhim, we wouldn't come to the end
where we're like nothing isworking.
What next?
And you, really you came tothat point.
You tell a story in the book ofending up in the hospital
because you had shoved it alldown and your body noped you
right out of that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, yeah.
I was in some really goodtherapy at the time, by the way,
with this IFS practitionerwho's really close to Richard
Schwartz and had done the earlytraining.
I felt like I'm doing my work.
You know that's sometimes weconvince ourselves that I'm in
therapy weekly.
I'm doing my work, but I thinkin some ways I'd leave my
session and I go back into myold strategies of over
functioning.
(10:58):
And I noticed in my body in theyear before this vacation I took
, I noticed growing fatigue.
I'd gotten gluten-free becauseof heartburn and the stomach
pain and things like that.
A few more ibuprofen every day,too much caffeine in the
morning, maybe an extra drink inthe evening to numb the anxiety
(11:19):
right.
All these things sort ofhappened slowly and suddenly.
And then I remember we wereheaded down to Cabo Mexico.
I'd never been down there.
Our family was really excited.
My daughters were a little bityounger and my stomach was
hurting so bad.
My wife said can you go?
And I did what I always do.
Of course I can go.
I'll just take more medicinewith me, you know.
(11:40):
And over the first few daysthere was in so much pain.
And one night my wife finds mein the shower, the hot water
pulsing on my back and says wehave to get you to the emergency
room.
And so a friend and my wifetook me to the hospital and I
was really ill.
I mean, they did a number ofdifferent tests, discovering
that I had gallstones.
But when they went in to removethe gallstones, they discovered
(12:02):
that my system was septic.
And I had no idea, and thiswasn't something that happened
overnight, right, this was theaccumulation, the compounding
effects of trauma, really, andso I didn't realize that at the
time.
But in the next few days in thehospital, when they said you
have to stay here longer than wetold you you'd have to stay,
when I wanted to just get up andgo home as fast as possible,
(12:24):
you know, as I'm laying thereand I don't speak I speak a
little Spanish, but not fluentSpanish by any means a lot of
time to reflect and realizingthat something needs to shift.
I will need to make a choice tostep away from maybe an area
that we lived in San Francisco,a job that I loved, and simplify
(12:44):
it a significant way to gethealthy.
And so it's not that the grassis always greener on the other
side.
But I began to realize in thatfew days after that, some things
would really need to shift.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, I think that's a very profound statement,
because it's really hard whenyou're in that place to make
shift, especially when you findmeaning in the work that you're
doing.
You're finding meaning andcomfort and a reduction in
anxiety from over-functioningand all of those things that
take a.
I actually need to slow down,which safety and slow to a
(13:19):
nervous system habituated tochaos is terrifying.
To chaos is terrifying,Terrifying.
So what was it like for you towalk a path that probably felt?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
pretty dysregulating for you.
I think what you said is soimportant because I think we
expect that we're going to makethe shift and things are going
to get better.
But there are parts of us andthat connect to our body.
You know our body's intuitionthat practically scream.
This isn't okay.
You know, and I remember in thework that I was doing out in the
Bay Area I was growing in termsof a sense of recognition.
(13:53):
You know these things that wethink we want, particularly in
our late 30s.
You know getting to speak invarious places and write and all
of that sort of went awayovernight.
I moved to the small regionalseminary as a junior professor.
It took a big pay cut and feltvery obscure and my body was
revolting.
I remember, as people would askme where I lived, I'd continue
(14:14):
to say San Francisco and I keptit on my bio on social media
because I wanted to still bethere in some ways.
And I remember a friend comingto me at one point saying you've
not moved.
You moved to West Michigan butyou're not here yet.
You're still there andrecognizing that there's a part
of my, parts of me that werefreaking out.
You know, like I can't losethat I can't leave that behind,
(14:36):
and so that shift that you'retalking about, this is where we
need good care.
This is what we call titratedwork, slow work, paced work,
where I begin to take an hourevery day, midday in my office,
shades, closed door closed, todo some meditative work.
That's something I never wouldhave done before.
Waste an hour, right.
But my body slowly began toadapt to a new reality.
(15:00):
Parts of me began to relax, butthat took a while, and that's
all to say.
This isn't fast work, as youknow, as you work with clients,
and it unfolds in often inunpredictable ways and sometimes
chaotic ways, as you'rementioning.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Absolutely.
I think it's a hard thing forpeople to reckon with when we
live in a society that is, Icall it, the McDonald's society,
where we're just like give memy Big Mac, it's going to look
just like the picture on the ad,whatever, and recovery is not
that, it's not.
We are more complex when wethink about being fearfully and
wonderfully made, which weabsolutely are.
There is a lot of resiliencethat God has created us with,
(15:40):
and it is a hard path to changeour neural pathways, to change
our way of being, to sit withthose parts of us that are
freaking out and give themkindness when maybe all we've
ever been told is suck it up youknow and to be able to give
that tenderness and say no.
And that's one of the things Iloved about the questions and
(16:01):
the way that you phrase them inthe book, which are so tender
and gentle and kind.
But just where are you?
I know I was taught in churchthat it was a demanding, upset,
angry father God that waslooking for Adam and Eve, but
that's not who he is Now.
Is he a God of wrath andjustice?
(16:22):
Absolutely, because sin is aserious matter.
However, when he's talking tohis kids who have messed up,
he's not the punitive father.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah, it's such a big shift and I mean, I think
probably all of us have a bitof a punitive father inside of
us.
You know, it's easy to map thatonto God.
I knew that as I approached,particularly in those years
after the hospitalization, as Iapproached myself that kindness
I've been using that question inretreat settings, but not for
me, you know.
(16:53):
So there again, hearing thatkind where are you?
And being able to say I feelreally tired.
So there again, hearing thatkind where are you and being
able to say I feel really tired.
I mean, I thought something was, as you know from your work, I
thought something was deeplybroken in me in my mid forties.
I'm laying on my couch in myoffice at two in the afternoon,
having left a job that was thejob of my dreams in the Bay Area
, and feeling in my body likethe doctor even said to me.
(17:17):
Feeling in my body, like thedoctor even said to me, what we
see in your body with this sortof septic condition is a man in
his 60s, not a man in his early40s, you know.
So, feeling in my body likesomething's really wrong.
I'm so broken and I will neverbe better.
It took so long for my body toheal.
I do these five-day intensivesoftentimes with pastors, but
with lots of different folks,and I was sitting with a pastor
(17:39):
last week and he said so okay,so we've done it five days.
What do I need?
Another two, three, four weeksof doing some of this?
You know this breathing andthese practices and I'll be good
.
You know I was like.
You know that hospitalizationwas back in 2012.
So I'm like 13 years into thiswork, this kind of work now,
(18:00):
this more trauma-informed,polyvagal, body oriented work,
and I still go back to my oldstrategies.
I still over-function.
My brain still knows thoseneural pathways that work so
well.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Absolutely.
And it's always an interestingquestion to me when folks ask
something like that like youknow, do this two or three more
times?
Do I need like one moreintensive or another week of
therapy or whatever?
And I even say that to myself,like you know much like you like
how much longer, god?
How much longer?
Why are we still here?
And I think part of thekindness is leaning into the
(18:33):
process and the slowness of theprocess and allowing it to take
its course, which is frustratingin a society that doesn't
support that.
We don't support slow, we don'tsupport taking rest breaks.
Now, there's a lot of talkabout it, but we don't actually
support it.
It's like lip service, right,but there is something so
profoundly beautiful for theheart when we do when we lean in
(18:56):
like that yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, I don't know that I quite knew what I was
talking about back then, but thefirst book that I ever wrote
when I was in this season postspiritual abuse of some recovery
was this book on finding God inthe wilderness places, this
Exodus storybook, Right, and Irealized that that journey
should have taken 11 days but ittook 40 years.
I had no idea that that couldhave taken them 11 days if they
(19:20):
were, you know, if they'rereally going, but 40 years and
that sort of feels like ourlives.
Sometimes, I mean, that canfeel like a downer to some folks
who get into therapy andthey're like, okay, let's go,
let's get healed, andparticularly in spaces that
offer quick treatments cognitive, behavioral kinds of treatments
that are sort of fast andfurious but that's not how the
(19:41):
body works, right, that's nothow the body heals.
And so I do think that questionwhere are you is an invitation
to a kind of tenderness.
My clients know this.
Even in sessions my hand isoften.
I mean, this is a reminder, anembodied reminder to me to be
listening within, even as I'msitting with you right now, to
what cues my body is giving me.
(20:02):
And so this is the slow workthat we invite people to.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, also just for the sake of our listeners.
To think about is we're lookingat in light of eternity, right?
So I think sometimes we getcaught in this physical temporal
place that we can see, touch,taste, and that's.
We're really playing a muchlonger game, you know, and
sanctification looks fardifferent than I think.
(20:29):
Maybe I was taught in the 80sthat it's such a different
process, such a differentexpansion versus a reduction
actually.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, I mean, because what we got was like God is
this anxious, like helicopterparent, you know, and come on,
come on, come on, we have to go,it's time.
You know, that kind of thingthat I remember very well from
my mom, back in the day, youknow, but I think that sense, or
maybe that quiet, avoidant,angry dad who doesn't really
chime in except when you dosomething wrong.
(21:00):
Wrong and then you get smacked,you know, and I do think that a
lot of us carry that in ourbodies.
So this idea that God's movingtoward us, that God's safe, that
God's attuned, that God sees usin our hiding, that God's first
words are where are you?
Which is someone reminded me ata conference at one point in the
Hebrews, the first word of thebook of lamentations.
You know, it's a word of lament, it's a word of heartbreak,
(21:23):
it's a word of empathy.
Can we still use the wordempathy, by the way?
I know that's under attacknowadays, but it's a word of
empathy.
And so, yeah, that's a shifttoo, as you know, particularly
for those of us who'veexperienced abuse and for a
number of my clients.
In fact, in writing this book,I had to ask my clients along
(21:44):
the way.
So how does this feel?
Because I know I've been on thejourney for a little while but
it might not feel at allcomfortable to use these
questions and I've had clientssay, nope, we're not going there
, we're not using thesequestions, we're not opening our
Bibles, we're going to do thiswork right now and maybe
eventually we'll get back there.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, it's a hard thing.
I use a lot of different Bibletranslations.
If I use Scripture at alloutright in a session, we joke
that we use the NTT, which isthe New Tabby Translation, which
is my exegetically andhermeneutically correct
summarization of something,because it is so tricky.
It's been so weaponized,particularly in cases of
domestic abuse, where scriptureis often used to, you know,
force, subjugation and wicked,wicked things for people, and
(22:29):
that just breaks my heartbecause it is so not the heart
of God for somebody, but ittakes understanding, tenderness
and learning that kindness.
It is God's kindness that leadsus to repentance, not hellfire
and brimstone.
And I look at Jesus and how heapproached all of these people
that he touched and the onlyones he had hard words for were
the Pharisees, and even that wasan invitation to think about
(22:52):
what you are doing.
You are being a whitewashedtomb full of dead men's bones,
like that should have made themgo home and go.
I am like permanently,ceremonially unclean.
What happened, yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
yeah, yeah, I was working with a woman not too
long ago with a story of reallypainful abuse from a family of
origin and a husband Christianhusband Christian home.
You know, the church did allthe things that a church
shouldn't do.
In the midst of this, it becameher fault if she would do this
better and that better and allthe things that you know so very
well.
Right, and I remember she said,after meeting a number of times
(23:28):
, she said, I think that becauseI often talk about a survival
orientation versus a connectionorientation, you know, and she
said, I think because I grew upin that survival orientation, I
just found churches andtheologies and a husband that
matched that and I lived invigilance and so in a sense I
found myself in church spacesthat matched my family of origin
(23:49):
.
So now the shift into aconnection orientation is a
shift into, I think, a reallybeautiful place.
I call it the still waters ofGod.
A beautiful place where I thinkGod does dwell, where God is
really kind.
But it's like she's over therenow, but so much of her body
still remains over here and it'slike what do I do with this
(24:11):
juxtaposition?
God is kind, god looks at mewith a smile of delight.
God pursues me.
I don't even know what to dowith that.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, it's such a game changer for folks
theologically to really, whenyou look at the whole counsel of
the word of God, when you lookat the actual whole Bible and go
wait a second.
His orientation is so longsuffering, it is so kind.
Yes, there are consequences forjunk, without question, but his
orientation toward his peopleis please come back, please come
(24:41):
back, I'm here, I'm here foryou, I'm here with you, I love
you.
I will get in the dirt with youand that is where I find the
best healing is in the dirt,like that is for sure, where God
does great work and, I guess,the church.
Sometimes we're a little bitafraid to get messy.
We're afraid to get in the dirtwith people, but that is where
we're called to be.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I often talk about it in terms of humility and that
old word humus.
You know, in the soil, in thedirt, like there, there is a
kind of humility that emergeslike that.
But if you've lived like youand I, have, over functioning,
we live three to five feet offthe ground all the time in
perpetual motion.
Find our way back down to thedirt, back down to the soil, to
(25:23):
a place of humility issimultaneously sort of identity
shattering, right, especially ifyou've lived
perfectionistically andover-functioning.
But boy, your body is likethank you, because I don't think
we could have gone much longerat that pace and that survival
orientation.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, and again that feels so unsafe at first and
this is something I walk throughwith clients quite a bit is
when goodness starts for them.
Let's say they've been inabusive spaces and now they are
in a space where they are ingood community with wonderful
people, and then it feels offand they're crying a lot and
they're like I don't know whatto do.
(26:01):
I'm like, oh, your body is notused to it, you know, like let's
lean into the discomfort andallow it some space and let's
check in with the parts that arescared and be really gentle.
You know, because sometimeskindness and care was the means
to an end for abuse.
So anytime you got gentlenessyou knew something was coming
after, and so it's really thenhard to trust it and hard to
(26:24):
trust goodness, and so whenyou're confronted with true
goodness, it feels radicallyunsafe.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, I mean again, you know this, but this is where
we can't do it on our own right.
I think in some way, that's themistake I made in 2003 when all
of this went down, Because evenmy therapist at the time was
commending me for how well I wasdoing, you know so clearly he
was missing something and I wasnot revealing everything, right.
I think that that space wherewe can be held, where we're
(26:53):
known, where we can tell thosestories, that's so important for
this work.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Absolutely.
You know.
I think about the Maya Angelouquote that there's nothing worse
than holding a story thathasn't been told.
And I know that there's theEMDR and maybe brain spotting
practitioners that would be like, oh, you don't have to talk,
and I have questions about that.
To be honest, just the morestory work of my own that I have
done and with others.
(27:20):
You know that, yes, we don'twant to overly traumatize people
by having them recount detailsthat they are not ready to
recount However one of the mostprofound things I ever had
happen was my own therapistlooking at me at one point and
saying have you ever told anyonethe details of what happened to
you?
And it was related to sexualassault.
And I said never.
And he invited me to that placeand I remember the terror of
(27:45):
saying things out loud that Ithought I would take to the
grave, but the healing thatfollowed it and it was just like
oh, you know and all of thelies that were in my own head
about who I was and my worth andmy value and my cleanliness and
all of the things were pulledout into the light and God was
able to heal that.
And it was because I told mystory to a safe person.
(28:09):
And I think about that oftenand how we've essentially pushed
that out of the church at timesbecause it's messy and scary
and we don't know what to dowith it and sometimes there's
some pretty faulty beliefs insome places and yet it's so
healing when we allow it.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, sort of like only success stories,
welcome.
You know, the ride to church onSunday mornings was when my
parents would fight the most andsomething would shift as soon
as we walked in the doors of thechurch and they were all smiles
and I learned unwittingly thatthe church is not a place where
we bring these parts of ourstory, and it's one of the
(28:48):
things.
You know, I've operated as bothpastor and therapist and so
I've lived in both worlds, andit makes me sad sometimes when
people are like, well, youtherapist, you're just trying to
make people mad at the church,but the reality is that so often
the folks that come to us arelike I tried to bring this to
the church, to my communitygroup, to my pastor, and I did
(29:09):
not find safety there.
I have found safety at theWednesday night women's group.
I do find safety in mytherapist's office, and so it's
a really tricky thing because Ilong for our churches to be
those kinds of spaces.
But I know years ago you knowthe name, larry Crabb, I'm sure
Years ago Larry Crabb wrote abook called the Safest Place on
Earth about the church and Iremember he left therapy to do
(29:32):
this work in the church and Iremember sitting with him about
three years later and he was intears and he's like it wasn't
what I thought it was going tobe.
It was so hard, it was sopainful, so disappointing, you
know yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I think that's, I would say that's the invitation
that people like you and me andothers who are out there just
talking about these things, wewant the church to be the safest
place, because Jesus is thesafest place.
You know he really is and I, Iknow I love the church and I am
still a church member.
I still go, even though I knowthat, with what the work that I
(30:07):
do, occasionally I'm like oh forthe love and it's like oh
goodness, but there's still,like this hope and prayer that
as people press in, as peoplelearn the path of healing and
really I know this is a wordthat some people think is a four
letter word, I just like to useit anyway.
(30:27):
Deconstruction, as people reallydeconstruct, and I've always
just said that is reallysanctification, you know, is
what I was told.
The truth.
Let me go to the word of Godand look for myself.
Let me behold the face of Jesusand be a good Berean and look
for myself, me behold the faceof Jesus and be a good Berean
(30:47):
and look for myself.
And I'm finding, and my clientsfind, and I think you've
probably found, that noteverything was quite accurate.
And then people get vilifiedwhen they start asking questions
and that's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh, it's heartbreaking.
Yeah, years and years ago I wasat one previous iteration of my
vocation many years ago, wasgoing to go off and do a
biblical studies PhD andthankfully decided to go the
therapeutic route and gettrained there.
But I remember reading WalterBrueggemann's book Psalms in the
Life of Faith and thisframework of psalms of
(31:18):
orientation, disorientation andreorientation.
I think you probably heard ofthis model, but that there are
psalms of disorientation.
We call it deconstructionnowadays, but I mean, it's right
there in the Bible and there'slots of disorientation in the
Bible, but for some reasonthere's not a whole lot of
permission nowadays for us toname those things out loud.
And so I think in some ways thetherapeutic space for many have
(31:42):
become that place to lament inthe way that the church was
meant to be, to say this hurts,ouch.
We're not given permission, asI talk about in the book, to say
, ouch, this really hurts.
You know, that's what I shouldhave said after 2003.
Ouch, this really hurts.
I can't go on, I need help, I'mreally hurting.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
But something inside me was like it's not safe to so,
yeah, yeah, and I think aboutthe women's retreats that I
serve at, and one of the mostprofound things is to let
someone have their ouch and towrap your arms around them and
just hold them.
I have held countless people,both men and women, as they have
(32:24):
wept and there is justsomething profoundly healing for
them in that, to just havetheir pain be held and just to
hear someone go yeah, that's anouch, that's a big ouch.
One of my favorite we talkedabout this right before we
started One of my favoritethings in the book was the
exercise at the end of chaptersix and healing what's within,
(32:44):
which is the three candlesexercise, and I will tell you
what my favorite parts of itwere.
It was the third candle.
So the first candle is blessingand I want to make sure I get
this right, so I'm going todouble check it but representing
what's known in your story, tohonor what you've learned about
yourself.
And the second one representswhat is yet to be discovered and
the third is what may never beknown.
(33:07):
And that one was the most hard,difficult, profound one of the
bunch and I love the invitationyou have in there of like, take
your time lighting that one andI think about that one because
that for a survivor is thehardest is what might I not know
, especially if there'sdevelopmental trauma and you
don't remember.
(33:27):
There's that black hole or yourSwiss cheese memory and you may
never know.
Your body knows and you can go.
Something was wrong.
I can feel it, but I don't knowthe explicit.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, the developmental trauma,
the generational trauma, thatthere's something there.
I mean, you said it a littlebit earlier there's some trauma
therapists today who are likestories don't matter, it's all
about present moment andsensation.
You and I both agree that storymatters, but there are parts of
our stories that we'll neverknow and sensations that we have
(34:01):
that might just have some faintsense that maybe that's because
I know.
For me, maybe that's becausewhen I was born I was brought to
the ICU and spent the next fewweeks there and my mom and dad
went home, and so maybe thereare some early attachment, but I
don't remember that.
I don't have a narrative memoryof those weeks in the hospital.
(34:25):
Remember that I don't have anarrative memory of those, you
know, those weeks in thehospital, but I do know that
there's something inside, thatthere's a faint ache inside.
You might just say so I lightthat third candle because I
don't have that smoking gunmemory that we talked about
earlier.
Right, that we're all lookingfor that thing.
That's like if only I knew it'sbecause my fifth grade teacher
said that thing to me.
You know, some of us, thecomplexity of trauma.
(34:46):
We just we won't know and therewon't be that thing, that we'll
discover that.
That's the secret key.
When I say that to my therapistand I cry those tears,
everything will be better.
I think there was a timeearlier on in the sort of the
therapeutic world where therewas something of that myth,
(35:06):
therapeutic world where therewas something of that myth.
But if anyone is listeningright now and has that sense
that, if only I find that thing,maybe it's, maybe the third
candle is for them, but it's atough one.
I did a presentation for agroup of therapists and one of
my dear old friends was there,rachel, and she said I don't
know that I can like that thirdone that feels like I'm going to
have to surrender at some levelin a way that I'm not yet ready
(35:29):
for.
So that's important too.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, yeah it is.
And, as you were telling that,I noticed the feeling of grief.
You know the grief of the notknowing, because sometimes and I
think a lot of times at leastmy brain wants the details right
, Because then it makes sense,right, it makes sense why I'm
feeling this in my body or whythere's a time of year I feel
some discontent or struggle, ora thing.
(35:54):
A smell, a taste, a touch willmake me dysregulate and I'm like
I have no idea why.
And there isn't necessarily afinding the why, it's just
something's there.
And to honor the grief of thenot knowing, the grief of the
surrender because it's stilllost, right, the not knowing is
still lost.
And to give that to god and tosay, yes, let us lament.
(36:17):
And that man, I love a goodlament.
I always thought that would beso scary, but but they are so
beautiful.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, and there's a kindness,
there's a compassion, even in,you know, particular seasons.
I tell the story.
I won't tell the story here,but I do tell a story in the
book of working with a womanwhere she had looked at her past
in great detail and she wasready to say, you know, I don't
know that I'm going to find thatthing that explains my severe
depression, my anxiety.
(36:47):
And so there are these seasons,I think, where I think we as
therapists and our clients, wesort of agree together OK, we're
not going to, we're not goingto press as hard as we were to
look for that thing.
You know, and sometimes whenyou relax in that way, the body
does things.
You know, and I know, as I tellthe story in the book, for my
client it was an awakening to adeeper level of her pain that
(37:10):
she couldn't see when she wastrying to chase down the why.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, yeah, and that's such a common occurrence.
I know that in my own story Iwas working on something wholly
different.
It ended up being tangentiallyrelated, but we were brain
spotting and I dropped intosomething that I had not been
able to remember and it was likethe Lord kicked open the door
to a room that was a wasteland,that looked like Terminator.
And I just remember standingthere going oh crap.
(37:37):
And I just remember thesensation of Jesus saying I'm
with you, I've always been here,it's just time to open the
store and hold my hand, and thatwas profoundly tender and
helpful and terrifying all atthe same time.
And even in the not known and Ijust want to say this because I
think people might be listeningand going what do you mean?
(37:57):
Like this could go on forever.
And oh no, is there's stillsuch goodness, because healing
is still possible, whether youexplicitly or implicitly know
something, that there is stillamazing resilience, amazing
strength, amazing healing.
That does happen.
We may not get througheverything this side of heaven
In fact we won't, because whenwe're done then we go home but
(38:18):
we will still have goodness inthe land of the living.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, that's beautiful, you should preach.
I hope you preach.
Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful,you should preach.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I hope you preach.
Sometimes I get in trouble forthat.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Goodness in the land of the living.
I mean, I think that's what ourclients are fighting for.
You know to spot that goodnessevery now and then.
I remember sitting with aparticular client and we had.
She had felt well, we'd beentogether for a few years and had
been bleak and we were turninga corner.
And just in that moment it'spretty cloudy here in the winter
in West Michigan and the sunsort of breaks through the
(38:53):
window.
There are those moments that youcan't predict.
You know, sometimes you'resitting in a session.
We're so not in control.
People think we therapists arelike oh, I know exactly what I'm
doing, step by step, there's arecipe.
No, we're so not in control,right.
But there are these moments,you know, you might be working
with someone for three years andthere's this breakthrough
moment and they find themselvestransported to the land of the
(39:15):
living and they take their firstdeep breath like they've come
out of water, come out of asuffocating place, right, and
it's really beautiful.
That's why I love this work.
I know you love this work too.
It's so transformative.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
It is.
I always tell people I'm notthe healer, but I do know him
and I get to have a front rowseat to the stuff he does.
And you know it's like being adivine Sherpa.
I'm going to lead you in places, I'm going to walk with you,
I'm going to hold your hand, I'mgoing to carry your bags with
you, I'm going to carry hopewhen you can't.
But you know we may walkthrough the valley of the shadow
of death, but I am not makingcamp.
(39:56):
We're going out the other sideand it is so fun to me to see
Jesus show up, you know, whenyou least expect it and you're
like holy cow, like there'vebeen so many times I have left
like work for the day and justsat in my vehicle and just
breathed and been like how do Iget to do this?
How do I get to see God's glory?
And do it for a job Like thisis amazing.
There are the hard days thatmake you like go wow, oh gosh.
(40:17):
But there's so much beauty andthere's just beauty in sitting
with someone in their pain andbearing witness to even that.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah, well, that in and of itself it doesn't feel
oftentimes to us or to theclient like anything's really
happening there, right, but thatin and of itself is so
transformative, right, thatattunement, that bearing witness
if there are any therapistslistening right now know that in
those moments it's so important, right, that's there's
something happening there,mirroring an attunement that
(40:46):
likely never happened before,you know.
And so, yeah, it's really slowwork and it can be profoundly
unsatisfying work.
If you need, like the quick I'mnoticing, maybe you have too.
I know a number of therapistswho are pivoting to coaching and
other things, because it can behard to sit with people over
(41:06):
the course of a long time.
The change is so slow and yet,yeah, what a gift that we get to
do it.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Absolutely, and I think you know.
Speaking to therapists thatmight be listening to us, I
would just encourage you learnhow to get into your own body
and learn how to get somebodyelse into theirs, because that
is a game changer and we can'ttake someone where we won't go
and if we're scared of our ownbodies, then it's going to be
(41:33):
really hard to press in withsomeone else's.
I had the immense privilege ofspeaking to a room full of
marriage and family therapistsin March of 2025.
And I had a brave volunteer getup on the stage.
She did not know me from a hillof tacos and this one was so
incredibly brave.
I knew what I was about to do.
She had no idea and I didn'tsay.
(41:55):
I just said who's willing to dosomething with me?
I need a volunteer, and shebravely got up there with me and
I slowed everything down,dropped into my own body and,
within about 10 seconds, droppedher into hers.
And I could see thevulnerability that she let me
have in that moment.
The whole room could feel itand I was very gentle and
careful.
We did not go places super deep, though I could see them
(42:17):
because, like dude, she didn'teven know what she was signing
up for and it was so profoundlytender.
And when we were done I saidthis is why we do it this way.
And the room was like, oh mygosh.
And she came to me after andsaid that was, I felt, seen, so
seen.
And that is like Kurt Thompsonsays we come into this world
(42:41):
looking for someone, looking forus, and we're giving them
something of Jesus in thatmoment because we're looking at
them.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's it at the core and that's what's
most healing, I think too.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Absolutely.
What is, if you could sayanything to the audience
listening, what is the one thingthat you hope that they take
away from healing?
What's within that you hopethat they take away?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
from healing what's within.
Yeah, I wanted to demystifytrauma.
You know trauma is a wound.
I mean I think so often whenpeople think about trauma they
think about this complex.
There are complex conversations, as you know, if you've ever
read Alan Shore or Peter Levinebut it's a wound to the soul and
it's a wound that festers inaloneness and in overwhelm and
(43:26):
most of us can relate to that atsome level.
And it's a primal wound, Ourearliest wound in Genesis,
chapter 3 of disconnection, Adamand Eve hiding in shame.
All of us know that.
All of us bear something ofthat in our own bodies.
If you've ever heard traumatalked about in a way that like,
oh, I don't have that, that'sfor that really serious person
(43:51):
that was hospitalized last week.
You know.
To know that you're dealing inwounds and I'm dealing and we
all have our wounds, and to payattention, to listen for God's
kind, where are you?
And to attune to what God mightwant you to attune to and
attend to in your own life.
I think that's what I'd say,Some version of that.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, I think that's a beautiful gift honestly to
lean into Jesus and let him callto you and hear that when are
you, so much differently thanmaybe we were taught back in the
day, and to trust that his armsare open and that he wants to
(44:25):
take you up.
That's one of my favoritethings that I know the Lord has
done in my own life is he gaveme a vision a long time ago.
I was in the middle of theworst panic attack.
I honestly could not drive, Iwas shaking, it was awful, and I
was like Jesus, please, help,please.
And there was like no one.
And I just remember saying Ineed a hug and I'm like in the
middle of Mississippi in thewoods, like there's nobody to
(44:47):
hug me and I'm not walking up topeople and going hi, would you
please give me a hug?
That's dangerous.
And the Lord said just crawl inmy lap and let me hold you, and
that was a visualization that Ihad, and I could feel him so
close and it was such theinvitation.
I was like like, oh, but thisis what you say to all of us
come close, I'm here, yeah, andthat's beautiful, so I love that
(45:10):
yeah so thank you, chuck, forhanging out and for chatting and
for talking about your book.
The book is healing.
What's within it is absolutelyfantastic.
You can get it wherever booksare sold.
Again is my favorite, and youdid read your audio book because
I've.
So I have it on all threeformats I have your audio book,
the paperback and I have theKindle, because I just never
(45:31):
know when I'm going to need it,and I'm so grateful for all of
that.
I'm so grateful for the workthat you do, for the work you do
helping people with theirspiritual formation and their
healing and pointing them to theultimate healer in such a
tender, beautiful way.
So thank you for hanging outwith me.
Oh, you're so kind.
Thank you Thanks for joining mefor today's episode of hey
(45:57):
Tabby.
If you're looking for aresource that I mentioned in the
show and you want to check outthe show notes, head on over to
tabithawestbrookcom.
Forward slash heytabi.
That's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I and youcan grab it there.
I look forward to seeing younext time.
Welcome to hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about
the hard things out loud, withour actual lips.
We'll cover all kinds of topicsacross the mental health
spectrum, including how itintersects with the Christian
faith.
Nothing is off limits here andwe are not.
Take two verses and call me inthe morning.
I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm alicensed trauma therapist.
But I'm not your traumatherapist.
(00:21):
I'm an expert in domestic abuseand coercive control and how
complex trauma impacts ourhealth and well-being.
Our focus here is knowledge andhealing.
Trauma doesn't have to eat yourlunch forever.
There is hope.
Now let's get going.
Well, welcome to this week's heyTabby.
I am so excited to be here withan author and pastor and
(00:45):
professor.
I think he does all the things,but I'm going to tell you a
little bit more about him.
I am here with Chuck DeGrooteand he is a follower of Jesus, a
husband to Sarah for 30 years,he's a father to two amazing
daughters and he serves as aprofessor of counseling and
Christian spirituality as wellas the executive director of the
clinical mental healthcounseling program at Western
(01:08):
Theological Seminary in Holland,michigan.
He's a faculty member as wellfor the Soul Care Institute.
He's a licensed therapist, aspiritual director he's authored
six books, which is amazing anda retreat leader as well as
speaker.
He's a therapist thatspecializes in pastoral and
leadership, health, abuse andtrauma, navigating spiritual and
(01:28):
emotional obstacles on thefaith journey, and he doesn't
only work with pastors, but withanybody longing for flourishing
and wholeness in their lives,which is so good.
He's also a minister of theword and sacrament in the
Reformed Church in America.
He's pastored in Orlando, sanFrancisco, and then transitioned
to training and forming pastors.
He's got more than 20 yearsexperience training clergy in
(01:51):
issues of abuse and trauma,which we know is something that
is so needed.
He's also conducted pastor andplanter assessments and he's
facilitated church consultationsand inquiries of abuse among
pastors and within congregations.
He's got a bunch of books wewill make sure to link them all
in the show notes and his newestbook is Healing what's Within,
(02:11):
which is one of the things we'regoing to talk about today.
Chuck, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, thank you.
Great to be with you, Tabby.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We are going to have such a good time, hopefully on
the podcast, so tell me what ledyou to write Healing what's?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Within.
Well, so I feel like this isone of those books that has sort
of been in me, but it hasn't.
It didn't quite emerge earlier,it took some time, it was in
the crockpot, so to speak.
Right, and because, as you know, I work with three questions
that come from Genesis 3 that Ifind incredibly curious and
compassionate when are you whotold you and where have you
(02:50):
taken your hunger and thirst?
And those are questions I'vebeen working with for a long
time in retreat settings.
But I don't think I quite had asense that it was all coming
together until the last fewyears.
I had written this book onnarcissism in the church and
abuse in the church really, andI think one of the questions
that came up after that was well, how do we heal?
And I was talking often aboutthe difference between abuse and
(03:14):
trauma, right, abuse being whathappened to you, trauma, the
lingering impact within whichrequires a bit of nuance, right,
in terms of how we deal.
I really emerged out of thatquestion how do we heal?
But I also knew that at somepoint this was with the
encouragement of editors and Iknew I had to write a little bit
more about my own story I don'twrite a ton about my own story,
(03:35):
but my own experience of abusewithin the church too, and so it
all sort of came together atthe right moment.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's awesome, not that you were abused, but that
it all came together.
I think that's.
It's actually really comfortingto hear parts of your story.
I think, as a fellow survivorand as someone who works with a
lot of survivors, that knowingsomeone's got the street cred,
if you will, and is working oncoming out the other side,
(04:04):
because I don't know that we arealways fully out the other side
.
You know, I think things comeup as we hit different
activation points and thingslike that.
What is your sense of that forfolks?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, I don't think we fully come out the other side
.
It's always there, right, thebody keeps the score.
And really the night before thenarcissism book was published,
I mean, I didn't sleep thatnight and I had a sense that the
pastor that fired me many yearsbefore would come after me.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Like in my body.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I had said it wasn't rational, right?
But we don't.
We know how that works, right?
Like my body was screaming hewill come after you, he wants to
hurt you, and I do think thatthat surprised me, because that
all goes back to 2003.
That other book came out in2020.
So that's 17 years, right, andlots of therapy, and so it still
(04:54):
lingers.
But through some of the work Italk about in the book, the work
that you and I do, I do thinkthat it diminishes in terms of
its power and we grow in a senseof resilience.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Absolutely.
I think that's such aninteresting thing.
Backing up to when narcissismcomes to church, like that was a
profound book for so manypeople because it gave language
to their experience, their livedexperience.
And I think it's interestingthat even with the distance
between when your struggleoccurred, when the harm occurred
, to releasing the book, evenwith lots of healing, there was
that body activation.
(05:31):
I know a lot of people are likeI wish the body would stop
keeping the score because thisis not a competition, but we
know that it happens and thesethings get buried so deep within
that they can pop up.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think this is why we, on our
work, we invite people toself-compassion, because I do
think that there, you know thisvery well.
I'm sure there are times whensome of this will be activated
for me and I'll think, gosh, whyaren't you over this by now?
Other people have done betterwork.
They've probably done harderwork than you, or they've.
(06:03):
You know all the comparisonthat we get into.
I can still be hard on myselfwhen it comes to my own healing
journey.
So when I'm working withsomeone who's like a year out of
church harm and abuse right andthey're like I should be over
it by now, sometimes it'shelpful for them to hear from me
.
Well, I'm about 20 years, 22years now, and it still lingers
(06:25):
within in different ways Now,and I also want to convey to
folks that there's a hopefulpath too.
It's not the same as it was inyear one or five or 10.
It's certainly a lot different.
I'm growing, becoming moreresilient, but there's still
that lingering memory within,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And I think people underestimate the compound
nature of traumatic experiences.
So a lot of folks I work withand I'm sure you work with as
well have developmental trauma,which is trauma that happened
when they were kids and theirattachment ruptures and all
kinds of shenanigans that takeplace.
And so then you add church harmon top of it, or domestic abuse
(07:05):
or any other kind of trauma,and you've got this layered
effect.
And so it takes time to peelthat onion back.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I'll often say for me in my ownstory there's early
developmental trauma, there'scomplex relational trauma
throughout my life.
I think, in some ways, what Iwent through in 2003, maybe
someone who was more securelyattached might have been more
resilient coming out of that,might have looked for the kinds
of resources, but my body, Imean.
(07:34):
I look back now and I was atrained therapist at the time,
trying to say and do all theright things that we try to say
and do, and something inside mesaid, nope, I am going inward
and I'm buckling down and noone's going to know or see.
I'm just going to forge my wayahead and for the next number of
(07:56):
years after that it took a tollon my body and so we can have
all kinds of resources, but it'stough to tease out these layers
that you're talking about, thiscompounding trauma, and that's
why I think early on in myjourney I'm curious if you've
experienced this in your work Ithink I was looking for the
smoking gun.
What's that one thing thathappened that I can look at and
(08:17):
I can grieve and I can do allthe things that we were taught
to do 25 years ago in counselingcathart and cry and be through
it and be done with it foreverright, and you realize.
Oh no, it's so much morecomplex and layered than that
and we just need a lot ofkindness and self-compassion
along the way.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
We do, and I think the church the big C church of
the 80s and 90s and early 2000s,I think struggled in some ways
with that and I think that alsocontributed to a lot of the pull
up your bootstraps theologythat I know I had growing up,
and as a young adult as well ofjust like, well, you have to get
over it and it's not that bad,and you're a sinner.
(08:56):
All you deserve is hell anddeath.
And you didn't even get that,so like suck it up buttercup.
And so you shove inside andshove inside, and some people
move to addiction, some peoplemove to overachieving, which can
also be a problem I woulddefinitely be on the
over-functioner side of thingsand then you realize at some
point, like none of this isworking and it's all still there
(09:16):
and I just stuck a bandaid on abullet wound.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's it , and I'm with you on that
over-functioner side, but thatlooks better in some ways to
folks.
I did that as a pastor and Iwas commended for my
quote-unquote resilience amisunderstanding of resilience,
right and for how productive Iwas.
But that season of productivitywas really born out of.
(09:40):
I will never let what happenedto me before happen again.
You will never be able to sayto me fill in the blank, you
know you didn't do enough, youdidn't come through, you didn't.
Well, by then I was in my earlyforties and it takes a toll in
your late thirties, earlyforties.
In a way.
It doesn't take at times inyour late twenties, early
thirties, right.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So yeah, yeah, when we were in our twenties we could
, like sleep on a tree root, getup and go to work at like 5am.
In my late forties Now almost50, I can turn the wrong way and
harm some part of my body,which is, like, I think,
honestly God's irony and in someways, his delight, because if
we could just keep sleeping likea pretzel or shoving it down,
(10:22):
then we wouldn't reach out forhim, we wouldn't come to the end
where we're like nothing isworking.
What next?
And you, really you came tothat point.
You tell a story in the book ofending up in the hospital
because you had shoved it alldown and your body noped you
right out of that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, yeah.
I was in some really goodtherapy at the time, by the way,
with this IFS practitionerwho's really close to Richard
Schwartz and had done the earlytraining.
I felt like I'm doing my work.
You know that's sometimes weconvince ourselves that I'm in
therapy weekly.
I'm doing my work, but I thinkin some ways I'd leave my
session and I go back into myold strategies of over
functioning.
(10:58):
And I noticed in my body in theyear before this vacation I took
, I noticed growing fatigue.
I'd gotten gluten-free becauseof heartburn and the stomach
pain and things like that.
A few more ibuprofen every day,too much caffeine in the
morning, maybe an extra drink inthe evening to numb the anxiety
(11:19):
right.
All these things sort ofhappened slowly and suddenly.
And then I remember we wereheaded down to Cabo Mexico.
I'd never been down there.
Our family was really excited.
My daughters were a little bityounger and my stomach was
hurting so bad.
My wife said can you go?
And I did what I always do.
Of course I can go.
I'll just take more medicinewith me, you know.
(11:40):
And over the first few daysthere was in so much pain.
And one night my wife finds mein the shower, the hot water
pulsing on my back and says wehave to get you to the emergency
room.
And so a friend and my wifetook me to the hospital and I
was really ill.
I mean, they did a number ofdifferent tests, discovering
that I had gallstones.
But when they went in to removethe gallstones, they discovered
(12:02):
that my system was septic.
And I had no idea, and thiswasn't something that happened
overnight, right, this was theaccumulation, the compounding
effects of trauma, really, andso I didn't realize that at the
time.
But in the next few days in thehospital, when they said you
have to stay here longer than wetold you you'd have to stay,
when I wanted to just get up andgo home as fast as possible,
(12:24):
you know, as I'm laying thereand I don't speak I speak a
little Spanish, but not fluentSpanish by any means a lot of
time to reflect and realizingthat something needs to shift.
I will need to make a choice tostep away from maybe an area
that we lived in San Francisco,a job that I loved, and simplify
(12:44):
it a significant way to gethealthy.
And so it's not that the grassis always greener on the other
side.
But I began to realize in thatfew days after that, some things
would really need to shift.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, I think that's a very profound statement,
because it's really hard whenyou're in that place to make
shift, especially when you findmeaning in the work that you're
doing.
You're finding meaning andcomfort and a reduction in
anxiety from over-functioningand all of those things that
take a.
I actually need to slow down,which safety and slow to a
(13:19):
nervous system habituated tochaos is terrifying.
To chaos is terrifying,Terrifying.
So what was it like for you towalk a path that probably felt?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
pretty dysregulating for you.
I think what you said is soimportant because I think we
expect that we're going to makethe shift and things are going
to get better.
But there are parts of us andthat connect to our body.
You know our body's intuitionthat practically scream.
This isn't okay.
You know, and I remember in thework that I was doing out in the
Bay Area I was growing in termsof a sense of recognition.
(13:53):
You know these things that wethink we want, particularly in
our late 30s.
You know getting to speak invarious places and write and all
of that sort of went awayovernight.
I moved to the small regionalseminary as a junior professor.
It took a big pay cut and feltvery obscure and my body was
revolting.
I remember, as people would askme where I lived, I'd continue
(14:14):
to say San Francisco and I keptit on my bio on social media
because I wanted to still bethere in some ways.
And I remember a friend comingto me at one point saying you've
not moved.
You moved to West Michigan butyou're not here yet.
You're still there andrecognizing that there's a part
of my, parts of me that werefreaking out.
You know, like I can't losethat I can't leave that behind,
(14:36):
and so that shift that you'retalking about, this is where we
need good care.
This is what we call titratedwork, slow work, paced work,
where I begin to take an hourevery day, midday in my office,
shades, closed door closed, todo some meditative work.
That's something I never wouldhave done before.
Waste an hour, right.
But my body slowly began toadapt to a new reality.
(15:00):
Parts of me began to relax, butthat took a while, and that's
all to say.
This isn't fast work, as youknow, as you work with clients,
and it unfolds in often inunpredictable ways and sometimes
chaotic ways, as you'rementioning.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Absolutely.
I think it's a hard thing forpeople to reckon with when we
live in a society that is, Icall it, the McDonald's society,
where we're just like give memy Big Mac, it's going to look
just like the picture on the ad,whatever, and recovery is not
that, it's not.
We are more complex when wethink about being fearfully and
wonderfully made, which weabsolutely are.
There is a lot of resiliencethat God has created us with,
(15:40):
and it is a hard path to changeour neural pathways, to change
our way of being, to sit withthose parts of us that are
freaking out and give themkindness when maybe all we've
ever been told is suck it up youknow and to be able to give
that tenderness and say no.
And that's one of the things Iloved about the questions and
(16:01):
the way that you phrase them inthe book, which are so tender
and gentle and kind.
But just where are you?
I know I was taught in churchthat it was a demanding, upset,
angry father God that waslooking for Adam and Eve, but
that's not who he is Now.
Is he a God of wrath andjustice?
(16:22):
Absolutely, because sin is aserious matter.
However, when he's talking tohis kids who have messed up,
he's not the punitive father.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah, it's such a big shift and I mean, I think
probably all of us have a bitof a punitive father inside of
us.
You know, it's easy to map thatonto God.
I knew that as I approached,particularly in those years
after the hospitalization, as Iapproached myself that kindness
I've been using that question inretreat settings, but not for
me, you know.
(16:53):
So there again, hearing thatkind where are you?
And being able to say I feelreally tired.
So there again, hearing thatkind where are you and being
able to say I feel really tired.
I mean, I thought something was, as you know from your work, I
thought something was deeplybroken in me in my mid forties.
I'm laying on my couch in myoffice at two in the afternoon,
having left a job that was thejob of my dreams in the Bay Area
, and feeling in my body likethe doctor even said to me.
(17:17):
Feeling in my body, like thedoctor even said to me, what we
see in your body with this sortof septic condition is a man in
his 60s, not a man in his early40s, you know.
So, feeling in my body likesomething's really wrong.
I'm so broken and I will neverbe better.
It took so long for my body toheal.
I do these five-day intensivesoftentimes with pastors, but
with lots of different folks,and I was sitting with a pastor
(17:39):
last week and he said so okay,so we've done it five days.
What do I need?
Another two, three, four weeksof doing some of this?
You know this breathing andthese practices and I'll be good
.
You know I was like.
You know that hospitalizationwas back in 2012.
So I'm like 13 years into thiswork, this kind of work now,
(18:00):
this more trauma-informed,polyvagal, body oriented work,
and I still go back to my oldstrategies.
I still over-function.
My brain still knows thoseneural pathways that work so
well.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Absolutely.
And it's always an interestingquestion to me when folks ask
something like that like youknow, do this two or three more
times?
Do I need like one moreintensive or another week of
therapy or whatever?
And I even say that to myself,like you know much like you like
how much longer, god?
How much longer?
Why are we still here?
And I think part of thekindness is leaning into the
(18:33):
process and the slowness of theprocess and allowing it to take
its course, which is frustratingin a society that doesn't
support that.
We don't support slow, we don'tsupport taking rest breaks.
Now, there's a lot of talkabout it, but we don't actually
support it.
It's like lip service, right,but there is something so
profoundly beautiful for theheart when we do when we lean in
(18:56):
like that yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, I don't know that I quite knew what I was
talking about back then, but thefirst book that I ever wrote
when I was in this season postspiritual abuse of some recovery
was this book on finding God inthe wilderness places, this
Exodus storybook, Right, and Irealized that that journey
should have taken 11 days but ittook 40 years.
I had no idea that that couldhave taken them 11 days if they
(19:20):
were, you know, if they'rereally going, but 40 years and
that sort of feels like ourlives.
Sometimes, I mean, that canfeel like a downer to some folks
who get into therapy andthey're like, okay, let's go,
let's get healed, andparticularly in spaces that
offer quick treatments cognitive, behavioral kinds of treatments
that are sort of fast andfurious but that's not how the
(19:41):
body works, right, that's nothow the body heals.
And so I do think that questionwhere are you is an invitation
to a kind of tenderness.
My clients know this.
Even in sessions my hand isoften.
I mean, this is a reminder, anembodied reminder to me to be
listening within, even as I'msitting with you right now, to
what cues my body is giving me.
(20:02):
And so this is the slow workthat we invite people to.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, also just for the sake of our listeners.
To think about is we're lookingat in light of eternity, right?
So I think sometimes we getcaught in this physical temporal
place that we can see, touch,taste, and that's.
We're really playing a muchlonger game, you know, and
sanctification looks fardifferent than I think.
(20:29):
Maybe I was taught in the 80sthat it's such a different
process, such a differentexpansion versus a reduction
actually.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, I mean, because what we got was like God is
this anxious, like helicopterparent, you know, and come on,
come on, come on, we have to go,it's time.
You know, that kind of thingthat I remember very well from
my mom, back in the day, youknow, but I think that sense, or
maybe that quiet, avoidant,angry dad who doesn't really
chime in except when you dosomething wrong.
(21:00):
Wrong and then you get smacked,you know, and I do think that a
lot of us carry that in ourbodies.
So this idea that God's movingtoward us, that God's safe, that
God's attuned, that God sees usin our hiding, that God's first
words are where are you?
Which is someone reminded me ata conference at one point in the
Hebrews, the first word of thebook of lamentations.
You know, it's a word of lament, it's a word of heartbreak,
(21:23):
it's a word of empathy.
Can we still use the wordempathy, by the way?
I know that's under attacknowadays, but it's a word of
empathy.
And so, yeah, that's a shifttoo, as you know, particularly
for those of us who'veexperienced abuse and for a
number of my clients.
In fact, in writing this book,I had to ask my clients along
(21:44):
the way.
So how does this feel?
Because I know I've been on thejourney for a little while but
it might not feel at allcomfortable to use these
questions and I've had clientssay, nope, we're not going there
, we're not using thesequestions, we're not opening our
Bibles, we're going to do thiswork right now and maybe
eventually we'll get back there.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, it's a hard thing.
I use a lot of different Bibletranslations.
If I use Scripture at alloutright in a session, we joke
that we use the NTT, which isthe New Tabby Translation, which
is my exegetically andhermeneutically correct
summarization of something,because it is so tricky.
It's been so weaponized,particularly in cases of
domestic abuse, where scriptureis often used to, you know,
force, subjugation and wicked,wicked things for people, and
(22:29):
that just breaks my heartbecause it is so not the heart
of God for somebody, but ittakes understanding, tenderness
and learning that kindness.
It is God's kindness that leadsus to repentance, not hellfire
and brimstone.
And I look at Jesus and how heapproached all of these people
that he touched and the onlyones he had hard words for were
the Pharisees, and even that wasan invitation to think about
(22:52):
what you are doing.
You are being a whitewashedtomb full of dead men's bones,
like that should have made themgo home and go.
I am like permanently,ceremonially unclean.
What happened, yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
yeah, yeah, I was working with a woman not too
long ago with a story of reallypainful abuse from a family of
origin and a husband Christianhusband Christian home.
You know, the church did allthe things that a church
shouldn't do.
In the midst of this, it becameher fault if she would do this
better and that better and allthe things that you know so very
well.
Right, and I remember she said,after meeting a number of times
(23:28):
, she said, I think that becauseI often talk about a survival
orientation versus a connectionorientation, you know, and she
said, I think because I grew upin that survival orientation, I
just found churches andtheologies and a husband that
matched that and I lived invigilance and so in a sense I
found myself in church spacesthat matched my family of origin
(23:49):
.
So now the shift into aconnection orientation is a
shift into, I think, a reallybeautiful place.
I call it the still waters ofGod.
A beautiful place where I thinkGod does dwell, where God is
really kind.
But it's like she's over therenow, but so much of her body
still remains over here and it'slike what do I do with this
(24:11):
juxtaposition?
God is kind, god looks at mewith a smile of delight.
God pursues me.
I don't even know what to dowith that.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, it's such a game changer for folks
theologically to really, whenyou look at the whole counsel of
the word of God, when you lookat the actual whole Bible and go
wait a second.
His orientation is so longsuffering, it is so kind.
Yes, there are consequences forjunk, without question, but his
orientation toward his peopleis please come back, please come
(24:41):
back, I'm here, I'm here foryou, I'm here with you, I love
you.
I will get in the dirt with youand that is where I find the
best healing is in the dirt,like that is for sure, where God
does great work and, I guess,the church.
Sometimes we're a little bitafraid to get messy.
We're afraid to get in the dirtwith people, but that is where
we're called to be.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I often talk about it in terms of humility and that
old word humus.
You know, in the soil, in thedirt, like there, there is a
kind of humility that emergeslike that.
But if you've lived like youand I, have, over functioning,
we live three to five feet offthe ground all the time in
perpetual motion.
Find our way back down to thedirt, back down to the soil, to
(25:23):
a place of humility issimultaneously sort of identity
shattering, right, especially ifyou've lived
perfectionistically andover-functioning.
But boy, your body is likethank you, because I don't think
we could have gone much longerat that pace and that survival
orientation.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, and again that feels so unsafe at first and
this is something I walk throughwith clients quite a bit is
when goodness starts for them.
Let's say they've been inabusive spaces and now they are
in a space where they are ingood community with wonderful
people, and then it feels offand they're crying a lot and
they're like I don't know whatto do.
(26:01):
I'm like, oh, your body is notused to it, you know, like let's
lean into the discomfort andallow it some space and let's
check in with the parts that arescared and be really gentle.
You know, because sometimeskindness and care was the means
to an end for abuse.
So anytime you got gentlenessyou knew something was coming
after, and so it's really thenhard to trust it and hard to
(26:24):
trust goodness, and so whenyou're confronted with true
goodness, it feels radicallyunsafe.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, I mean again, you know this, but this is where
we can't do it on our own right.
I think in some way, that's themistake I made in 2003 when all
of this went down, Because evenmy therapist at the time was
commending me for how well I wasdoing, you know so clearly he
was missing something and I wasnot revealing everything, right.
I think that that space wherewe can be held, where we're
(26:53):
known, where we can tell thosestories, that's so important for
this work.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Absolutely.
You know.
I think about the Maya Angelouquote that there's nothing worse
than holding a story thathasn't been told.
And I know that there's theEMDR and maybe brain spotting
practitioners that would be like, oh, you don't have to talk,
and I have questions about that.
To be honest, just the morestory work of my own that I have
done and with others.
(27:20):
You know that, yes, we don'twant to overly traumatize people
by having them recount detailsthat they are not ready to
recount However one of the mostprofound things I ever had
happen was my own therapistlooking at me at one point and
saying have you ever told anyonethe details of what happened to
you?
And it was related to sexualassault.
And I said never.
And he invited me to that placeand I remember the terror of
(27:45):
saying things out loud that Ithought I would take to the
grave, but the healing thatfollowed it and it was just like
oh, you know and all of thelies that were in my own head
about who I was and my worth andmy value and my cleanliness and
all of the things were pulledout into the light and God was
able to heal that.
And it was because I told mystory to a safe person.
(28:09):
And I think about that oftenand how we've essentially pushed
that out of the church at timesbecause it's messy and scary
and we don't know what to dowith it and sometimes there's
some pretty faulty beliefs insome places and yet it's so
healing when we allow it.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, sort of like only success stories,
welcome.
You know, the ride to church onSunday mornings was when my
parents would fight the most andsomething would shift as soon
as we walked in the doors of thechurch and they were all smiles
and I learned unwittingly thatthe church is not a place where
we bring these parts of ourstory, and it's one of the
(28:48):
things.
You know, I've operated as bothpastor and therapist and so
I've lived in both worlds, andit makes me sad sometimes when
people are like, well, youtherapist, you're just trying to
make people mad at the church,but the reality is that so often
the folks that come to us arelike I tried to bring this to
the church, to my communitygroup, to my pastor, and I did
(29:09):
not find safety there.
I have found safety at theWednesday night women's group.
I do find safety in mytherapist's office, and so it's
a really tricky thing because Ilong for our churches to be
those kinds of spaces.
But I know years ago you knowthe name, larry Crabb, I'm sure
Years ago Larry Crabb wrote abook called the Safest Place on
Earth about the church and Iremember he left therapy to do
(29:32):
this work in the church and Iremember sitting with him about
three years later and he was intears and he's like it wasn't
what I thought it was going tobe.
It was so hard, it was sopainful, so disappointing, you
know yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I think that's, I would say that's the invitation
that people like you and me andothers who are out there just
talking about these things, wewant the church to be the safest
place, because Jesus is thesafest place.
You know he really is and I, Iknow I love the church and I am
still a church member.
I still go, even though I knowthat, with what the work that I
(30:07):
do, occasionally I'm like oh forthe love and it's like oh
goodness, but there's still,like this hope and prayer that
as people press in, as peoplelearn the path of healing and
really I know this is a wordthat some people think is a four
letter word, I just like to useit anyway.
(30:27):
Deconstruction, as people reallydeconstruct, and I've always
just said that is reallysanctification, you know, is
what I was told.
The truth.
Let me go to the word of Godand look for myself.
Let me behold the face of Jesusand be a good Berean and look
for myself, me behold the faceof Jesus and be a good Berean
(30:47):
and look for myself.
And I'm finding, and my clientsfind, and I think you've
probably found, that noteverything was quite accurate.
And then people get vilifiedwhen they start asking questions
and that's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh, it's heartbreaking.
Yeah, years and years ago I wasat one previous iteration of my
vocation many years ago, wasgoing to go off and do a
biblical studies PhD andthankfully decided to go the
therapeutic route and gettrained there.
But I remember reading WalterBrueggemann's book Psalms in the
Life of Faith and thisframework of psalms of
(31:18):
orientation, disorientation andreorientation.
I think you probably heard ofthis model, but that there are
psalms of disorientation.
We call it deconstructionnowadays, but I mean, it's right
there in the Bible and there'slots of disorientation in the
Bible, but for some reasonthere's not a whole lot of
permission nowadays for us toname those things out loud.
And so I think in some ways thetherapeutic space for many have
(31:42):
become that place to lament inthe way that the church was
meant to be, to say this hurts,ouch.
We're not given permission, asI talk about in the book, to say
, ouch, this really hurts.
You know, that's what I shouldhave said after 2003.
Ouch, this really hurts.
I can't go on, I need help, I'mreally hurting.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
But something inside me was like it's not safe to so,
yeah, yeah, and I think aboutthe women's retreats that I
serve at, and one of the mostprofound things is to let
someone have their ouch and towrap your arms around them and
just hold them.
I have held countless people,both men and women, as they have
(32:24):
wept and there is justsomething profoundly healing for
them in that, to just havetheir pain be held and just to
hear someone go yeah, that's anouch, that's a big ouch.
One of my favorite we talkedabout this right before we
started One of my favoritethings in the book was the
exercise at the end of chaptersix and healing what's within,
(32:44):
which is the three candlesexercise, and I will tell you
what my favorite parts of itwere.
It was the third candle.
So the first candle is blessingand I want to make sure I get
this right, so I'm going todouble check it but representing
what's known in your story, tohonor what you've learned about
yourself.
And the second one representswhat is yet to be discovered and
the third is what may never beknown.
(33:07):
And that one was the most hard,difficult, profound one of the
bunch and I love the invitationyou have in there of like, take
your time lighting that one andI think about that one because
that for a survivor is thehardest is what might I not know
, especially if there'sdevelopmental trauma and you
don't remember.
(33:27):
There's that black hole or yourSwiss cheese memory and you may
never know.
Your body knows and you can go.
Something was wrong.
I can feel it, but I don't knowthe explicit.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, the developmental trauma,
the generational trauma, thatthere's something there.
I mean, you said it a littlebit earlier there's some trauma
therapists today who are likestories don't matter, it's all
about present moment andsensation.
You and I both agree that storymatters, but there are parts of
our stories that we'll neverknow and sensations that we have
(34:01):
that might just have some faintsense that maybe that's because
I know.
For me, maybe that's becausewhen I was born I was brought to
the ICU and spent the next fewweeks there and my mom and dad
went home, and so maybe thereare some early attachment, but I
don't remember that.
I don't have a narrative memoryof those weeks in the hospital.
(34:25):
Remember that I don't have anarrative memory of those, you
know, those weeks in thehospital, but I do know that
there's something inside, thatthere's a faint ache inside.
You might just say so I lightthat third candle because I
don't have that smoking gunmemory that we talked about
earlier.
Right, that we're all lookingfor that thing.
That's like if only I knew it'sbecause my fifth grade teacher
said that thing to me.
You know, some of us, thecomplexity of trauma.
(34:46):
We just we won't know and therewon't be that thing, that we'll
discover that.
That's the secret key.
When I say that to my therapistand I cry those tears,
everything will be better.
I think there was a timeearlier on in the sort of the
therapeutic world where therewas something of that myth,
(35:06):
therapeutic world where therewas something of that myth.
But if anyone is listeningright now and has that sense
that, if only I find that thing,maybe it's, maybe the third
candle is for them, but it's atough one.
I did a presentation for agroup of therapists and one of
my dear old friends was there,rachel, and she said I don't
know that I can like that thirdone that feels like I'm going to
have to surrender at some levelin a way that I'm not yet ready
(35:29):
for.
So that's important too.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, yeah it is.
And, as you were telling that,I noticed the feeling of grief.
You know the grief of the notknowing, because sometimes and I
think a lot of times at leastmy brain wants the details right
, Because then it makes sense,right, it makes sense why I'm
feeling this in my body or whythere's a time of year I feel
some discontent or struggle, ora thing.
(35:54):
A smell, a taste, a touch willmake me dysregulate and I'm like
I have no idea why.
And there isn't necessarily afinding the why, it's just
something's there.
And to honor the grief of thenot knowing, the grief of the
surrender because it's stilllost, right, the not knowing is
still lost.
And to give that to god and tosay, yes, let us lament.
(36:17):
And that man, I love a goodlament.
I always thought that would beso scary, but but they are so
beautiful.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, and there's a kindness,
there's a compassion, even in,you know, particular seasons.
I tell the story.
I won't tell the story here,but I do tell a story in the
book of working with a womanwhere she had looked at her past
in great detail and she wasready to say, you know, I don't
know that I'm going to find thatthing that explains my severe
depression, my anxiety.
(36:47):
And so there are these seasons,I think, where I think we as
therapists and our clients, wesort of agree together OK, we're
not going to, we're not goingto press as hard as we were to
look for that thing.
You know, and sometimes whenyou relax in that way, the body
does things.
You know, and I know, as I tellthe story in the book, for my
client it was an awakening to adeeper level of her pain that
(37:10):
she couldn't see when she wastrying to chase down the why.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, yeah, and that's such a common occurrence.
I know that in my own story Iwas working on something wholly
different.
It ended up being tangentiallyrelated, but we were brain
spotting and I dropped intosomething that I had not been
able to remember and it was likethe Lord kicked open the door
to a room that was a wasteland,that looked like Terminator.
And I just remember standingthere going oh crap.
(37:37):
And I just remember thesensation of Jesus saying I'm
with you, I've always been here,it's just time to open the
store and hold my hand, and thatwas profoundly tender and
helpful and terrifying all atthe same time.
And even in the not known and Ijust want to say this because I
think people might be listeningand going what do you mean?
(37:57):
Like this could go on forever.
And oh no, is there's stillsuch goodness, because healing
is still possible, whether youexplicitly or implicitly know
something, that there is stillamazing resilience, amazing
strength, amazing healing.
That does happen.
We may not get througheverything this side of heaven
In fact we won't, because whenwe're done then we go home but
(38:18):
we will still have goodness inthe land of the living.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, that's beautiful, you should preach.
I hope you preach.
Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful,you should preach.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I hope you preach.
Sometimes I get in trouble forthat.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Goodness in the land of the living.
I mean, I think that's what ourclients are fighting for.
You know to spot that goodnessevery now and then.
I remember sitting with aparticular client and we had.
She had felt well, we'd beentogether for a few years and had
been bleak and we were turninga corner.
And just in that moment it'spretty cloudy here in the winter
in West Michigan and the sunsort of breaks through the
(38:53):
window.
There are those moments that youcan't predict.
You know, sometimes you'resitting in a session.
We're so not in control.
People think we therapists arelike oh, I know exactly what I'm
doing, step by step, there's arecipe.
No, we're so not in control,right.
But there are these moments,you know, you might be working
with someone for three years andthere's this breakthrough
moment and they find themselvestransported to the land of the
(39:15):
living and they take their firstdeep breath like they've come
out of water, come out of asuffocating place, right, and
it's really beautiful.
That's why I love this work.
I know you love this work too.
It's so transformative.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
It is.
I always tell people I'm notthe healer, but I do know him
and I get to have a front rowseat to the stuff he does.
And you know it's like being adivine Sherpa.
I'm going to lead you in places, I'm going to walk with you,
I'm going to hold your hand, I'mgoing to carry your bags with
you, I'm going to carry hopewhen you can't.
But you know we may walkthrough the valley of the shadow
of death, but I am not makingcamp.
(39:56):
We're going out the other sideand it is so fun to me to see
Jesus show up, you know, whenyou least expect it and you're
like holy cow, like there'vebeen so many times I have left
like work for the day and justsat in my vehicle and just
breathed and been like how do Iget to do this?
How do I get to see God's glory?
And do it for a job Like thisis amazing.
There are the hard days thatmake you like go wow, oh gosh.
(40:17):
But there's so much beauty andthere's just beauty in sitting
with someone in their pain andbearing witness to even that.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah, well, that in and of itself it doesn't feel
oftentimes to us or to theclient like anything's really
happening there, right, but thatin and of itself is so
transformative, right, thatattunement, that bearing witness
if there are any therapistslistening right now know that in
those moments it's so important, right, that's there's
something happening there,mirroring an attunement that
(40:46):
likely never happened before,you know.
And so, yeah, it's really slowwork and it can be profoundly
unsatisfying work.
If you need, like the quick I'mnoticing, maybe you have too.
I know a number of therapistswho are pivoting to coaching and
other things, because it can behard to sit with people over
(41:06):
the course of a long time.
The change is so slow and yet,yeah, what a gift that we get to
do it.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Absolutely, and I think you know.
Speaking to therapists thatmight be listening to us, I
would just encourage you learnhow to get into your own body
and learn how to get somebodyelse into theirs, because that
is a game changer and we can'ttake someone where we won't go
and if we're scared of our ownbodies, then it's going to be
(41:33):
really hard to press in withsomeone else's.
I had the immense privilege ofspeaking to a room full of
marriage and family therapistsin March of 2025.
And I had a brave volunteer getup on the stage.
She did not know me from a hillof tacos and this one was so
incredibly brave.
I knew what I was about to do.
She had no idea and I didn'tsay.
(41:55):
I just said who's willing to dosomething with me?
I need a volunteer, and shebravely got up there with me and
I slowed everything down,dropped into my own body and,
within about 10 seconds, droppedher into hers.
And I could see thevulnerability that she let me
have in that moment.
The whole room could feel itand I was very gentle and
careful.
We did not go places super deep, though I could see them
(42:17):
because, like dude, she didn'teven know what she was signing
up for and it was so profoundlytender.
And when we were done I saidthis is why we do it this way.
And the room was like, oh mygosh.
And she came to me after andsaid that was, I felt, seen, so
seen.
And that is like Kurt Thompsonsays we come into this world
(42:41):
looking for someone, looking forus, and we're giving them
something of Jesus in thatmoment because we're looking at
them.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's it at the core and that's what's
most healing, I think too.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Absolutely.
What is, if you could sayanything to the audience
listening, what is the one thingthat you hope that they take
away from healing?
What's within that you hopethat they take away?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
from healing what's within.
Yeah, I wanted to demystifytrauma.
You know trauma is a wound.
I mean I think so often whenpeople think about trauma they
think about this complex.
There are complex conversations, as you know, if you've ever
read Alan Shore or Peter Levinebut it's a wound to the soul and
it's a wound that festers inaloneness and in overwhelm and
(43:26):
most of us can relate to that atsome level.
And it's a primal wound, Ourearliest wound in Genesis,
chapter 3 of disconnection, Adamand Eve hiding in shame.
All of us know that.
All of us bear something ofthat in our own bodies.
If you've ever heard traumatalked about in a way that like,
oh, I don't have that, that'sfor that really serious person
(43:51):
that was hospitalized last week.
You know.
To know that you're dealing inwounds and I'm dealing and we
all have our wounds, and to payattention, to listen for God's
kind, where are you?
And to attune to what God mightwant you to attune to and
attend to in your own life.
I think that's what I'd say,Some version of that.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, I think that's a beautiful gift honestly to
lean into Jesus and let him callto you and hear that when are
you, so much differently thanmaybe we were taught back in the
day, and to trust that his armsare open and that he wants to
(44:25):
take you up.
That's one of my favoritethings that I know the Lord has
done in my own life is he gaveme a vision a long time ago.
I was in the middle of theworst panic attack.
I honestly could not drive, Iwas shaking, it was awful, and I
was like Jesus, please, help,please.
And there was like no one.
And I just remember saying Ineed a hug and I'm like in the
middle of Mississippi in thewoods, like there's nobody to
(44:47):
hug me and I'm not walking up topeople and going hi, would you
please give me a hug?
That's dangerous.
And the Lord said just crawl inmy lap and let me hold you, and
that was a visualization that Ihad, and I could feel him so
close and it was such theinvitation.
I was like like, oh, but thisis what you say to all of us
come close, I'm here, yeah, andthat's beautiful, so I love that
(45:10):
yeah so thank you, chuck, forhanging out and for chatting and
for talking about your book.
The book is healing.
What's within it is absolutelyfantastic.
You can get it wherever booksare sold.
Again is my favorite, and youdid read your audio book because
I've.
So I have it on all threeformats I have your audio book,
the paperback and I have theKindle, because I just never
(45:31):
know when I'm going to need it,and I'm so grateful for all of
that.
I'm so grateful for the workthat you do, for the work you do
helping people with theirspiritual formation and their
healing and pointing them to theultimate healer in such a
tender, beautiful way.
So thank you for hanging outwith me.
Oh, you're so kind.
Thank you Thanks for joining mefor today's episode of hey
(45:57):
Tabby.
If you're looking for aresource that I mentioned in the
show and you want to check outthe show notes, head on over to
tabithawestbrookcom.
Forward slash heytabi.
That's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I and youcan grab it there.
I look forward to seeing younext time.
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