July 7, 2025 • 48 mins
What is shame? How does evil use shame against us, and what does healing look like? Dr. Curt Thompson explores shame through the lens of Scripture, neuroscience, and spiritual formation in community. Stay until the end to hear how Jesus meets us in our shame. What a beautiful conversation!
Dr. Curt Thompson is a compassionate psychiatrist who weaves together an understanding of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) and a Christian view of what it means to be human. Through Curt's workshops, books, private clinical practice, and other platforms, he helps people fully experience our deepest longing: to be known. Learn more at curtthompsonmd.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa and I'mhere to show you how let's go.
Today's interview with KurtThompson was beautiful.
(00:22):
We all feel shame in oursexuality and in this interview
you are going to hear more abouthow shame works, what it can
look like to heal shame and howJesus relates to us in the
middle of our shame.
And I'll give you a hint to usin the middle of our shame.
(00:45):
And I'll give you a hint.
He's not going anywhere and helooks at us with love.
Kurt is a seasoned psychiatristand the author of many books,
including the Soul of Shame,retelling the stories we believe
about ourselves.
He's also the host of a podcastcalled being Known and the
founder of a network of groupscalled Confessional Communities
(01:05):
that you'll hear more about.
These are places where shame isbeing healed by love and the
presence of other people.
Enjoy the episode Today.
I am absolutely thrilled to betalking with Kurt Thompson.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
True, thanks so much.
It's a privilege to be with you.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It's a bit of a dream come true.
Thanks so much.
It's a privilege to be with you.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
You're welcome.
It's a bit of a dream come true.
I've been a fan of your workfor years and I especially
really want to focus today onshame and sexuality.
Why are you so passionate aboutaddressing these topics?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Two things One is shame is just ubiquitous, it's
just in everything.
It's like driving your carthrough the desert and wondering
how did the sand just geteverywhere?
Or here in Northern Virginia,the pollen comes in the spring
and it is everywhere.
It's unavoidable.
So, number one in the work thatI had have done, you just see
(02:07):
it everywhere and so like, andthen, in addition to just seeing
that it's, it begins early inthe biblical narrative, right,
so it's, it's early there, itdoesn't.
They don't wait till, like eventhe middle of genesis, like
it's page two, right at the endof the second page.
It's, it's probably we'regetting an alert.
Right, the man and his wifewere naked, unashashamed.
So I think that's one thing,because there's just so much
(02:32):
material that it's important forus to address.
In addition to saying that, Ithink that one way to talk about
shame I'm not saying it's theonly way or the right way, but
to say that shame in manyrespects is the neuroaffective
or the emotional element of whatsin often amounts to.
So that's something for us tothink about.
And then I think, as far assexuality is concerned, I mean
the first thing that I would say.
(02:53):
I mean I don't know that I'mpassionate about sexuality
because it just makes me sonervous.
Number one I'm just like.
I'm like nervous.
Nothing makes me more nervousthan sex, nothing.
I had very little educationabout this as a kid growing up.
I never had a singleconversation with my father
about this.
My mother handed me a book whenI was 13 or something of that
(03:13):
nature, and these are allwell-intended things.
My parents were bothGod-fearing people and so forth.
Two things about this.
Number one is that also sex andthe role that it plays with who
we are as human beings.
It is also as old as scripturein terms of how we use it and
(03:34):
misuse it to like how we, asbroken people, are responding to
the very end of the first pageof the Bible, before we even get
to sex per se.
When we are made in God's image, male and female, made he them
Like the whole notion that youknow.
(03:57):
It is common for us to thinkthat, oh, we begin with biology,
right, we begin with biology.
There's male and female, and welook at that from a biological
standpoint, from our sexualorgans, and then gender is kind
of developed after that.
Right, gender is this thingthat we create socially, it's a
(04:17):
social construct and so forthand so on, and the biblical
narrative actually would say no,actually it's reversed.
You actually begin with maleand female.
Like the idea of this longbefore we are created with
sexual organs.
Male and female is a really bigdeal.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And somehow it's connected to the image of God.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It is right, I am not fully an image bearer as a male
of God's image, without beingaware that I get to do that
because there are females in theworld and vice versa, and we
have a hard time getting ourhead around this.
And so the brokenness then thatcomes like in me right, comes
in any like.
I just have a hundred differentways in which my own body, my
(05:05):
own gender, my own sexuality andso forth makes me nervous,
makes me ashamed, like I don't.
I feel uncomfortable, all thethings, and so I then create all
kinds of coping strategies inorder for me to like, reduce my
distress.
And in our day, of course, Iknow that part of your work
really invites people to payattention to like.
(05:27):
How has pornography kind of likeworked its way?
And pornography like it's not amodern day thing, right, we've
had pornography for as old aswe've had human beings.
But in the age of the Internetit has taken on geometric
scourge proportions,non-geometric scourge
(05:48):
proportions, and what werecognize, even when it comes to
how the mind works over andaround both of these things
shame and pornography andsexuality and so forth has a lot
to do with accessibility.
It's the same thing if I'm analcoholic and, as it turns out,
everywhere I go, whether it's mycar or my kitchen or my
workplace or whatever a bottleof the.
(06:08):
Macallan sitting everywhere,everywhere I go Like it's not,
that's not easy.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So it's what you described as going to the desert
and finding sand everywhere,like in our world now.
Pornography is everywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And so I would also say, therefore, it is the
prompting, like the promptingand the provocateur of our shame
matrix.
Neurophysiologically, our shameis being provoked.
I mean, this is whatpornography does.
It isn't just a thing that Iparticipate with, it is a thing
that does something to me byfurther encasing me in shame
(06:46):
with every single inch ofmovement toward it that I go,
right, I begin to think about itbefore I even, like, open up my
laptop and all the things thatcomes with that, and so shame is
already at work.
Like we like to say that in theGarden of Eden, shame was in
play long before any fruit cuteaten, and the very notion of
(07:08):
the conversation that theserpent is having with a woman,
shame is being active.
He's going to use this as he'sgoing to use her very brain
against her, because he's goingto tell a story, in a certain
way, about a relationship thatevokes all these things.
And then you know, and then youopen up your laptop and there
you go, we find ourselves inthat same place, with the
serpent whispering to us thatevokes all these things.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And then you know, and then you open up your laptop
and there you go.
We find ourselves in that sameplace, with the serpent
whispering to us and I love whatyou said in the soul of shame.
Every minute of every day, wechoose between shame and love.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, and I think you know evil is so subtle it is
not interested in notoriety.
Notice that the serpent getsall the best lines in the
Genesis three narrative and thencompletely and unannounced just
fades out of the picture.
Just fades out of the pictureand he doesn't even say like hey
guys, I'm leaving.
(07:56):
Okay, no more lines for me.
No, he does not need notoriety,he wants us to be devoured.
That's what evil, chaos, istrying to do for us.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, and one of the primary weapons that he uses is
shame Right.
So, from a neurobiologicalperspective, what is shame?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So I don't define it as much as I describe it.
We know, like you don't need ashrink to tell you, like when
you're feeling ashamed, like youdon't need me, but like there
are some things to consider.
One thing, when we observe it,that we know that is true about
it, is, before it's anythingelse, before it is a thought in
my head, before it is anawareness of, before it is my
(08:40):
awareness of something that hashappened to me or something that
somebody has said to me.
It is my awareness of somethingthat has happened to me or
something that somebody has saidto me.
I'm feeling it in my body.
It is a neurophysiologic eventthat tends to, as we say,
disintegrate or, like the folksat the Bible Project would say,
it decreates, it separates.
(09:07):
So if any of our listeners haveever been ashamed, either
privately or publicly, like, howeasy is it for you to be
comfortable with yourself?
Do you want to look at people?
Do you want to look at yourself?
How easy is it for you to thinkclearly?
How easy would it be for you,when you're embarrassed, to sit
down and say, like, let's have acreative time together?
Like, how are we going to dothis Like no, I want to turn.
(09:27):
I turn away from parts ofmyself.
Neurophysiologically, Idisconnect from within myself,
while I am simultaneouslydisconnecting from you,
disconnecting from you Everytime I look at porn.
I'm disconnecting from myselfand I'm disconnecting from all
other human beings.
Right, because I'm looking atsomething that's not real.
I'm not like with a bone andblood human being.
(09:50):
I'm moving away from humanityas a way for me to cope with
things, and so it leads then toisolation, which leads to
greater anxiety, which leads togreater shame, which leads to me
wanting to even further copewith shame by doing something by
myself, because the primarycognitive feature of shame is
(10:15):
that of condemnation.
I have these thoughts of like,I'm not this enough, I should
have done this, I should havedone that, if I'd only done this
, if I'd only been like this, Ishould have done that if I'd
only done this, if I'd only donethat.
You're so stupid, you're sothis, you're so that whatever.
And I am so likely to fillmyself up with this
self-condemnation that at somepoint, I begin to share this
with other people, all of myshaming behavior in which I
(10:39):
shame other people, in which Ithink about people in that
political party, or I thinkabout these people in that
church or that theologicaltradition, or this or that or
whatever, or my wife or mypastor, or my kids or my parents
or whoever it is.
It is all from an excess of myown self-contempt.
And, mind you, most of thethings that have happened to us
in our lives for which we havefelt shame, whether it's come
(11:02):
from our families of origin,whether it's come from our
workplaces, whether it's comefrom our churches, these are
particular events that havehappened to us.
But what we are often and thisis where evil, as I like to tell
people look, evil is the secondsmartest force on the planet.
It's far smarter than I am, butevil does not need to keep
(11:24):
doing things.
Evil can let me do things,because something happens to me
where somebody says something tome that really hurts my
feelings and shames me.
But then what do I do?
I replay it over and over andover and over in my mind and
every time I do, I reinforce theneurophysiologic felt sense of
(11:45):
shame, I reinforce the strengthof the thoughts of shame and
when I do all these kinds ofthings, I further distance
myself from myself and fromothers and I heighten my felt
sense and need relief, sense andneed relief.
Which is why you know it's likehow this works with any
(12:10):
addiction.
And again, just to be clearabout addiction, we're all
addicts.
We're all addicts.
The Bible calls it idolatry.
We're all idolaters.
I have my thing that I'm goingto turn to.
Instead of turning to Jesus,instead of turning to other
people, I'm going to have mything that I can be in charge of
(12:31):
, and the very act of turningtoward it reinforces my
isolation, which reinforces myneed for the very thing that
I've turned to, which reinforcesmy need for the very thing that
I've turned to.
And so, until I get to thepoint where I've suffered enough
because of what my idol hasdone to me, it's really
(12:52):
difficult for me to eventuallyturn and say to you, drew, drew,
I need help, I need help fromyou.
And, as it turns out, you, drew,become the help.
Like you are the answer.
In that, in that, like you arethe image bearer of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit gets to methrough you, not through just an
idea, not through anabstraction, but through living,
(13:16):
breathing relationships throughwhich the Holy Spirit is living
and moving.
And, like you know, god's like.
God is so dang serious about usbeing his hands and feet, not
with pressure, not with likewell, you know, you're the light
of the world and so, like,don't screw it up, but like
you're the light of the world,like I can't wait for us
(13:40):
together to go into the world sothat the world can be healed,
so that we can find we can findthe people who are sick, which
is what your ministry is doingAmen.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
There is no contradiction between Jesus
healing shame and other peoplehealing our shame.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
No.
In fact, we would say, peoplewho are old enough, who remember
the phrase, just say no todrugs and we like to remind
people.
We like to remind people thatthe part of the brain that hears
the words just say no to drugs.
And we like to remind people.
We like to remind people thatthe part of the brain that hears
the words just say no to drugshas got nothing to do with the
part of the brain that likes todo the drugs.
And so it's really difficult tojust tell somebody you
shouldn't be ashamed, you don'tneed to be ashamed.
I first am only going tobelieve those, I'm only going to
(14:19):
, I'm going to come to thatconclusion that I am not ashamed
.
I can come to that conclusioncognitively only after I have
actually been able to name foryou, right here and now, what my
shame is.
And have you not leave the room?
And instead of looking at mewith what I expect to be a
(14:41):
facial expression of contempt,and instead I see love and
kindness, I see compassion, Isee curiosity, I see something
other.
I see something that the womanat the well, that the woman with
the bleeding problem saw, thatthey were not expecting to see
with Jesus, that Peter, when hesaid after Jesus fills his boat
(15:03):
up with fish and Peter says goaway from me, I cannot like
Peter was expecting to see.
Like, oh, you of little faith.
Like wait, like no.
Like he's like follow me, y'allcome, I'm going to make you,
I'm going to help you fish formen.
Like that's not anything,that's not what Peter's
expecting to hear or to see.
Like that's not anything,that's not what Peter's
(15:30):
expecting to hear or to see.
And Jesus then says in John 20,as the Father has sent me,
that's how I'm sending y'all.
Now.
You're going to do that throughvulnerability, because you know
it's in that same chapter wherehe's showing people his scars,
but it's in he breathed on themand received the Holy Spirit.
He says, like this is you know?
This is like the introductionto what's coming at Pentecost.
Yeah, like dude, like thiswhole oh gosh.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
The king man, the king is sending us out.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
With his kindness and love and acceptance.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, and he sends us .
And what's challenging, I think, is even you come to me because
I need you.
I don't even know that I needyou, but there you are and you
say so, how are you doing?
And I tell you, and you're likewow, that just sounds really
hard.
And before we know it, we're inthe middle of a conversation in
which I'm being transformed bythe presence of the Holy Spirit
in you and the next week and thenext week, and like, why is it?
(16:23):
Like it's like I'm still.
This thing is still bangingaround in my head and I can't.
And I think, like I thoughtthat we I thought we already had
talked about this last week andwe would just be resolved.
When we hear Paul's words.
It says, therefore, work outyour salvation.
With fear and trembling, likewe're going to work it out,
we're going to work this out,yeah, but jesus is the author
(16:43):
and the perfecter.
Like he, like he's working,like it is not like one and done
.
It's not like, oh, I graduatefrom high school and I no longer
have to get an education, I nolonger have to learn and and
part, and this is the thing welike to say.
You know.
Historians later on would sayabout, you know, world, world
War II, that the Axis powersknew.
(17:05):
They would say there was asense that the Axis powers knew
that if the Allies took Normandythe war would be effectively
over.
The war was not over yet andyou know it's an imperfect
metaphor, but we would say thisis what the incarnation of Jesus
(17:29):
has done.
He's come and the war is over.
Man, there's tons of resistancethat's keeping it from.
You know, we don't know howlong it's going to take.
And so we discover oh my gosh,this is.
You know, I tell people it'slike I'm.
Like David Wilcox has this songcalled the Rusty Little American
(17:52):
Dream.
It's about a, you know, 1950sCadillac that's sitting by the
side of the road.
It's rusty and this, and thathe wants somebody to come along
and take it.
Like Jesus has found me by theside of the road and he brought
me into his garage.
And like now I'm in his garageand this is great because
finally I'm out of the weather,I'm out of da-da-da-da.
But now, like he turns all thelights on and you're like crap,
(18:14):
like the fender, look at theengine, look to die, to die,
like all the things.
Like I, you know, it's nice tobe in, and but you look around
there, oh there are other carsin the garage too.
And jesus is like, yep, youbelong to me now.
And I'm like, but there's allthis work to be done.
Yeah, but this is why you're inthe garage, this is why you're
here.
I saved you.
Now we're gonna do go.
Now we're gonna go to work, andwhile we're, and while we're
(18:35):
doing work, and the very workthat we're doing, work, and the
very work that we're doingbecomes the occasion for you
also to be sent, as the Fathersent me On occasion.
You're going to drive your carand other people are going to
see it, and you're like y'all,come, come back to the garage.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's a beautiful invitation.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And so it takes practice over and over and over
and over and our work againstthe tyranny of evil as it tries
to use, shame as it iseffectively embedded in really
ancient neural networks for usthat are not just mine, but
they're generationally mine.
I was given this from myparents and my grandparents as
well, and so we're not justpushing against our own personal
(19:19):
stories, we're pushing againstthe stories of others that came
before us, that had their owntraumas that were never worked
out but that kind of like,through what we call epigenetic
changes, kind of pass this downthe line and we're pushing
against the earth.
It's a lot that we're pushingagainst, which is why we need
community to be doing this.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Let's talk about that , because I have heard really
wonderful things aboutconfessional communities.
What is that all about and howcan it help heal?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
shame.
You know, over the last 15years there emerged in our
practice a particular model forwhat started out many, many,
even many years before that, forwhat started out many, many,
even many years before that,what we would call group therapy
, but has in the last 15 yearsbecome much more an enterprise
(20:08):
and an initiative of spiritualformation, and we name it as
such and we talk about it beinga community of six to eight
people.
Now, in our practice it's um,it's guided by two therapists,
and we have a number of thesegroups that run uh, but outside
of the practice and in ournonprofit we have lay led
(20:30):
versions of this that people canenter into.
Um, but it is.
It is a group of six to eightpeople that gather together for
spiritual formation, and what welike to say is that the outer
border of the sphere is thisnotion of we're living within a
context of Christiananthropology.
What does it mean for us to behumans from the biblical
perspective?
What does that mean and that'simportant, because many of us
(20:52):
tend to think that the gospelstory begins in Genesis 3.
Like, the leading edge of thegospel is that we're sinners in
need of a savior, all of whichis true, but that's actually not
where the story starts.
The story starts two pagesbefore that.
Everything else that followsthose two pages is what went
wrong and what God's doing totry to correct that and not
trying what he is doing, whathe's done.
And so it's a Christiananthropoc, a way of
(21:14):
understanding what does it meanfor us to be human, that we were
created for joy and we weremade in God's image to create
beauty and goodness in the worldand to extend the borders of
Eden into the wilderness.
And that mission hasn't changed.
And the new heaven and earththat is coming is one that we
have to practice for, to getready to do that very thing.
So that's the first outersphere that's containing
(21:36):
everything.
Within this we talk about themechanics of interpersonal
neurobiology.
How does the mind work?
What does it mean to be athinking, feeling, sensing
creature, and not only that?
Within that is a third sphere,which is the dynamics of group
psychotherapy.
What happens in a community and, as we like to say to folks in
(21:56):
psychotherapy in general gosh, Idon't know what happens in
those offices, like I don't knowwhat's going on in there or
something it's some you know.
I don't know abracadabra, Idon't know what all y'all are
talking about in there, but it'scertainly not like real life,
it's not normal life to which Iwill tell people look,
everything that happens in apsychotherapy consultation room,
everything that happens in aconfessional community,
(22:16):
everything that happens in aconfessional community,
everything that happens there,is happening everywhere else in
the world.
The thing that sets it apart inpsychotherapy or in these
confessional communities, thething that sets it apart, is in
that space.
We are actually explicitlynaming the things that are
happening in the space.
That's so good.
Right, how many of us have gone?
You know we're in a meeting atwork or we're in like an elder
(22:40):
board gathering at church or asmall group gathering at church,
and we're there.
You know we're going to have aBible study and we're in the
middle of a Bible study with ourlike eight or ten people in our
room, that we're sitting there,we're talking about this and,
as we're having this thought,like somebody's thinking, like I
am so bored, but like who'sgoing to pause and say, excuse
me, like can I?
Just I'm really bored with whatwe're doing right now.
(23:00):
Like no, we don't.
We don't say that, but I will.
I will guarantee you that thatenergy, the thought, the felt
sense, the feeling, all thesekinds of things.
They are affecting what'shappening in the room, because
you can't avoid it, but becausewe don't name things that are
(23:23):
actually happening in the room.
We're in the elder boardmeeting, we're talking about a
budget right, that's what wethink that we're there to talk
about, until you know, stanstarts to sound irritated.
But nobody wants to say to StanStan, you sound irritated,
what's going on?
We never hear from Stan thatactually, as it turns out,
stan's got a kid who he doesn'tknow if he's going to survive
because of his addiction.
It's really bothering him.
Or Stan's marriage might bethis, or Stan might be irritated
(23:45):
at somebody else in the roomand Stan's not saying that
because we think we're there totalk about the budget, but
that's not what's happening inthe room.
The budget isn't the topic.
Stan is the topic, but it's notjust Stan, because Just stand,
because we're all involved.
This is the thing, this is thebeauty about.
When Jesus brings disciplestogether.
You put Peter and Matthew inthe same room.
These guys are, like Peter's,going to kill it.
(24:06):
This is one of the reasons whythe chosen is such a beautiful
thing.
They're just showing us howthese cats don't get along.
And Jesus seems to becompletely content with having
people in the room who are notgoing to get along.
And then we're going to say,like, what's actually happening
here in the room, the work isnot just him preaching the
(24:27):
Sermon on the Mount.
That's separate from what'sactually happening.
Like, what's happening in theroom is the Sermon on the Mount.
So in these confessionalcommunities we are committed not
just to talking about things inour lives.
We really.
Eventually, we help people todiscover that, like, our real
life is happening right here inthis room.
This is real life at itsmaximal.
(24:49):
No, we're not having sex withone another, even though there
are men and women in the room,but because there are men and
women in the room, sex is in theroom.
For example, and by this wedon't mean, right, people are
having sex.
But what we mean is that Idon't know that I'm a male if
I'm not in a room with women.
No, what does it mean?
Because when I'm in a room witha woman, she's playing some
(25:13):
role for me.
She's either my mom, my sister,the girlfriend who just broke
up with me, something'shappening with me in the room
that the Holy Spirit is movingto get at.
This?
Is spiritual formationhappening?
Because we're doing this withina context of being serious
about describing where is thetext, what just happened here in
the room and what we're finding, drew, is that not just for
(25:35):
people who come to our practicewith quote unquote diagnoses?
Right, I come out, I'm depressedand I'm anxious, I have an
addiction, I have a marriageproblem, I have OCD, I have
sexual trauma, I have all theall these things.
They're all real, very real,but one of the things that they
have in common is that they haveshattered my capacity to allow
(26:02):
myself to be loved, and my shameis in the thick of it all.
And what we're inviting peopleto do is to come into this space
to do the work, not primarilyof learning things, which you
will not.
Primarily of learning how tobehave differently, which you
will not.
Primarily of learning how tobehave differently, which you
will, but mostly as a way, andyou will do the first two things
(26:24):
eventually as a function ofallowing yourself to be seen
soothed, safe, secure, allowingyourself to be loved.
It is the single most difficultthing that we humans have to do,
that we're not very good atletting ourselves be loved,
because we love love until loveshows up, and then it starts to
feel dangerous.
(26:45):
Because love shows up withdemands.
Love your neighbor, pray foryour enemy.
Allow me to see the part of youthat you hate the most.
Become a person of patience.
Become a person of simplicity.
I am very ill-practiced at allof these things, but this is its
demands.
If you want your old, rustyCadillac to come to my garage
(27:08):
like you're going to be out ofthat bad weather and we're going
to go to work on it, you don'tjust get to come in and like
live how you please.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
And we're not going to work on the Cadillac because
it's bad, but precisely becauseit's good.
Dude, dude, right, right on.
So what happens when men andwomen in the same group start
talking about their shame andtheir sexuality?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
There was one woman who, unannounced, in one of our
groups this is a group of aboutfour women and four men that are
in this group and I and mycolleague Courtney, we're the
two folks that are running thisgroup and one woman says to
another guy I just want to letyou know, I'm just really aware
(27:52):
of how attracted to you I am.
Now, both parties are marriedto people who are, of course,
not in this group.
Both parties are married andthe guy, uh, as uh I had been
helping him get ready to comeand join this group had said to
me like kurt, here's the onething I'm worried about.
(28:13):
I'm worried that I'm going tohave like some experience with a
woman in which I'm going tofeel attracted to her.
She's going to feel attractedto me and, like I don't know I
can, I don't know if that'sgoing to be okay.
I'm like, well, what are youworried would happen?
We start to talk about this, ofcourse, because this is what
happens to us.
We have all these worries andwe then stop with just because
I'm worried.
I'm not going to do that.
I don't pause to explore, like,well, what's that really about?
(28:35):
Like this is what happens,right when we look at porn
because we're not actually beingcurious enough about what is
really going on here.
We're not being too curious,which is why I want to look at,
you know, engage with that kindof material.
I'm not being curious enough.
And so she makes thisannouncement to this guy and you
(28:59):
could just feel the oxygen justget sucked out of the room
Because, like everybody else islike, did she actually just say
that to him, right?
Did she really just say?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
that to him, and this is the kind of thing that keeps
a lot of us in men's onlygroups.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Exactly, and so we never get the opportunity to
actually pay attention to what'sactually happening in the room.
And he, of course you see himturn 30 shades of red when he
hears this and Courtney and Iare like so what do you mean?
Tell him when you say thatyou're attracted to him?
Say more.
And so he starts to name.
(29:37):
I've just been really gratefulfor how well you've listened to
me.
I've been grateful for howprotective you have expressed
that you felt toward me whenI've named some of the things
about my experience with myfamily of origin and even in my
marriage.
I've really appreciated yourkindness.
I've appreciated how you'vetalked to other women here in
the group and you're really nothard to look at.
(30:00):
And what's the story?
What do you want from him?
We ask what do you want fromhim?
Right, because now you'regetting closer, closer to the
edge.
Like do you?
Do you do you want to like?
Are you having thoughts of likein that way?
Like is it?
Is it about having sex?
Is this where you're like?
Actually, what I really want isI want more of that felt sense
of being loved, and in fact itreally just makes me really
(30:24):
aware of how much more I wantthat in my marriage and what I'm
not getting in my marriage.
Now we turn to him and ofcourse you know you can feel the
sweat pouring off of everybodyin the room, right, but you can
also you also sense that littleby little, the immediacy of the
(30:45):
anxiety that everybody wasfeeling in the room starts to
gradually decline Because we'regetting behind the curtain about
what this is about.
And we turn to him what is itlike for you to hear this, when
he starts to say it feels reallyflattering and I'm really
grateful for this, and what doesthat bring her for you?
(31:05):
Well, I'd love to hear more ofthat from my own wife.
And there are other things thathe goes on to say.
But as we name the things thatare happening in the room, we
discover that there's so muchabout the attraction that comes
together with these two peoplethat isn't ultimately really
about each of them asindividuals.
It's her with her marriage andher story, and him with his
(31:29):
marriage and his story, and soforth and so on.
And so then we ask the questionwhat do we want to do about
this?
What are other people feeling?
Now?
This is where things become, Ithink, really powerful in that,
as other people start tocontribute to this, we recognize
that these two people are notjust having a kind of private
(31:51):
moment in public.
This is not just about them.
C is actually a spokesperson fora number of women in that room,
and not just about toward thisparticular guy.
C is a spokesperson for a lotof women, for the other three
women who have great longing andgreat desire to be seen by men
in general, not like their dads,their husbands.
(32:14):
Right, it's not just I want tohave sex with this person.
No, and for him he's alsospeaking for like, yeah, I long
to have a felt sense ofexperience and relationship with
women in which I can feelreally deeply connected to them
and nobody's going to getexploited.
This might've been the kind ofconversation that Adam and Eve
(32:35):
might have had with God, hadAdam been willing to say look, I
just like I know I've screwedup, could you please help Eve
and me work this out?
Adam never gives God thatconversation opportunity, but
this is what's happening here,and so then what else happens?
One other woman says like gosh,here's something that's just
happened to me.
She says like I thought, okay,I had already come to the
(32:57):
conclusion that my marriage iswhat it is.
There's nothing I can do aboutit.
I'm just going to have to learnto live with this.
This is a woman who's beenmarried for 35 years.
This is a woman who's likeshe's going to be you know
another 20 years, that she wantit to be.
I'm just going to have to letit rest.
And even now, like what youjust kind of upset the apple
cart because what I'm going tohave to do is go home and tell
him I'm not happy with where weare.
(33:18):
I want more from our marriage,because these two people are
actually having the conversationthat she wants to have but is
too afraid to have it, and soforth and so on.
And here's the thing that wethen say, drew, like this is the
point, this is the point.
We have this conversation inthis group and then we're able
to say look, the work of theHoly Spirit right now in this
(33:43):
room is trying to form each ofus into the image of Jesus
through the medium of how we areto be God's image bearers.
And we are his image bearers asmale and female.
And I'm not going to be able tobear his image effectively if
I'm not working out myunfinished business with the
other half of the populationthat I invariably have and the
way that I cope with all mydistresses about that.
I look at porn.
Instead of actually having theconversation as we say like,
(34:05):
look, this stuff is happening inthis group, it's happening in
the pews in every church everySunday.
Sunday.
Imagine what it would be likeif you know, during confession,
some dude stands up and sayspoints to some woman across like
I'm really attracted to her.
Can I just say that I was like,excuse me, like this.
(34:28):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, it brings up concerns about safety, of course
.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
But, but.
But this is the thing.
When it comes to driving cars,we can ultimately be safe by
just we just never drive them.
We just never drive them.
But instead we say, oh, hereare some things that happen in
cars.
We need to put safety belts on.
That's going to be a good ideafor us and we're going to ensure
(34:53):
that, like we all have In fact,like if you get pulled over in
your safety belt.
In other words, we're going tobuild things into the system to
say we really want to maximally,we want you to be able to
maximally drive your car witheffort and with efficacy, and so
we're going to put safety beltsin.
That's a way to be safe in acar.
(35:13):
Of course, the ultimate way islike you just never get in one.
And so we have guidelines inthese, in these confessional
communities, like in terms ofthe kind of contact that people
have outside the room, so forth,but like, as you know, look,
god gave adam and eve oneguideline.
It didn't have, like theydidn't have like a whole tax
(35:34):
code on guidelines One fruit,you may not eat One.
I mean, it's not complicated,it's very simple.
It might be really difficult,it might be different, but it's
not difficult because it'scomplicated, and so God gives us
guidelines and we can breakthem if we want to.
You can have the affair with awoman in the church and you can
(35:55):
think that, like gosh, as longas I just keep to all my men and
all my women over my women overhere, my men over here, um,
like that's.
That's like okay, that's goingto keep me from doing things
that I shouldn't be doing.
It's like if I don't drive acar, then I will never be in an
accident.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, and we have a lot of men in groups who find
themselves sometimes attractedto someone else in the group.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Sure Right.
This is why I said earlier,like sex makes me nervous.
But I think I would say, like,I don't think I'm nervous
because I'm silly or stupid orjust immature.
I think I'm nervous because I'ma human.
Why is it that, uh, as myfriend Bart many, many years ago
, why is it that we, that Goddesigned us in such a way, like,
(36:36):
why can't we just have kids bysaying, like, I'm just going to
like, touch our pinkies togetherand that's how it'll happen?
Like, why does the procreationof other humans involve
something that is so deeplyvulnerable physiologically and
that is deeply connected,vulnerably, to my psyche, to my
(36:59):
soul's emotional development?
I think there's somethingbeautifully mysterious and
intentional, of course, aboutthis, and so of course, we want
to have guidelines, we want tobe wise about this.
But the fact that I'm like I gotgenerations right back to Adam
and Eve, of trauma and becausemy parents and the way that they
(37:23):
delivered it to me like it waspretty imperfect, and so, like
I'm left, like I don't know whatthe heck I'm doing and I'm
nervous as all get out aboutthese kinds of things, and so,
even when it comes to like, likewe would say, look, yes, if I'm
a male and I have attraction toother male or other women, like
it doesn't matter, like I'm.
When I say it doesn't matter, Idon't mean that they don't have
our particular things that wehave to pay attention to.
(37:45):
I'm simply saying that, likeevery single one of us is going
to be a person for whom evilwill target and want to use
shame, in particular in thisdomain of our life, because
shame, so historically, isentangled with it.
(38:07):
Right, my felt sense of theparts of me that are the most
vulnerable A man and his wifewere naked sense of the parts of
me that are the most vulnerable.
A man and his wife were naked,vulnerable and unashamed.
But shame entangles itself inthe most vulnerable places, like
our sexuality Exactly, and somy sexuality makes me nervous
(38:36):
because I'm afraid of where theshame is going to find me.
And so, as we like to say, myshame is not healed, drew,
because you tell me Kurt don'tbe ashamed.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
My shame is healed by my revealing my shame in your
presence and you not leaving theroom and discovering that the
things we don't like aboutourselves don't disqualify us
from being loved.
We can be accepted, connectedanyway.
That's right.
And it starts to sink in alittle deeper and a little
deeper in communities where wecan actually talk about it,
(39:12):
that's right.
In communities where we canactually talk about it, that's
right.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
So, in contrast to the story of shame, what is the
story that Jesus tells us?
Because the Father has sent me,so I send you.
One of the early encountersthat we have between Jesus and
his father, especially in Luke'sversion, is the father saying
through the spirit You're my son, I can't believe that I get to
(39:45):
be your father, I'm just sopleased with you.
Isn't the story a joy?
And Jesus wants to come andfind us and say oh my gosh, I'm
so glad you're here.
And that, of course, issomething that we don't often
(40:05):
hear from anyone, let alone hearit repeated to us over and over
, hear it repeated to us overand over, let alone hear it said
to us in the very moment whenwe are most aware of our own
shame and to see it shown to usby action and presence and
(40:33):
embodiment by action.
And presence and embodiment.
That's right.
It was the fall of 2019, and Iwas helping.
I was one of a number ofhelpers for a men's retreat in
Colorado and the leader of thatgroup, michael Cusick.
There was a moment in which, inthe course of the weekend, I
was just aware of some of my own.
I'm one of the leaders, I'm oneof my own.
(40:53):
So my own story is like cominginto the room, I remember
finding myself in this place ofgreat vulnerability and a felt
sense of just being overwhelmedwith myself.
I will remember this until I,like, can not remember anything.
Uh, at one point in the courseof just talking about these
things, naming these things, uh,michael embraced and I, you
(41:18):
know, like, you have an embraceand like, and I'm a hugger and
so, like, I know how to embracepeople and dude, like, that
embrace probably lasted for 75,90 seconds, dude, that's a long
time.
And like I, I like, I feel itin my chest and my back to this
day, this felt sense of hisembrace, his hospitality, his
(41:42):
welcoming me in, and this iswhat we're talking about.
We like to say that the brainoperates bottom to top and right
to left.
First we sense and then we makesense of what we sense.
So somebody can tell me right,you don't need to be afraid, you
don't need to be ashamed, as ifgiving that information is
(42:06):
going to be enough.
It's not unhelpful, it's notunimportant to have words, it's
just that that's not how mybrain operates.
So if I'm not feeling it in mychest, it's not yet going to
take root and germinate and bearfruit the felt sense that I am
(42:26):
loved, right.
So first we sense, then we makesense of what we sense, and
this is child development.
I became a grandfather for thefirst time about three months
ago and little Simon we arewatching him emerge.
It's just unbelievable.
And you see things as agrandparent that you didn't,
(42:48):
because you're too busy tryingnot to screw it up.
As a parent, you're not able tosee things like you see them as
a grandparent, and I'm watchingour daughter and our son-in-law
literally continue to bringthis child into the screw it up.
As a parent, you're not able tosee things like you see them as
a grandparent, and I'm watchingour daughter and our son-in-law
literally continue to like,bring this child into the world.
It's just such a beautifulthing.
All that Simon knows is whathe's sensing right now Like he's
not making sense of things.
He's not, we don't.
We don't say, oh, I love, welove you.
(43:09):
And like he's like thanks,right, no, no, he has to sense
things.
And that Jesus said look, ifyou don't change and become like
little children, heaven is notgoing to work for you.
And so that means littlechildren live as if.
But this means like oh, I haveto be receptive to sensing it,
(43:30):
sensing loving kindness.
And this takes practice,because I'm pushing against a
lot of a neural payload of shamethat does not want to go
quietly into the night.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yes, and it's also a risk.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Totally.
And there is the part of methat will feel ashamed for still
feeling ashamed, right.
And so we have to name that andsay, okay, we and we're not
going to shame the part of methat feels ashamed, we're not
shamed.
It takes work, it takespractice, it takes our resolve
to do this, not unlike Jesus andthe woman with the bleeding
(44:04):
problem in Mark 5, right, hesays right.
Who touched me?
She thought like she had a planfor healing.
It's just one thing I need.
I just need a one thing, onething, one time.
And we're going to do it likecommando.
I'm going to get in, get thejob done, get out.
Nobody gets, nobody's seen,nobody gets hurt.
And then he says stop and allthe wheels come off of her plan
(44:24):
and he's not moving.
And this is a problem becausethere is an urgent need for him
to get to the priest's house toheal the daughter and
everybody's like we're on themove.
Who touched me?
And nobody's thinking aboutsome woman and she's like this
is not, this isn't right and andbut like so he's not moving.
How many of us?
(44:45):
Jesus finds us and we have aplan, we, we, we have an idea
for Jesus about how, about howhe needs to heal us.
Patients come to me.
They have plans for me for howI'm going to, like you know,
treat them.
And he's like no, we're notleaving, we're not moving.
And everybody's like, confused,and she like, and then the text
(45:08):
reads it's so good.
With fear and trembling, hefell at his feet and here's the
kicker and told him everythingabout herself.
Wow, she tells her storyBecause that is the thing that
she most needed healing from.
(45:29):
This is a woman who, because ofher problem, does not have a
family, husband, children,community.
She's out and he's sensing whatshe isn't yet thinking about or
aware of.
We all, like all the extrastuff that she's going to have
to continue to work on.
How many people are going tosay, oh, you're that woman with
a bleeding problem, but she'sgoing to need to have somebody
(45:49):
else say oh, no, no, not, no, no, by the way, her name is Sarah,
she's not the woman with thebleeding problem and she belongs
to us.
Sarah's going to need otherpeople to help her do this
because of all the shame thatshe's had to carry.
I think of how long it wouldhave taken Matthew, the tax
collector, to get used to beingin this company.
(46:11):
Jesus followers, jesus is notworried about how long this is
going to take.
He's not worried about it, itjust keeps coming.
It just keeps coming.
We're in the garage.
It just keeps coming back.
(46:31):
Today we're going to work onthe carburetor.
Raj, this keeps coming back.
Today we're going to work onthe carburetor.
Oh, but you don't want to lookat that.
Could we not look at that?
I think you're ready for it.
I think you're.
(46:53):
Yeah, let's open the hood.
And so it helps when we haveother people around who are
putting flesh and bones on this,that Michael Cusick and my
friend Terry Wardle and myspiritual director Ann Howley,
when they're putting bone andblood, bring it into the room.
The parts of us that need thedoctor can be found by him or
(47:17):
her.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
And he's not going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
No, nope, not moving.
Who touched me?
She's like crap.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
And then he calls her daughter yeah, just like he
calls her daughter yeah.
Just like he calls us sonsRight on.
Kurt, thank you so much forbeing with us.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
You're welcome, guys.
You can go down to the shownotes.
If you want to learn more aboutKurt, get a copy of his books
like the soul of shame, althoughhe's got many others and if you
want to learn more aboutconfessional communities, I
encourage you to explore thatand I want everyone to know that
the thing I say at the end ofthis episode is partly inspired
by Kurt, but it really comesstraight from the heart of God,
(48:09):
of our sexuality and our shame.
He never stops saying you aremy beloved son.
In you I am well pleased.
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa and I'mhere to show you how let's go.
Today's interview with KurtThompson was beautiful.
(00:22):
We all feel shame in oursexuality and in this interview
you are going to hear more abouthow shame works, what it can
look like to heal shame and howJesus relates to us in the
middle of our shame.
And I'll give you a hint to usin the middle of our shame.
(00:45):
And I'll give you a hint.
He's not going anywhere and helooks at us with love.
Kurt is a seasoned psychiatristand the author of many books,
including the Soul of Shame,retelling the stories we believe
about ourselves.
He's also the host of a podcastcalled being Known and the
founder of a network of groupscalled Confessional Communities
(01:05):
that you'll hear more about.
These are places where shame isbeing healed by love and the
presence of other people.
Enjoy the episode Today.
I am absolutely thrilled to betalking with Kurt Thompson.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
True, thanks so much.
It's a privilege to be with you.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It's a bit of a dream come true.
Thanks so much.
It's a privilege to be with you.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
You're welcome.
It's a bit of a dream come true.
I've been a fan of your workfor years and I especially
really want to focus today onshame and sexuality.
Why are you so passionate aboutaddressing these topics?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Two things One is shame is just ubiquitous, it's
just in everything.
It's like driving your carthrough the desert and wondering
how did the sand just geteverywhere?
Or here in Northern Virginia,the pollen comes in the spring
and it is everywhere.
It's unavoidable.
So, number one in the work thatI had have done, you just see
(02:07):
it everywhere and so like, andthen, in addition to just seeing
that it's, it begins early inthe biblical narrative, right,
so it's, it's early there, itdoesn't.
They don't wait till, like eventhe middle of genesis, like
it's page two, right at the endof the second page.
It's, it's probably we'regetting an alert.
Right, the man and his wifewere naked, unashashamed.
So I think that's one thing,because there's just so much
(02:32):
material that it's important forus to address.
In addition to saying that, Ithink that one way to talk about
shame I'm not saying it's theonly way or the right way, but
to say that shame in manyrespects is the neuroaffective
or the emotional element of whatsin often amounts to.
So that's something for us tothink about.
And then I think, as far assexuality is concerned, I mean
the first thing that I would say.
(02:53):
I mean I don't know that I'mpassionate about sexuality
because it just makes me sonervous.
Number one I'm just like.
I'm like nervous.
Nothing makes me more nervousthan sex, nothing.
I had very little educationabout this as a kid growing up.
I never had a singleconversation with my father
about this.
My mother handed me a book whenI was 13 or something of that
(03:13):
nature, and these are allwell-intended things.
My parents were bothGod-fearing people and so forth.
Two things about this.
Number one is that also sex andthe role that it plays with who
we are as human beings.
It is also as old as scripturein terms of how we use it and
(03:34):
misuse it to like how we, asbroken people, are responding to
the very end of the first pageof the Bible, before we even get
to sex per se.
When we are made in God's image, male and female, made he them
Like the whole notion that youknow.
(03:57):
It is common for us to thinkthat, oh, we begin with biology,
right, we begin with biology.
There's male and female, and welook at that from a biological
standpoint, from our sexualorgans, and then gender is kind
of developed after that.
Right, gender is this thingthat we create socially, it's a
(04:17):
social construct and so forthand so on, and the biblical
narrative actually would say no,actually it's reversed.
You actually begin with maleand female.
Like the idea of this longbefore we are created with
sexual organs.
Male and female is a really bigdeal.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And somehow it's connected to the image of God.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It is right, I am not fully an image bearer as a male
of God's image, without beingaware that I get to do that
because there are females in theworld and vice versa, and we
have a hard time getting ourhead around this.
And so the brokenness then thatcomes like in me right, comes
in any like.
I just have a hundred differentways in which my own body, my
(05:05):
own gender, my own sexuality andso forth makes me nervous,
makes me ashamed, like I don't.
I feel uncomfortable, all thethings, and so I then create all
kinds of coping strategies inorder for me to like, reduce my
distress.
And in our day, of course, Iknow that part of your work
really invites people to payattention to like.
(05:27):
How has pornography kind of likeworked its way?
And pornography like it's not amodern day thing, right, we've
had pornography for as old aswe've had human beings.
But in the age of the Internetit has taken on geometric
scourge proportions,non-geometric scourge
(05:48):
proportions, and what werecognize, even when it comes to
how the mind works over andaround both of these things
shame and pornography andsexuality and so forth has a lot
to do with accessibility.
It's the same thing if I'm analcoholic and, as it turns out,
everywhere I go, whether it's mycar or my kitchen or my
workplace or whatever a bottleof the.
(06:08):
Macallan sitting everywhere,everywhere I go Like it's not,
that's not easy.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So it's what you described as going to the desert
and finding sand everywhere,like in our world now.
Pornography is everywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And so I would also say, therefore, it is the
prompting, like the promptingand the provocateur of our shame
matrix.
Neurophysiologically, our shameis being provoked.
I mean, this is whatpornography does.
It isn't just a thing that Iparticipate with, it is a thing
that does something to me byfurther encasing me in shame
(06:46):
with every single inch ofmovement toward it that I go,
right, I begin to think about itbefore I even, like, open up my
laptop and all the things thatcomes with that, and so shame is
already at work.
Like we like to say that in theGarden of Eden, shame was in
play long before any fruit cuteaten, and the very notion of
(07:08):
the conversation that theserpent is having with a woman,
shame is being active.
He's going to use this as he'sgoing to use her very brain
against her, because he's goingto tell a story, in a certain
way, about a relationship thatevokes all these things.
And then you know, and then youopen up your laptop and there
you go, we find ourselves inthat same place, with the
serpent whispering to us thatevokes all these things.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And then you know, and then you open up your laptop
and there you go.
We find ourselves in that sameplace, with the serpent
whispering to us and I love whatyou said in the soul of shame.
Every minute of every day, wechoose between shame and love.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, and I think you know evil is so subtle it is
not interested in notoriety.
Notice that the serpent getsall the best lines in the
Genesis three narrative and thencompletely and unannounced just
fades out of the picture.
Just fades out of the pictureand he doesn't even say like hey
guys, I'm leaving.
(07:56):
Okay, no more lines for me.
No, he does not need notoriety,he wants us to be devoured.
That's what evil, chaos, istrying to do for us.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, and one of the primary weapons that he uses is
shame Right.
So, from a neurobiologicalperspective, what is shame?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So I don't define it as much as I describe it.
We know, like you don't need ashrink to tell you, like when
you're feeling ashamed, like youdon't need me, but like there
are some things to consider.
One thing, when we observe it,that we know that is true about
it, is, before it's anythingelse, before it is a thought in
my head, before it is anawareness of, before it is my
(08:40):
awareness of something that hashappened to me or something that
somebody has said to me.
It is my awareness of somethingthat has happened to me or
something that somebody has saidto me.
I'm feeling it in my body.
It is a neurophysiologic eventthat tends to, as we say,
disintegrate or, like the folksat the Bible Project would say,
it decreates, it separates.
(09:07):
So if any of our listeners haveever been ashamed, either
privately or publicly, like, howeasy is it for you to be
comfortable with yourself?
Do you want to look at people?
Do you want to look at yourself?
How easy is it for you to thinkclearly?
How easy would it be for you,when you're embarrassed, to sit
down and say, like, let's have acreative time together?
Like, how are we going to dothis Like no, I want to turn.
(09:27):
I turn away from parts ofmyself.
Neurophysiologically, Idisconnect from within myself,
while I am simultaneouslydisconnecting from you,
disconnecting from you Everytime I look at porn.
I'm disconnecting from myselfand I'm disconnecting from all
other human beings.
Right, because I'm looking atsomething that's not real.
I'm not like with a bone andblood human being.
(09:50):
I'm moving away from humanityas a way for me to cope with
things, and so it leads then toisolation, which leads to
greater anxiety, which leads togreater shame, which leads to me
wanting to even further copewith shame by doing something by
myself, because the primarycognitive feature of shame is
(10:15):
that of condemnation.
I have these thoughts of like,I'm not this enough, I should
have done this, I should havedone that, if I'd only done this
, if I'd only been like this, Ishould have done that if I'd
only done this, if I'd only donethat.
You're so stupid, you're sothis, you're so that whatever.
And I am so likely to fillmyself up with this
self-condemnation that at somepoint, I begin to share this
with other people, all of myshaming behavior in which I
(10:39):
shame other people, in which Ithink about people in that
political party, or I thinkabout these people in that
church or that theologicaltradition, or this or that or
whatever, or my wife or mypastor, or my kids or my parents
or whoever it is.
It is all from an excess of myown self-contempt.
And, mind you, most of thethings that have happened to us
in our lives for which we havefelt shame, whether it's come
(11:02):
from our families of origin,whether it's come from our
workplaces, whether it's comefrom our churches, these are
particular events that havehappened to us.
But what we are often and thisis where evil, as I like to tell
people look, evil is the secondsmartest force on the planet.
It's far smarter than I am, butevil does not need to keep
(11:24):
doing things.
Evil can let me do things,because something happens to me
where somebody says something tome that really hurts my
feelings and shames me.
But then what do I do?
I replay it over and over andover and over in my mind and
every time I do, I reinforce theneurophysiologic felt sense of
(11:45):
shame, I reinforce the strengthof the thoughts of shame and
when I do all these kinds ofthings, I further distance
myself from myself and fromothers and I heighten my felt
sense and need relief, sense andneed relief.
Which is why you know it's likehow this works with any
(12:10):
addiction.
And again, just to be clearabout addiction, we're all
addicts.
We're all addicts.
The Bible calls it idolatry.
We're all idolaters.
I have my thing that I'm goingto turn to.
Instead of turning to Jesus,instead of turning to other
people, I'm going to have mything that I can be in charge of
(12:31):
, and the very act of turningtoward it reinforces my
isolation, which reinforces myneed for the very thing that
I've turned to, which reinforcesmy need for the very thing that
I've turned to.
And so, until I get to thepoint where I've suffered enough
because of what my idol hasdone to me, it's really
(12:52):
difficult for me to eventuallyturn and say to you, drew, drew,
I need help, I need help fromyou.
And, as it turns out, you, drew,become the help.
Like you are the answer.
In that, in that, like you arethe image bearer of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit gets to methrough you, not through just an
idea, not through anabstraction, but through living,
(13:16):
breathing relationships throughwhich the Holy Spirit is living
and moving.
And, like you know, god's like.
God is so dang serious about usbeing his hands and feet, not
with pressure, not with likewell, you know, you're the light
of the world and so, like,don't screw it up, but like
you're the light of the world,like I can't wait for us
(13:40):
together to go into the world sothat the world can be healed,
so that we can find we can findthe people who are sick, which
is what your ministry is doingAmen.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
There is no contradiction between Jesus
healing shame and other peoplehealing our shame.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
No.
In fact, we would say, peoplewho are old enough, who remember
the phrase, just say no todrugs and we like to remind
people.
We like to remind people thatthe part of the brain that hears
the words just say no to drugs.
And we like to remind people.
We like to remind people thatthe part of the brain that hears
the words just say no to drugshas got nothing to do with the
part of the brain that likes todo the drugs.
And so it's really difficult tojust tell somebody you
shouldn't be ashamed, you don'tneed to be ashamed.
I first am only going tobelieve those, I'm only going to
(14:19):
, I'm going to come to thatconclusion that I am not ashamed
.
I can come to that conclusioncognitively only after I have
actually been able to name foryou, right here and now, what my
shame is.
And have you not leave the room?
And instead of looking at mewith what I expect to be a
(14:41):
facial expression of contempt,and instead I see love and
kindness, I see compassion, Isee curiosity, I see something
other.
I see something that the womanat the well, that the woman with
the bleeding problem saw, thatthey were not expecting to see
with Jesus, that Peter, when hesaid after Jesus fills his boat
(15:03):
up with fish and Peter says goaway from me, I cannot like
Peter was expecting to see.
Like, oh, you of little faith.
Like wait, like no.
Like he's like follow me, y'allcome, I'm going to make you,
I'm going to help you fish formen.
Like that's not anything,that's not what Peter's
expecting to hear or to see.
Like that's not anything,that's not what Peter's
(15:30):
expecting to hear or to see.
And Jesus then says in John 20,as the Father has sent me,
that's how I'm sending y'all.
Now.
You're going to do that throughvulnerability, because you know
it's in that same chapter wherehe's showing people his scars,
but it's in he breathed on themand received the Holy Spirit.
He says, like this is you know?
This is like the introductionto what's coming at Pentecost.
Yeah, like dude, like thiswhole oh gosh.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
The king man, the king is sending us out.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
With his kindness and love and acceptance.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, and he sends us .
And what's challenging, I think, is even you come to me because
I need you.
I don't even know that I needyou, but there you are and you
say so, how are you doing?
And I tell you, and you're likewow, that just sounds really
hard.
And before we know it, we're inthe middle of a conversation in
which I'm being transformed bythe presence of the Holy Spirit
in you and the next week and thenext week, and like, why is it?
(16:23):
Like it's like I'm still.
This thing is still bangingaround in my head and I can't.
And I think, like I thoughtthat we I thought we already had
talked about this last week andwe would just be resolved.
When we hear Paul's words.
It says, therefore, work outyour salvation.
With fear and trembling, likewe're going to work it out,
we're going to work this out,yeah, but jesus is the author
(16:43):
and the perfecter.
Like he, like he's working,like it is not like one and done
.
It's not like, oh, I graduatefrom high school and I no longer
have to get an education, I nolonger have to learn and and
part, and this is the thing welike to say.
You know.
Historians later on would sayabout, you know, world, world
War II, that the Axis powersknew.
(17:05):
They would say there was asense that the Axis powers knew
that if the Allies took Normandythe war would be effectively
over.
The war was not over yet andyou know it's an imperfect
metaphor, but we would say thisis what the incarnation of Jesus
(17:29):
has done.
He's come and the war is over.
Man, there's tons of resistancethat's keeping it from.
You know, we don't know howlong it's going to take.
And so we discover oh my gosh,this is.
You know, I tell people it'slike I'm.
Like David Wilcox has this songcalled the Rusty Little American
(17:52):
Dream.
It's about a, you know, 1950sCadillac that's sitting by the
side of the road.
It's rusty and this, and thathe wants somebody to come along
and take it.
Like Jesus has found me by theside of the road and he brought
me into his garage.
And like now I'm in his garageand this is great because
finally I'm out of the weather,I'm out of da-da-da-da.
But now, like he turns all thelights on and you're like crap,
(18:14):
like the fender, look at theengine, look to die, to die,
like all the things.
Like I, you know, it's nice tobe in, and but you look around
there, oh there are other carsin the garage too.
And jesus is like, yep, youbelong to me now.
And I'm like, but there's allthis work to be done.
Yeah, but this is why you're inthe garage, this is why you're
here.
I saved you.
Now we're gonna do go.
Now we're gonna go to work, andwhile we're, and while we're
(18:35):
doing work, and the very workthat we're doing, work, and the
very work that we're doingbecomes the occasion for you
also to be sent, as the Fathersent me On occasion.
You're going to drive your carand other people are going to
see it, and you're like y'all,come, come back to the garage.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's a beautiful invitation.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And so it takes practice over and over and over
and over and our work againstthe tyranny of evil as it tries
to use, shame as it iseffectively embedded in really
ancient neural networks for usthat are not just mine, but
they're generationally mine.
I was given this from myparents and my grandparents as
well, and so we're not justpushing against our own personal
(19:19):
stories, we're pushing againstthe stories of others that came
before us, that had their owntraumas that were never worked
out but that kind of like,through what we call epigenetic
changes, kind of pass this downthe line and we're pushing
against the earth.
It's a lot that we're pushingagainst, which is why we need
community to be doing this.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Let's talk about that , because I have heard really
wonderful things aboutconfessional communities.
What is that all about and howcan it help heal?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
shame.
You know, over the last 15years there emerged in our
practice a particular model forwhat started out many, many,
even many years before that, forwhat started out many, many,
even many years before that,what we would call group therapy
, but has in the last 15 yearsbecome much more an enterprise
(20:08):
and an initiative of spiritualformation, and we name it as
such and we talk about it beinga community of six to eight
people.
Now, in our practice it's um,it's guided by two therapists,
and we have a number of thesegroups that run uh, but outside
of the practice and in ournonprofit we have lay led
(20:30):
versions of this that people canenter into.
Um, but it is.
It is a group of six to eightpeople that gather together for
spiritual formation, and what welike to say is that the outer
border of the sphere is thisnotion of we're living within a
context of Christiananthropology.
What does it mean for us to behumans from the biblical
perspective?
What does that mean and that'simportant, because many of us
(20:52):
tend to think that the gospelstory begins in Genesis 3.
Like, the leading edge of thegospel is that we're sinners in
need of a savior, all of whichis true, but that's actually not
where the story starts.
The story starts two pagesbefore that.
Everything else that followsthose two pages is what went
wrong and what God's doing totry to correct that and not
trying what he is doing, whathe's done.
And so it's a Christiananthropoc, a way of
(21:14):
understanding what does it meanfor us to be human, that we were
created for joy and we weremade in God's image to create
beauty and goodness in the worldand to extend the borders of
Eden into the wilderness.
And that mission hasn't changed.
And the new heaven and earththat is coming is one that we
have to practice for, to getready to do that very thing.
So that's the first outersphere that's containing
(21:36):
everything.
Within this we talk about themechanics of interpersonal
neurobiology.
How does the mind work?
What does it mean to be athinking, feeling, sensing
creature, and not only that?
Within that is a third sphere,which is the dynamics of group
psychotherapy.
What happens in a community and, as we like to say to folks in
(21:56):
psychotherapy in general gosh, Idon't know what happens in
those offices, like I don't knowwhat's going on in there or
something it's some you know.
I don't know abracadabra, Idon't know what all y'all are
talking about in there, but it'scertainly not like real life,
it's not normal life to which Iwill tell people look,
everything that happens in apsychotherapy consultation room,
everything that happens in aconfessional community,
(22:16):
everything that happens in aconfessional community,
everything that happens there,is happening everywhere else in
the world.
The thing that sets it apart inpsychotherapy or in these
confessional communities, thething that sets it apart, is in
that space.
We are actually explicitlynaming the things that are
happening in the space.
That's so good.
Right, how many of us have gone?
You know we're in a meeting atwork or we're in like an elder
(22:40):
board gathering at church or asmall group gathering at church,
and we're there.
You know we're going to have aBible study and we're in the
middle of a Bible study with ourlike eight or ten people in our
room, that we're sitting there,we're talking about this and,
as we're having this thought,like somebody's thinking, like I
am so bored, but like who'sgoing to pause and say, excuse
me, like can I?
Just I'm really bored with whatwe're doing right now.
(23:00):
Like no, we don't.
We don't say that, but I will.
I will guarantee you that thatenergy, the thought, the felt
sense, the feeling, all thesekinds of things.
They are affecting what'shappening in the room, because
you can't avoid it, but becausewe don't name things that are
(23:23):
actually happening in the room.
We're in the elder boardmeeting, we're talking about a
budget right, that's what wethink that we're there to talk
about, until you know, stanstarts to sound irritated.
But nobody wants to say to StanStan, you sound irritated,
what's going on?
We never hear from Stan thatactually, as it turns out,
stan's got a kid who he doesn'tknow if he's going to survive
because of his addiction.
It's really bothering him.
Or Stan's marriage might bethis, or Stan might be irritated
(23:45):
at somebody else in the roomand Stan's not saying that
because we think we're there totalk about the budget, but
that's not what's happening inthe room.
The budget isn't the topic.
Stan is the topic, but it's notjust Stan, because Just stand,
because we're all involved.
This is the thing, this is thebeauty about.
When Jesus brings disciplestogether.
You put Peter and Matthew inthe same room.
These guys are, like Peter's,going to kill it.
(24:06):
This is one of the reasons whythe chosen is such a beautiful
thing.
They're just showing us howthese cats don't get along.
And Jesus seems to becompletely content with having
people in the room who are notgoing to get along.
And then we're going to say,like, what's actually happening
here in the room, the work isnot just him preaching the
(24:27):
Sermon on the Mount.
That's separate from what'sactually happening.
Like, what's happening in theroom is the Sermon on the Mount.
So in these confessionalcommunities we are committed not
just to talking about things inour lives.
We really.
Eventually, we help people todiscover that, like, our real
life is happening right here inthis room.
This is real life at itsmaximal.
(24:49):
No, we're not having sex withone another, even though there
are men and women in the room,but because there are men and
women in the room, sex is in theroom.
For example, and by this wedon't mean, right, people are
having sex.
But what we mean is that Idon't know that I'm a male if
I'm not in a room with women.
No, what does it mean?
Because when I'm in a room witha woman, she's playing some
(25:13):
role for me.
She's either my mom, my sister,the girlfriend who just broke
up with me, something'shappening with me in the room
that the Holy Spirit is movingto get at.
This?
Is spiritual formationhappening?
Because we're doing this withina context of being serious
about describing where is thetext, what just happened here in
the room and what we're finding, drew, is that not just for
(25:35):
people who come to our practicewith quote unquote diagnoses?
Right, I come out, I'm depressedand I'm anxious, I have an
addiction, I have a marriageproblem, I have OCD, I have
sexual trauma, I have all theall these things.
They're all real, very real,but one of the things that they
have in common is that they haveshattered my capacity to allow
(26:02):
myself to be loved, and my shameis in the thick of it all.
And what we're inviting peopleto do is to come into this space
to do the work, not primarilyof learning things, which you
will not.
Primarily of learning how tobehave differently, which you
will not.
Primarily of learning how tobehave differently, which you
will, but mostly as a way, andyou will do the first two things
(26:24):
eventually as a function ofallowing yourself to be seen
soothed, safe, secure, allowingyourself to be loved.
It is the single most difficultthing that we humans have to do,
that we're not very good atletting ourselves be loved,
because we love love until loveshows up, and then it starts to
feel dangerous.
(26:45):
Because love shows up withdemands.
Love your neighbor, pray foryour enemy.
Allow me to see the part of youthat you hate the most.
Become a person of patience.
Become a person of simplicity.
I am very ill-practiced at allof these things, but this is its
demands.
If you want your old, rustyCadillac to come to my garage
(27:08):
like you're going to be out ofthat bad weather and we're going
to go to work on it, you don'tjust get to come in and like
live how you please.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
And we're not going to work on the Cadillac because
it's bad, but precisely becauseit's good.
Dude, dude, right, right on.
So what happens when men andwomen in the same group start
talking about their shame andtheir sexuality?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
There was one woman who, unannounced, in one of our
groups this is a group of aboutfour women and four men that are
in this group and I and mycolleague Courtney, we're the
two folks that are running thisgroup and one woman says to
another guy I just want to letyou know, I'm just really aware
(27:52):
of how attracted to you I am.
Now, both parties are marriedto people who are, of course,
not in this group.
Both parties are married andthe guy, uh, as uh I had been
helping him get ready to comeand join this group had said to
me like kurt, here's the onething I'm worried about.
(28:13):
I'm worried that I'm going tohave like some experience with a
woman in which I'm going tofeel attracted to her.
She's going to feel attractedto me and, like I don't know I
can, I don't know if that'sgoing to be okay.
I'm like, well, what are youworried would happen?
We start to talk about this, ofcourse, because this is what
happens to us.
We have all these worries andwe then stop with just because
I'm worried.
I'm not going to do that.
I don't pause to explore, like,well, what's that really about?
(28:35):
Like this is what happens,right when we look at porn
because we're not actually beingcurious enough about what is
really going on here.
We're not being too curious,which is why I want to look at,
you know, engage with that kindof material.
I'm not being curious enough.
And so she makes thisannouncement to this guy and you
(28:59):
could just feel the oxygen justget sucked out of the room
Because, like everybody else islike, did she actually just say
that to him, right?
Did she really just say?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
that to him, and this is the kind of thing that keeps
a lot of us in men's onlygroups.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Exactly, and so we never get the opportunity to
actually pay attention to what'sactually happening in the room.
And he, of course you see himturn 30 shades of red when he
hears this and Courtney and Iare like so what do you mean?
Tell him when you say thatyou're attracted to him?
Say more.
And so he starts to name.
(29:37):
I've just been really gratefulfor how well you've listened to
me.
I've been grateful for howprotective you have expressed
that you felt toward me whenI've named some of the things
about my experience with myfamily of origin and even in my
marriage.
I've really appreciated yourkindness.
I've appreciated how you'vetalked to other women here in
the group and you're really nothard to look at.
(30:00):
And what's the story?
What do you want from him?
We ask what do you want fromhim?
Right, because now you'regetting closer, closer to the
edge.
Like do you?
Do you do you want to like?
Are you having thoughts of likein that way?
Like is it?
Is it about having sex?
Is this where you're like?
Actually, what I really want isI want more of that felt sense
of being loved, and in fact itreally just makes me really
(30:24):
aware of how much more I wantthat in my marriage and what I'm
not getting in my marriage.
Now we turn to him and ofcourse you know you can feel the
sweat pouring off of everybodyin the room, right, but you can
also you also sense that littleby little, the immediacy of the
(30:45):
anxiety that everybody wasfeeling in the room starts to
gradually decline Because we'regetting behind the curtain about
what this is about.
And we turn to him what is itlike for you to hear this, when
he starts to say it feels reallyflattering and I'm really
grateful for this, and what doesthat bring her for you?
(31:05):
Well, I'd love to hear more ofthat from my own wife.
And there are other things thathe goes on to say.
But as we name the things thatare happening in the room, we
discover that there's so muchabout the attraction that comes
together with these two peoplethat isn't ultimately really
about each of them asindividuals.
It's her with her marriage andher story, and him with his
(31:29):
marriage and his story, and soforth and so on.
And so then we ask the questionwhat do we want to do about
this?
What are other people feeling?
Now?
This is where things become, Ithink, really powerful in that,
as other people start tocontribute to this, we recognize
that these two people are notjust having a kind of private
(31:51):
moment in public.
This is not just about them.
C is actually a spokesperson fora number of women in that room,
and not just about toward thisparticular guy.
C is a spokesperson for a lotof women, for the other three
women who have great longing andgreat desire to be seen by men
in general, not like their dads,their husbands.
(32:14):
Right, it's not just I want tohave sex with this person.
No, and for him he's alsospeaking for like, yeah, I long
to have a felt sense ofexperience and relationship with
women in which I can feelreally deeply connected to them
and nobody's going to getexploited.
This might've been the kind ofconversation that Adam and Eve
(32:35):
might have had with God, hadAdam been willing to say look, I
just like I know I've screwedup, could you please help Eve
and me work this out?
Adam never gives God thatconversation opportunity, but
this is what's happening here,and so then what else happens?
One other woman says like gosh,here's something that's just
happened to me.
She says like I thought, okay,I had already come to the
(32:57):
conclusion that my marriage iswhat it is.
There's nothing I can do aboutit.
I'm just going to have to learnto live with this.
This is a woman who's beenmarried for 35 years.
This is a woman who's likeshe's going to be you know
another 20 years, that she wantit to be.
I'm just going to have to letit rest.
And even now, like what youjust kind of upset the apple
cart because what I'm going tohave to do is go home and tell
him I'm not happy with where weare.
(33:18):
I want more from our marriage,because these two people are
actually having the conversationthat she wants to have but is
too afraid to have it, and soforth and so on.
And here's the thing that wethen say, drew, like this is the
point, this is the point.
We have this conversation inthis group and then we're able
to say look, the work of theHoly Spirit right now in this
(33:43):
room is trying to form each ofus into the image of Jesus
through the medium of how we areto be God's image bearers.
And we are his image bearers asmale and female.
And I'm not going to be able tobear his image effectively if
I'm not working out myunfinished business with the
other half of the populationthat I invariably have and the
way that I cope with all mydistresses about that.
I look at porn.
Instead of actually having theconversation as we say like,
(34:05):
look, this stuff is happening inthis group, it's happening in
the pews in every church everySunday.
Sunday.
Imagine what it would be likeif you know, during confession,
some dude stands up and sayspoints to some woman across like
I'm really attracted to her.
Can I just say that I was like,excuse me, like this.
(34:28):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, it brings up concerns about safety, of course
.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
But, but.
But this is the thing.
When it comes to driving cars,we can ultimately be safe by
just we just never drive them.
We just never drive them.
But instead we say, oh, hereare some things that happen in
cars.
We need to put safety belts on.
That's going to be a good ideafor us and we're going to ensure
(34:53):
that, like we all have In fact,like if you get pulled over in
your safety belt.
In other words, we're going tobuild things into the system to
say we really want to maximally,we want you to be able to
maximally drive your car witheffort and with efficacy, and so
we're going to put safety beltsin.
That's a way to be safe in acar.
(35:13):
Of course, the ultimate way islike you just never get in one.
And so we have guidelines inthese, in these confessional
communities, like in terms ofthe kind of contact that people
have outside the room, so forth,but like, as you know, look,
god gave adam and eve oneguideline.
It didn't have, like theydidn't have like a whole tax
(35:34):
code on guidelines One fruit,you may not eat One.
I mean, it's not complicated,it's very simple.
It might be really difficult,it might be different, but it's
not difficult because it'scomplicated, and so God gives us
guidelines and we can breakthem if we want to.
You can have the affair with awoman in the church and you can
(35:55):
think that, like gosh, as longas I just keep to all my men and
all my women over my women overhere, my men over here, um,
like that's.
That's like okay, that's goingto keep me from doing things
that I shouldn't be doing.
It's like if I don't drive acar, then I will never be in an
accident.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, and we have a lot of men in groups who find
themselves sometimes attractedto someone else in the group.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Sure Right.
This is why I said earlier,like sex makes me nervous.
But I think I would say, like,I don't think I'm nervous
because I'm silly or stupid orjust immature.
I think I'm nervous because I'ma human.
Why is it that, uh, as myfriend Bart many, many years ago
, why is it that we, that Goddesigned us in such a way, like,
(36:36):
why can't we just have kids bysaying, like, I'm just going to
like, touch our pinkies togetherand that's how it'll happen?
Like, why does the procreationof other humans involve
something that is so deeplyvulnerable physiologically and
that is deeply connected,vulnerably, to my psyche, to my
(36:59):
soul's emotional development?
I think there's somethingbeautifully mysterious and
intentional, of course, aboutthis, and so of course, we want
to have guidelines, we want tobe wise about this.
But the fact that I'm like I gotgenerations right back to Adam
and Eve, of trauma and becausemy parents and the way that they
(37:23):
delivered it to me like it waspretty imperfect, and so, like
I'm left, like I don't know whatthe heck I'm doing and I'm
nervous as all get out aboutthese kinds of things, and so,
even when it comes to like, likewe would say, look, yes, if I'm
a male and I have attraction toother male or other women, like
it doesn't matter, like I'm.
When I say it doesn't matter, Idon't mean that they don't have
our particular things that wehave to pay attention to.
(37:45):
I'm simply saying that, likeevery single one of us is going
to be a person for whom evilwill target and want to use
shame, in particular in thisdomain of our life, because
shame, so historically, isentangled with it.
(38:07):
Right, my felt sense of theparts of me that are the most
vulnerable A man and his wifewere naked sense of the parts of
me that are the most vulnerable.
A man and his wife were naked,vulnerable and unashamed.
But shame entangles itself inthe most vulnerable places, like
our sexuality Exactly, and somy sexuality makes me nervous
(38:36):
because I'm afraid of where theshame is going to find me.
And so, as we like to say, myshame is not healed, drew,
because you tell me Kurt don'tbe ashamed.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
My shame is healed by my revealing my shame in your
presence and you not leaving theroom and discovering that the
things we don't like aboutourselves don't disqualify us
from being loved.
We can be accepted, connectedanyway.
That's right.
And it starts to sink in alittle deeper and a little
deeper in communities where wecan actually talk about it,
(39:12):
that's right.
In communities where we canactually talk about it, that's
right.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
So, in contrast to the story of shame, what is the
story that Jesus tells us?
Because the Father has sent me,so I send you.
One of the early encountersthat we have between Jesus and
his father, especially in Luke'sversion, is the father saying
through the spirit You're my son, I can't believe that I get to
(39:45):
be your father, I'm just sopleased with you.
Isn't the story a joy?
And Jesus wants to come andfind us and say oh my gosh, I'm
so glad you're here.
And that, of course, issomething that we don't often
(40:05):
hear from anyone, let alone hearit repeated to us over and over
, hear it repeated to us overand over, let alone hear it said
to us in the very moment whenwe are most aware of our own
shame and to see it shown to usby action and presence and
(40:33):
embodiment by action.
And presence and embodiment.
That's right.
It was the fall of 2019, and Iwas helping.
I was one of a number ofhelpers for a men's retreat in
Colorado and the leader of thatgroup, michael Cusick.
There was a moment in which, inthe course of the weekend, I
was just aware of some of my own.
I'm one of the leaders, I'm oneof my own.
(40:53):
So my own story is like cominginto the room, I remember
finding myself in this place ofgreat vulnerability and a felt
sense of just being overwhelmedwith myself.
I will remember this until I,like, can not remember anything.
Uh, at one point in the courseof just talking about these
things, naming these things, uh,michael embraced and I, you
(41:18):
know, like, you have an embraceand like, and I'm a hugger and
so, like, I know how to embracepeople and dude, like, that
embrace probably lasted for 75,90 seconds, dude, that's a long
time.
And like I, I like, I feel itin my chest and my back to this
day, this felt sense of hisembrace, his hospitality, his
(41:42):
welcoming me in, and this iswhat we're talking about.
We like to say that the brainoperates bottom to top and right
to left.
First we sense and then we makesense of what we sense.
So somebody can tell me right,you don't need to be afraid, you
don't need to be ashamed, as ifgiving that information is
(42:06):
going to be enough.
It's not unhelpful, it's notunimportant to have words, it's
just that that's not how mybrain operates.
So if I'm not feeling it in mychest, it's not yet going to
take root and germinate and bearfruit the felt sense that I am
(42:26):
loved, right.
So first we sense, then we makesense of what we sense, and
this is child development.
I became a grandfather for thefirst time about three months
ago and little Simon we arewatching him emerge.
It's just unbelievable.
And you see things as agrandparent that you didn't,
(42:48):
because you're too busy tryingnot to screw it up.
As a parent, you're not able tosee things like you see them as
a grandparent, and I'm watchingour daughter and our son-in-law
literally continue to bringthis child into the screw it up.
As a parent, you're not able tosee things like you see them as
a grandparent, and I'm watchingour daughter and our son-in-law
literally continue to like,bring this child into the world.
It's just such a beautifulthing.
All that Simon knows is whathe's sensing right now Like he's
not making sense of things.
He's not, we don't.
We don't say, oh, I love, welove you.
(43:09):
And like he's like thanks,right, no, no, he has to sense
things.
And that Jesus said look, ifyou don't change and become like
little children, heaven is notgoing to work for you.
And so that means littlechildren live as if.
But this means like oh, I haveto be receptive to sensing it,
(43:30):
sensing loving kindness.
And this takes practice,because I'm pushing against a
lot of a neural payload of shamethat does not want to go
quietly into the night.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yes, and it's also a risk.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Totally.
And there is the part of methat will feel ashamed for still
feeling ashamed, right.
And so we have to name that andsay, okay, we and we're not
going to shame the part of methat feels ashamed, we're not
shamed.
It takes work, it takespractice, it takes our resolve
to do this, not unlike Jesus andthe woman with the bleeding
(44:04):
problem in Mark 5, right, hesays right.
Who touched me?
She thought like she had a planfor healing.
It's just one thing I need.
I just need a one thing, onething, one time.
And we're going to do it likecommando.
I'm going to get in, get thejob done, get out.
Nobody gets, nobody's seen,nobody gets hurt.
And then he says stop and allthe wheels come off of her plan
(44:24):
and he's not moving.
And this is a problem becausethere is an urgent need for him
to get to the priest's house toheal the daughter and
everybody's like we're on themove.
Who touched me?
And nobody's thinking aboutsome woman and she's like this
is not, this isn't right and andbut like so he's not moving.
How many of us?
(44:45):
Jesus finds us and we have aplan, we, we, we have an idea
for Jesus about how, about howhe needs to heal us.
Patients come to me.
They have plans for me for howI'm going to, like you know,
treat them.
And he's like no, we're notleaving, we're not moving.
And everybody's like, confused,and she like, and then the text
(45:08):
reads it's so good.
With fear and trembling, hefell at his feet and here's the
kicker and told him everythingabout herself.
Wow, she tells her storyBecause that is the thing that
she most needed healing from.
(45:29):
This is a woman who, because ofher problem, does not have a
family, husband, children,community.
She's out and he's sensing whatshe isn't yet thinking about or
aware of.
We all, like all the extrastuff that she's going to have
to continue to work on.
How many people are going tosay, oh, you're that woman with
a bleeding problem, but she'sgoing to need to have somebody
(45:49):
else say oh, no, no, not, no, no, by the way, her name is Sarah,
she's not the woman with thebleeding problem and she belongs
to us.
Sarah's going to need otherpeople to help her do this
because of all the shame thatshe's had to carry.
I think of how long it wouldhave taken Matthew, the tax
collector, to get used to beingin this company.
(46:11):
Jesus followers, jesus is notworried about how long this is
going to take.
He's not worried about it, itjust keeps coming.
It just keeps coming.
We're in the garage.
It just keeps coming back.
(46:31):
Today we're going to work onthe carburetor.
Raj, this keeps coming back.
Today we're going to work onthe carburetor.
Oh, but you don't want to lookat that.
Could we not look at that?
I think you're ready for it.
I think you're.
(46:53):
Yeah, let's open the hood.
And so it helps when we haveother people around who are
putting flesh and bones on this,that Michael Cusick and my
friend Terry Wardle and myspiritual director Ann Howley,
when they're putting bone andblood, bring it into the room.
The parts of us that need thedoctor can be found by him or
(47:17):
her.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
And he's not going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
No, nope, not moving.
Who touched me?
She's like crap.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
And then he calls her daughter yeah, just like he
calls her daughter yeah.
Just like he calls us sonsRight on.
Kurt, thank you so much forbeing with us.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
You're welcome, guys.
You can go down to the shownotes.
If you want to learn more aboutKurt, get a copy of his books
like the soul of shame, althoughhe's got many others and if you
want to learn more aboutconfessional communities, I
encourage you to explore thatand I want everyone to know that
the thing I say at the end ofthis episode is partly inspired
by Kurt, but it really comesstraight from the heart of God,
(48:09):
of our sexuality and our shame.
He never stops saying you aremy beloved son.
In you I am well pleased.
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