Ep. 275 Adam Young - Make Sense of Your Story - Shifting Culture

Episode Transcript
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Adam Young (00:00):
The goal is freedom.

(00:00):
Why freedom? Because when youare free from the places you are

(00:05):
stuck and bound, then you areable to fully experience your
calling, which is you be, canbecome who you are, and you can
begin to do the work that youwere put here to do. And by
work, I don't just meanvocational work. I mean you can
participate in the corner of thekingdom of God that has your

(00:28):
name on it, because you are freeto be fully you

Joshua Johnson (00:40):
Joshua, hello and welcome to the shifting
culture podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, today we
dive into the power of reckoningwith our own personal stories,

(01:03):
the formative experiences andwounds from our past that shape
who we are today, often in wayswe don't fully understand. My
guest Adam Young has spent yearshelping people make sense of
their stories, to find freedomand wholeness as Adam shares the
truth is, our past isn't justthe past, it is deeply woven
into our present, the feelings,fears and patterns we carry from

(01:24):
childhood can profoundly impactour relationships, our mental
health, even our sense ofcalling. But the good news is,
our brains have an incrediblecapacity for change and
integration. Through curiosity,kindness and the support of
others, we can begin to uncoverthe hidden narratives that have
been subtly steering the courseof our lives, and in doing so,

(01:45):
we open the door to a deeper,truer vision of ourselves, one
that could finally step into theunique purpose we were made for.
This is a conversation about thetransformative power of
reckoning with our stories, nomatter how messy or painful they
may be. It's about finding thecourage to face our past so that
we can step more fully into ourfuture. So join us as we make

(02:09):
sense of our stories. Here is myconversation with Adam Young.
Adam, welcome to shiftingculture. Excited to have you on
thanks for joining me.

Unknown (02:18):
Thank you for the invitation. I'm happy to be
here. I'm

excited to get into our stories, our collective
stories, our individual stories,and how to make sense of our
stories so that we could seesome health in our life, that we
could see some peace and someShalom. I would love to hear a
little bit of your story and howyou got to the point of
realizing that once you startedto make sense of your story of

(02:44):
origin, your family history,that it helps your own life. It
helped your own story, it helpedyour mental health. As you
walked forward,

Unknown (02:54):
when I was 35 years old, I didn't know that I had a
story. If you would ask me, youknow, what's your story? I would
have probably told you a littlebit about my growing up years,
but I had not linked my presentwhat I would say is symptoms,
the symptoms I was having,anxiety, depression, problems

(03:14):
with relationships, problemswith God, I would not have
linked any of my presentexperience to my past story in
my family of origin, it justwasn't a connection that I had
made. What started that processfor me was I read a book called
The wounded heart by DanAllender, and that book
suggested that our past isinforming our present. And that

(03:41):
was the beginning for me ofrealizing that, hey, I have a
story in my family of origin,zero to 18, like I had
experiences growing up in myparticular family, and those
experiences have profoundlyshaped the brain that is now in
my skull, that is what'sfiltering all of my present day

(04:05):
to day experiences. Yeah,

and so then what happened? Like you were feeling
depression, anxiety, you haddisordered relationships with
yourself, with others, with God.
Once you started to to linkthose things together, what
started to happen in you and inyour body?

Unknown (04:23):
Yes, in my body, that's a great question to begin with,
I started feeling unfeltfeelings. In other words, I
started feeling feelings that mybody housed, but that I did not
previously have access to. Whydidn't I have access to them?
Because I had not linked any ofmy present experiences to my

(04:47):
past story. Once I started toexplore some of the stories of
my growing up years, you know,some of those stories were
filled with heartache, tragedy,abuse and so as. I began to
enter those stories with anotherperson listening and caring for
me. I started feeling feelingslike sorrow, like anger, like

(05:11):
grief, but like fear. I startedfeeling a lot of feelings that
my body had held but that Ididn't have access to
previously. So

do you see, do you find that common with
people? Do they feel they don'tknow how to feel feelings? They
don't know what they're feeling?
Absolutely

Unknown (05:30):
super common. And it's common for a couple of reasons.
Number one, some people don'thave access to their feelings
simply because their brain hasdisconnected the portions of
their brain that feel feelings,that feels sensations, such as
our anterior insula, that's thepart of the brain that feels our

(05:53):
bodily sensations. Well, in lotsof people, that's disconnected,
they're not connected to thatportion of their brain, and for
very good reasons, there wasnever a safe environment to feel
those feelings when they were1215, 18 years old, and so they
had to disconnect from fromthose feelings. And that that

(06:15):
was certainly the case for me.

So if I'm feeling depressed or anxious or
all sorts of different emotionsthat I think is going to be
disordered, and it hinders myrelationships with others,
myself, with God and the world.
Why is it that reckoning withyour story, making sense of your
story of origin? Why is story soimpactful? Why does that the
thing that actually helps usmove forward to a healthier

(06:39):
place? Yes,

Unknown (06:43):
that's a fabulous question, because it's the truth
that sets us free, but veryoften, the truth of the past of
our lives torments us first,which is why we've been avoiding
it. It can be very hard tograpple with some of the
heartaches, tragedies, traumas,abuses that you felt and

(07:06):
experienced as a seven year oldboy or girl like that. That
stuff is very tender. It's veryraw, and it's very powerful
inside of us, and many of us,understandably, this is not an
accusation. Many of usunderstandably have distanced
ourselves from some of the corestories of our growing up years

(07:29):
because they're simply toopainful to bear, at least in our
20s, in our 30s, 30s, sometimesinto our 40s. It's not a
function of age, it's a functionof Do you have support? Do you
have care? Do you have mentors?
Do you have what Francis Wellerin his book, The Wild edge of

(07:49):
sorrow, calls the village thatis elders, men and women who
have grappled with their ownstories and can guide you in the
process of grappling with yours.

I think what you just said there is really key
and important. And I think a lotof people that if they're
listening to this, or havelistened to to other things
about grappling with theirstory, that they I could start
to do it on my own. Yeah, what?
What is an empathetic listener,somebody that could guide us
through. How do they help uswalk us through these things?

Unknown (08:25):
Yeah, this is not something that can be done only
by yourself. I think many peoplehave the assumption that if I
have a cup of coffee, a journal,my Bible and a good view out the
window in my favorite chair, Ican heal and you can experience

(08:46):
significant healing between youand God. However, in my
experience, the way God shows upmost often for me is through the
body of Christ, ie other humanbeings, what you referred to as
an empathetic listener. Why isthat so healing? Because you

(09:08):
have a right hemisphere in yourbrain. I have a right hemisphere
in my brain, and I am created inthe image of a we, and not an I,
a Trinitarian God, which meansthat I'm wired for connection. I
need connection with you, notjust because my nervous system

(09:29):
needs regulation, but I need tohear you tell me what you hear
in my story, because I'm tooclose to my own story to read it
well. I need your perspective onmy story. I need to know when I
share a story with you where youfeel fear, where you feel anger

(09:50):
on behalf of that boy, where youare confused, where you are in
awe of that boy. I need to hearyour experience of my. Story to
make sense of my story that's

so good and so helpful, I think, as we're
trying to restore Shalom in ourbodies and our our minds and our
holistic relationships, tellingour story, sometimes people
think that if I just give you abrief overview of what my story
was, that there it is, there'smy story, there's the 30,000

(10:26):
foot view you talk in your bookabout telling individual scenes
of your story are crucial andimportant. So why is it you want
to hear the scenes of things andnot just the broad overview of
your story. Yeah,

Unknown (10:43):
great question. The scenes are where the implicit
memory lies? What is implicitmemory? Implicit memory is our
felt sense in our bodies of whatactually happened. And so if I
tell you, for example, that Igrew up in a house. My parents

(11:03):
got divorced. My parents didn'tbut for example, my parents got
divorced when I was seven. Youknow, I went to this school.
This happened to me. I gotmarried at this age. If I tell
you a 30,000 foot overview of mystory, I am remaining
emotionally distant from the boyor girl in the story. But if I

(11:26):
tell you that at my 10thbirthday party, my dad came home
drunk and I was humiliated infront of all of my friends, even
just that little bit that I justshared with you, you can feel
the difference in your body, youget closer to that 10 year old
boy by telling the details ofthe particular scenes on the

(11:50):
ground level. And for healing inthe brain to occur, we have to
get connected to theparticularity of the stories.
That's what makes neuronsreconnect with one another in a
healthy way. The neurobiologistscall that integration. The
Hebrew Bible calls it Shalom.
It's getting at the same thing.

So, can you speak? What is that? How does it
do that? How does it integrate?
How does it bring us, you know,wholeness, yes, yeah. So

Unknown (12:20):
when we have an experience as a boy or a girl
that overwhelms our ability tocope, we call that trauma, and
the essence of trauma is reallytwo things. It's powerlessness
and it's abandonment bypotentially protective
caregivers. In other words,you're alone when you are

(12:41):
overwhelmed by powerlessness,and by powerlessness, I mean you
can't use your voice or moveyour body in such a way to make
the bad things stop happening.
So when you have powerlessnessand you're alone in the midst of
it, you don't have caregiversthere intervening on your
behalf, your brain becomesoverwhelmed by that experience.

(13:05):
And what that meansneurobiologically, is that the
is that the neurons thatrepresent the feelings of that
story become disconnected fromthe thoughts, become
disconnected from the bodilysensations, become disconnected
from the autobiographicalmemory, and we call that
fragmentation, all right, Shalomis the opposite of that. Shalom

(13:30):
is integration. It's when theright hemisphere of my brain
connects to the left hemisphereof my brain via a portion card
called the corpus callosum. Butin trauma, those neural networks
get separated from one another,fragmented from one another,
which is why we often experiencewhat we consider overreactions

(13:54):
in the present, right? So youknow your wife might look at you
with a particular facialexpression or use a tone of
voice, and all of a suddenyou're reacting at a level eight
or nine when her tone was maybea two or three. Now why is that?
It's because implicit memoriesfrom your growing up years are

(14:17):
being activated so you feel whatyou think of is an overreaction,
but it's actually not.

When I was growing up, when I was three, I
remember, this is one of myfirst memories. Is I remember
drawing a sign with my dad, bigold sign, and welcoming my
sister home from the hospital.
Yes, and my sister comes home,and she was a colicky baby, and
she was someone that needed alot of attention. She was really
loud, and I felt I feltdismissed and alone, and I often

(14:52):
think that nobody did anythingto me. Yeah, but this is what I
felt, and so I've dismissed thatfor a long time in my life,
until maybe 10 years ago, when Iwas like, oh, what I was feeling
there. I've been trying tocompensate for that for so long
in my life. But why do peoplethen dismiss their wounds? I

(15:16):
think I did because I didn'tthink anything, anybody did
anything intentionally to me. Itwas just something that I
experienced and I felt a certainway, and then my whole life,
I've been trying to compensatefor it.

Unknown (15:34):
Yes, well, there's a difference between
intentionality and impact thatthree year old boy experienced
something that had a big impacton his heart, his body, his way
of understanding himself. Why dowe dismiss these stories?

(15:55):
Jeremiah, six and eight. It'sone of my favorite passages.
It's repeated in both chaptersand what, what God says is he
indicts the leadership ofIsrael. Why? Because God says
they dress the wounds of mypeople as though they were not
serious. Peace, peace, they say,when there is no peace. Sadly,

(16:17):
many of us do that with our ownwounds. We dress them as though
they're not a big deal. We saythat happened 30 years ago. It
shouldn't be affecting me anylonger. Or we say, you know, I
was three years old. How canthat possibly be affecting me as
a 45 year old man? Well, you aredismissing what your body is

(16:41):
inviting you to contend with andto welcome. And when I say
welcome, I mean to set a placeat your table for a guest that's
coming for dinner. What if youdid that for some of these
memories? What if you set aplace of hospitality for that

(17:01):
memory you had, making that signas a three year old boy,
welcoming home your sister, andthen the subsequent months of
your life where you felt eitherignored, Abandoned,
deprioritized, whatever youfelt, in my opinion, those

(17:21):
feelings matter deeply to God,and they need to matter to us.
Why? Because they are verypowerful in our brains.

They're extremely powerful. And I could
see where things went awry in mylife because of that and because
of the power of those feelings.
And so I think one of the thingsthat that you have said, I mean,
if we're reckoning with ourfamily of origin or growing up,
we're gonna reckon with memoriesof mistakes our parents made, of
things of of abandonment. Ihave, personally, I have a

(17:55):
fantastic growing up, like myparents were, incredible, but
there are always a few memoriesthat were like, hey, this
actually impacted me and myfeelings and where I was going,
and it set me on a trajectorywhich I needed to reorient,
because I needed to reckon withmy story. How do we reckon with
the past of our parents? Whatthey have done, the wounds that

(18:21):
they have may be inflicted uponus, and how do we honor our
parents at the same time? Yes,how do we say we are honest
about what has happened, but wealso like, hey, they're my
parents. I love my parents. Sohow do we do that work?

Unknown (18:39):
Yeah, it's a great question. Two thoughts
immediately come to mind. Thefirst is, we have to take the
Sermon on the Mount seriously.
In other words, according toJesus, your parents are sinners.
That doesn't make them wickedpeople. It makes them human like
you. But according to Jesus inthe Sermon on the Mount, your

(19:02):
parents lust and your parentshave contempt, murder, adultery,
murder. That's what Jesus laysout in Matthew five. And so have
how and by lust, he's not justtalking about sexual
consumption, but it's this senseof an inordinate desire to
consume. And so can you putwords to the way you were

(19:24):
consumed by your mother andfather? And likewise, can you
put words to the way yousuffered their contempt, what he
calls murder? And if you can'tthen the question is, what are
you refusing to look at witheyes wide open, to honor your

(19:47):
father and mother is to have acommitment to truthfulness and
light. It is. Dishonoring if myI have a 16 year old daughter, I
have a 13 year old son, if theydo not feel the freedom to tell
me how they are experiencing meas a father, then they are not

(20:12):
honoring me. But it's not theirfault. There's something in the
home that is making them feelunsafe to tell me the truth, and
sadly, many, many people do notfeel the freedom to sit their
mother down, to sit their fatherdown, to have a dinner and to

(20:33):
simply say this sentence. CouldI talk to you about some of the
ways I felt harmed by you as aboy or a girl. But to ask that
question, and it's aninvitation, is deeply honoring.
Why? Because it comes from aplace in their gut that wants
more relational connection andintimacy with their parents.

(20:58):
Another word for that isreconciliation and redemption.
They want more goodness,honesty, authenticity with mom
and dad. That's a holy desire,and it's an honoring desire

that's fantastic to enter into, wanting more into
intimacy, wanting moreconnection with your parents,
knowing that there have beenbeen wounds, and I know as a
father, I'm sure as you, as you,as a father as well, we, we're
I'm trying the best that I can,but I know that there's going to
be times when I am doing this toMy own son, I am, I'm going to

(21:42):
be wounding him in places. Andso for me, I could do two things
as a parent. One, I could betotally paralyzed and not want
to make a mistake that Iactually don't engage
relationally with my son, and Itry to keep him all nice and
safe, and he doesn't live a lifethan growing up or or two that I

(22:05):
just run all over him like Icould just be myself, run all
over him and do some things. Howdo we have a healthy
relationship with as parents?
Yeah, to our kids growing up sothat they can maybe even
recognize reckon with her storysooner than their mid

Unknown (22:23):
30s. Yeah, 40. Well, the most important attribute of
a parent child relationship isthe willingness to repair
ruptures. Ruptures areinevitable relationally. Why?
Because we live in a fallen,broken world, and so there are

(22:44):
often, I mean, parenting can berightly characterized as
Adventures in misattunement andfailure. The question is not, am
I failing my son and mydaughter? The question is, am I
willing to repair the harm thatI have done, and what do I mean

(23:05):
by repair? My son's name is Eli.
Eli, tell me what that was likefor you when I lost my temper,
and then it's an owning of theharm that I did, an
acknowledging of the impact thathad on his heart and his body.
And then a Eli, it hurts me thatI hurt you. And when he sees

(23:27):
that on my face, portions of hisright hemisphere in his brain re
wire in a healthy way, andthat's called repair, he feels
validated. He feels like I haveowned and acknowledged the ways
I've heard him. And he has hopein that experience, that

(23:49):
exchange of repair, he has hopebegin to be built into his brain
that when relationships rupture,they will soon be repaired. And
what we call that in our fieldis secure attachment, and that's
a really big deal when youbecome an adult.

So yes, I want to talk about attachment in a
little bit, but first I want tolike, how do we then if, if that
is the case, and secureattachment, if we have grown up
with insecure attachment, andwe're into a space as an adult,
and we don't get that repairfrom the person that has

(24:33):
ruptured the relationship, butwe're reckoning with our story,
how Can we repair what wasruptured? If it's not face to
face with the person thatruptured that relationship, how
do we reckon with our story andstart to repair in a different
way, with with other people?
Yes,

Unknown (24:55):
well number one, there has to be an honest naming of.
Harm that you experienced from aparent who is now deceased, and
by an honest naming, I mean withyourself, it is very hard,
especially when a parent isgone, to begin to put language
to some of the ways that theyfailed us. In fact, in my

(25:19):
experience, most Christians aremuch more apt to spend time and
reflection on the ways they havefailed, unharmed and sinned
against others than they are aptto spend any time reflecting on
writing down, grappling with theways they were failed by mom and

(25:43):
dad, particularly if mom and dadare deceased. So the first step
is there has to be an honestnaming of the ways your heart
was wounded by your parents.
Doesn't make them bad people, itmakes them human people who were
sinners and who therefore harmedyou. Number two, forgiveness.
And forgiveness is a process.

(26:07):
It's not a one time event. Youcannot forgive what has not been
named truthfully. So there's nosuch thing as I forgive my dad
that's meaningless because it'sso abstract. I can forgive my
dad for coming home drunk at my10th birthday party, but I can't

(26:28):
forgive my dad carte Blanc. Ijust That's meaningless. So
there has to be a naming, therehas to be forgiveness, and then
there has to be attending to theboy or girl that was harmed. So
you have a relationship withthat three year old. Part of
you, for example, that that veryyoung boy three is super young.

(26:52):
You have a relationship withthat boy who made that sign. And
you can tend to and welcome andlisten to the heart cry of that
boy that is very reparative forthe brain, but you're not able

(27:13):
to repair relationally with adeceased parent because they're
no longer here for conversation

and and I assume the same goes for people who
don't want a repair

Unknown (27:26):
of relationship. What do you mean by

like, if I just say that, you know, people are
still alive, but they're like,Yes, I don't want to to have
this relationship repaired. Justgo live your life. I'll live
mine. And we need to keepseparate.

Unknown (27:41):
Yes, but I just want to say there is immense grief in
that because you are, as Paulwrites in Corinthians, you have
your heart open to your motheror father and their heart is
closed to you. There is griefupon grief in that and at some

(28:04):
level, it's easier when they'redeceased, because the
opportunity is gone.

So I want to talk about attachment, then,
especially for people that hasexperienced the three different
forms of insecure attachment andgrowing up, and then is there a
possibility to move into secureattachment so that we can
actually have healthyrelationships in our life and

(28:32):
that we don't we're not tryingto avoid or be distant, but we
could actually engage healthily.
How do we move towards secureattachment,

Unknown (28:41):
absolutely. First of all, yes, you can move from an
insecure to a secure attachment.
Why? Because of what theresurrection of Jesus Christ
means in neurobiological terms,is that neurons can rewire. The
brain can change. 40 years ago,we thought the brain could not
change. We didn't know aboutwhat's called neuroplasticity,

(29:01):
which is just a fancy word foryour brain can change, and
that's a really good thing, andit's a real biblical thing. So
the Spirit of God is continuallyrewiring the neurons in our
brain, how through experienceswith other people that are

(29:25):
honest, receptive and again,it's that process of rupture and
repair when I can experience myneed. And I'm not using that
word pejoratively, we all haveneed when I can bring my need to
other people and have that needmet and cared for and be

(29:47):
supported by others, that's veryhealing for a brain that learned
I'm alone in this world and Ican only rely upon myself so.
How does the brain change? Well,for example, for an avoidantly
attached person, it's learningthat other people can be there
for you, support you, care foryou, and that you are capable of

(30:13):
receiving care. That's a huge,huge gospel truth, you are
capable of receiving not justthe care of God, but the care of
the body of Christ, ie other menand women.

I know that this, this takes time. This
doesn't happen overnight. It'snot like I've made a decision,
my brain has now changed. Whatis the So, what's the process to
be able to work through this sothat our brain can can actually
change over time? Yes,

Unknown (30:54):
if I have two words for the process, those two words
would be curiosity and kindnessto begin with. Are you curious
about where you are relationallystuck, or are you curious about
the places where you have verybig emotional reactivity? So are

(31:18):
you curious rather thancondemning, I shouldn't have
felt that. I shouldn't be thisafraid, I shouldn't be this
angry, whatever it is. Can youreplace I shouldn't be with?
Huh? That was a very big feelingI just had when I had that

(31:40):
interaction with so and so, Iwonder what the story is behind
that reaction. I wondercuriosity what's going on inside
my heart and my body. But theother word is kindness.
Kindness. Kindness will take youfurther in the healing journey

(32:03):
than a year's worth of therapywith your dream guru therapist,
whoever that is. For you. Why?
That's not a slight on myprofession. It is a
acknowledgement of the power ofkindness to change the human
heart. In in Romans, two, versefour, Paul says, It is the
kindness of God that leads torepentance. Now, if that's true,

(32:27):
why do we often resort toharshness or some some form of
striving or some form of selfabasement? Instead? Of in asking
this question, what wouldkindness to my heart and body
look like right now?

Man, kindness is, is a huge thing, and I think
it's it is for me, sometimesit's easier to be kind to others
than kind to myself,

Unknown (33:01):
and you're not alone in that that is so common, so
common.

Yeah, so one of the things that curiosity does
is if I remember time when I Iheard something from a co
worker, and I reacted out of outof my own pain, and I yelled at
them, and it wasn't anything todo with them. It was actually
just something else wastriggering me from here, I think

(33:29):
the curiosity to me is like,where is it a story? One of the
questions that I could ask thenis, why? Why did that happen? I
did a exercise with with a groupof people, was called the circle
of why, and we just kept onasking why, until we actually
got down to the root, why. Why?
Why? Why? Why? Why? And it wasreally helpful for me, yes, why
is why a good question for us toask? It's

Unknown (33:53):
a good question if it can be asked with kindness and
curiosity. It is a question thatwill gradually connect you from
the present circumstance, whichyou might think of as an
overreaction. It's not but youmight think of it as one. It
will connect you from thepresent to what's underneath

(34:16):
from your past story. So anytimewe are reactive, it's a way of
making implicit memory known.
Implicit memory being bodilysensation, emotional experiences
from our past that are gettingactivated in our present, day to
day life. And so the whyquestion when it's asked with

(34:40):
kindness, can help youunderscore and understand where
you, like God said to Hagar,where have you come from? In
other words, what is the woundin you? Heart that is being
pricked right now in thiscurrent circumstance, and that's

(35:04):
a very important connection tomake. Why? Because until a wound
is named, it cannot be healed.
You can't invite Jesus into anunnamed wound because you don't
know it's there, and so youcan't experience the comfort of
God, but God longs to comfortthose wounded places in our

(35:26):
hearts. And

so if we can't heal from an unnamed wound, and
we have been curious, and weactually don't recognize where
this wound originated from, likethat, like the the memory I have
of my sister coming home fromhospital, it wasn't a bad memory
for a long time, and thenthrough prayer, I was like,

(35:48):
that's where that, that feelingthat I have now, that's where it
originated. That's where itstarted. Yeah, but it was
through prayer and a processwith somebody else that I got to
that yes, and I needed to getget there. So how do we, how do
we then uncover some of thesewounds, yeah, that we didn't

(36:09):
know existed? Yeah.

Unknown (36:10):
Well, you, I think your, your question bears the
answer brilliantly. You've saidtwo very important phrases
through prayer and anotherperson. Very few of us can
uncover our wounds by ourselves.
I would dare say none of us cannot fully you need the presence
of a wise guide. You need thepresence of what I call a

(36:36):
warrior king or queen, someonewho has grappled with their own
story, and therefore can enterinto yours with kindness and a
ferocity that is willing to nametruth, truthfully. So when you
say through prayer, my guess isat some point you said to God,

(36:57):
there's something going on inme, God, and I don't know what
it is, and I am inviting yourSpirit to reveal and through
that asking, seeking andknocking and through a friend or
another person, you were giventhe gift of the three year old

(37:21):
memory, and you stewarded it,that gift Well, in other words,
you didn't dismiss it. You beganto let it have weight.

That's so good.
I think that's helpful for us.
So now we've, we've named ourwounds. We've We've asked our
wives where we're moving towardsthings. One of the things that
you talk about in your book thatis helpful for us to do is mind
mapping. Can you talk about mindmapping? What is it and why
should we do it? Sure,

Unknown (37:53):
mind mapping is a term coined by Dr David Schnarr, and
what it simply refers to is thatby the age of five, children
have the ability to knowsomething of the intentions of
their parents, so if I spill mymilk at the dinner table, I can
read my dad's face and his toneof voice and map his mind by

(38:20):
saying internally to myself, dadis angry at me because I spilled
my milk, but if that milk rollsoff the table onto mom's new
dress, I can now see anothershift in dad's facial
expression, or and or mom'sfacial expression, And I as a

(38:41):
five year old have the abilityto map their minds and to know
there even matter at me, becauseit just ruined mom's dress. So
mind mapping is simply a fancyway of saying we know
intentionality of others. Weknow we know something of what's

(39:01):
going on inside the hearts andminds of our parents by the age
of five, and that means, as aseven year old, a 10 year old, a
15 year old, you were able toread the face and the tone of
voice of your parents and knowsomething of what they were
thinking and feeling towardsyou.

We do it intuitively. I would assume that
so it is not something thatconsciously I am saying, what is
what is my dad thinking rightnow? And how is it? How is it
going to actually affect me? Wedo it very quickly and
intuitively. Yes. Then, how doesthat help us in our
relationships? Moving forward tobe able to see that

(39:42):
intuitiveness of others, and ifit's a disordered relationship,
and we know that, and we couldread the mind we go, it's not
there. Is there a way to helprelationships moving forward
through our intuitive mind?
Mapping,

Unknown (40:00):
yes, and it comes back to the sentence that it's the
truth that will set us free. Andpart of the truth, and this is
very hard for a lot of people tocome to terms with, part of the
truth is that some of the harmyou have experienced was
intentional. That's not to sayall of it I do intentional harm

(40:22):
to my children, and I dounintentional harm to my
children. My children need toknow which is which, and mind
mapping is the idea that they doknow which is which, because
they're able to read my face, mybody language, my tone of voice,
and know something of my intent,and so for for all of the

(40:44):
listeners, you have memories ofbeing harmed by both your mother
and your father, can you bringsome curiosity to the
intentionality behind some ofthat harm, I'm not saying all of
the harm that you suffered wasintentional, but some of it was.

(41:05):
Why can I say that? It's not I'mnot saying it. Jesus says this.
This is the claim of thescriptures. We do intentional
harm. It can be repaired. That'scalled reconciliation, but it
can't be repaired if it's notnamed. Honestly,

sometimes I think with healing processes, I
think sometimes, some peopletalk things to death of we're
just gonna circle this over andover and over again and talk it
to death. How do we start toembody the healing that that
happens? How do we recognizewhat is happening in our body
and feel it in our body and healwith our body? How what's the

(41:46):
body aspect of this journey?
Yes,

Unknown (41:51):
when you harm me and I and I say to you, can we talk
about this, this situation whereI felt harmed by you? And I tell
you what it is, you will have afeeling in your gut of like, Oh,
I'm sad that I said or did thatthing and hurt you. And you will

(42:14):
then have a facial expressionthat communicates to my right
hemisphere that you are hurtingthat you hurt me. That's called
the conviction of the Spirit,when we have that felt sense of
I'm hurting, that I hurt you.
When my son sees that look on myface, repair is well underway,

(42:34):
he will not need to talk that todeath. When, when you refer to
talking things to death, what Ithink of is that one person is
not being heard, and so they aretrying to be heard this. The
dilemma is certain people areunwilling to hear how they have

(42:59):
hurt you, and so you keep tryingto say it differently in the
hopes that they will validateyour experience and repent, but
they are not showing any signsof a willingness to repent.

I think this has been really helpful to reckon
with our stories, make sense ofour story, and to be able to
move towards some healing andrepair, and that we could feel
the sense of wholeness andshalom going forward. One of the
ways I think that Americanculture specifically is highly
individualistic, and we like tothink of our individual stories,

(43:44):
but we also live in a collectiveculture, and the culture around
us has stories that we have toldourselves that make sense of the
world, and we have stories thathave caused harm and rupture and
that needs some repair, yes, andwholeness. How do we then move

(44:07):
towards an individual reckoningwith my own personal story and
family of origin to then acollective cultural story that
brings about maybe some healing?
Yes,

Unknown (44:20):
well, I think it's the same question for both
categories, whether it's myfamily of origin story or the
collective story of our nation.
The question is, will we betruthful about what has happened
and when it comes to ourcollective story? You know, a
lot of things need to be named,but the two that come to mind

(44:43):
most readily is, as Americans,we live on stolen land. That's
part of our collective storythat doesn't make us wicked
people. What makes What? What?
Mad? Is, am I willing toacknowledge that, grieve that,

(45:04):
and grow through that? And thesecond big thing is, white
Americans have built immensewealth by exploiting black
laborers from the continent ofAfrica. That's a significant
plot line of the story ofAmerica. Does that make white
Americans evil people? That'smissing the point. The point is,

(45:29):
will we name truthfully what hasbeen true, not just about Adam's
life when he was eight, but thestory of our particular country,
our particular collective,whatever collective you belong
to, and we all belong tomultiple collectives. But as a

(45:50):
white American man, I have tograpple with my collective
story, both as a man, which isto say, I have to grapple with
patriarchy, and as a white man,which is to say, I have to
grapple with white supremacy.
And by grapple, what I reallymean is, am I willing to name it
truthfully? Am I willing to saythis happened?

It reminds me of what happened after apartheid
fell in South Africa, it was theTruth and Reconciliation
Commission, right? It was like,let's tell the truth, and then
let's reconcile that there'sthere's two aspects of it, and I
think we want to jump towardsreconciliation without truth

(46:39):
telling, or we just want to saysomething, but not reconcile.
Yeah,

Unknown (46:44):
and there is no way to move to reconciliation without
hearing the hearts of those whohave been exploited. In other
words, without hearing the truthof what one actually went down
and how that continues to affectpeople that have been

(47:05):
marginalized and exploited.

Really good Adam, if people pick up your
book, make sense of your story,which I think is going to be
really helpful for a lot ofpeople to be able to do this.
What hope do you have for yourreaders?

Unknown (47:18):
Oh, it's a great question. My hope is is, I would
say twofold, number one, thatthey would begin to experience a
hospitality for the parts ofthemselves that they have
dismissed, ignored, pushed down,are afraid of, feel ashamed of.

(47:41):
So there's, you know, there's achapter on grappling with your
sexual story. There's a questiongrappling with your family of
origin story. These are placeswhere we have immense shame, and
I want that shame to be welcomedwith a posture of curiosity and
kindness, so that there can benew vistas of freedom for the

(48:05):
readers, the goal is freedom.
Why freedom? Because when youare free from the places you are
stuck and bound, then you areable to fully experience your
calling, which is you be, canbecome who you are, and you can
begin to do the work that youwere put here to do. And by

(48:26):
work, I don't just meanvocational work. I mean you can
participate in the corner of thekingdom of God that has your
name on it, because you are freeto be fully you

man, wouldn't the world be such an incredible
place if people were free to beyou, free to be them, and that
they could actually put theirstamp on the world, because this
is what you were made for, man,that would be an incredible
place. The world would be somuch fun to live in I would love

(49:01):
that. I would love a world likethat. It's good. So let's, let's
move the needle to make a worldmore like that. And so people go
out and get make sense of yourstory, reckon with your story,
wrestle with it, and so that wecould actually be the people
that God has created us to be,fully ourselves. Adam, I have a

(49:22):
couple quick questions. One, ifyou go back to your 21 year old
self, what advice would you

Unknown (49:27):
give my 20 I have no question in my mind, you need to
welcome all of your feelingswith a posture of kindness. 21
year old. Adam, I

love the way that you are kind to your 21
year old Adam, because you arekind to him as well. And that's
a beautiful thing for us torecognize and to see your
kindness to your past self. Ithink we all need some of that
kindness to our past selves aswell. Mm. Hmm, anything you've
been reading or watching lately,you could recommend,

Unknown (50:04):
ooh, reading or watching lately. I'm always
reading. Walter Brueggemann, Inever stop. He's my favorite Old
Testament scholar. Hiscommentary on Genesis is just
opening my eyes to new things.
His work on he has a book 40years old, that is, I never stop
reading. It's called theprophetic imagination. Yeah,

it's so amazing.
It's really good. It's reallygood. Fantastic. That's good.
How can people go get your book,make sense of your story, and
where else would you like topoint people

Unknown (50:38):
to you can get the book make sense of your story
anywhere books are sold, and ifyou want to know more about me
or my work. Adam Young,counseling.com,

perfect, sounds good. Well, Adam, this is a
fantastic conversation. I lovedgoing deep with you in your
story, and then in ourcollective story, in my story.
And then how do we reckon withour past, our family of origin,
move towards healing, get somesecure attachment. Now today,

(51:09):
even if we had insecureattachment in the past, that we
could have healthy and wholerelationships, that we can move
towards Shalom and peace andwholeness in our lives and our
relationships with others andwith God, with ourselves and
with all of creation. So thankyou, Adam, it was fantastic. I
loved our conversation. Thankyou. It was super fun being

(51:29):
here. You

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Ep. 275 Adam Young - Make Sense of Your Story