Ep. 323 Cyd & Geoff Holsclaw - Discipleship and Attachment: Healing the Way We Relate to God - Shifting Culture

Episode Transcript
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Cyd Holsclaw (00:00):
Jesus didn't call just heads. He also called whole

(00:03):
bodies, because Jesus himselfwas embodied, and, you know,
touched people and loved peopleand ate with people. And so how
do we bring our bodies into theunderstanding of Scripture,
rather than keeping themseparated? You Joshua,

Joshua Johnson (00:32):
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, you know
so many of us feel stuck in ourspiritual lives, and it's not
for a lack of effort. We readthe books, we follow the steps,
show up to the practices, butsomething still doesn't shift.

(00:52):
What if the reason you'respiritually stuck isn't because
you're not trying hard enough,but because your soul is living
in the wrong landscape? In thisepisode, I talk with Sid and
Jeff holsclaw about spiritualformation through the lens of
attachment theory, we explorehow early relational patterns
shape our view of God by onesize fits all. Discipleship
doesn't work, and how practiceslike silence, joy and scripture,

(01:14):
reading form us differentlydepending on where we're
starting from. We name thelandscapes of the soul, the
pasture, the jungle, the desertand the war zone. And talk about
how to move toward wholeness,integration and secure
attachment with God. We get intothe nuances of spiritual
formation, the role of communityand healing, and how joy,
gratitude and presence can moveus towards wholeness. It's a

(01:36):
conversation about meeting God,not just with our minds, but
with our whole selves, bodies,emotions and stories included.
So join us. Here is myconversation with Sid and Jeff.
Holsclaw, Sid and Jeff, welcometo shifting culture. Excited to
have you on. Thanks for joining

Unknown (01:54):
me. Yeah, it's good to be here. Thanks for having us
for sure. You know,

there's a lot of people out there and you've been
in this, this faith world, aspastors and spiritual directors,
and in your thinking aboutneuroscience and faith and all
of this, and I know that thereare a lot of people out there
that feel kind of stuckspiritually, or they're going to
be stuck spiritually, andthey're trying to do all the

(02:18):
right things To get to a betterspot. Do you see people stuck?
And if so, why do you thinkthey're stuck?

Unknown (02:29):
Well, I do see a lot of people stuck in my work as a
coach and a spiritual director.
That's actually one of thebiggest reasons people seek out
spiritual direction or coachingis just an expression of I feel
stuck in my faith. I hear thingslike it used to work, and now it
doesn't, or I used to feel someconnection with God, and now I
don't. Or even, you know,something happened at this

(02:52):
church that I was at now I can'tever go back. Those are the
kinds of things. And so, yes, Ithink there are a lot of people
stuck. There's probably a lot ofreasons for the stuckness, but I
think one thing that I havefound to be truly helpful in
working with people, and thereason that you know Jeff and I
do the work that we do, is thatoften understanding the way that
we have been shaped in our earlyyears can help us to get an

(03:14):
insight into the ways that weinteract with other people and
the assumptions that we makeabout the world, and often when
we can become more aware ofthose defaults and those
strategies that we are using allthe time that can give us some
insight into why we might feelstuck in our relationships with
God and in our relationshipswith one another. What do you

think? Jeff,

Geoff Holsclaw (03:38):
yeah, I think a lot of us experience being stuck
between, especially in the inthe faith world, like what we
feel like we know about who Godis, or what the Bible is, or
what we should be doing, andthen our daily kind of
experiences, and then ourfrustrations and our resistance.
And I think in our work, we'retrying to help people kind of
take the step back from what'sthat, that immediate thing that

(04:00):
it presenting problem, you know,and then kind of helping them
step back and be like, Well,maybe it's not just like that
little thing you're working on,like, maybe the stuckness is
about, like, this wholeenvironment that you find
yourself in, and how you see theworld, and how you experience
God and others in yourself. Andso we're always trying to, like,
take those steps back evenfurther to kind of look at that
stuckness.

So then take us back, and how does this? How
does attachment and attachmenttheory work with our
relationship with with God andour stuckness spiritually, as
you said, you know, when we growup, there are some ways that we
deal with the world, and we findthat maybe we don't have safety

(04:43):
and security at home, so we'regoing to try and deal with the
world by avoiding things, orwe're trying to control things,
whatever it is that we're tryingto do. How does that way of
thinking early on affect ourrelationship with God?

Unknown (05:00):
Yeah, well, we like to talk about how when you're
young, it's like you're born asa little scientist. And so from
your earliest days, you'rerunning experiments all the
time, sort of checking in on whois available to me, who do I
belong to, and sort of runningthese experiments on how close
can I get to people? How closedo people want to get to me? How
often are people going to beresponsive to me? So that's sort

(05:22):
of, we call that runningexperiments of intimacy. And
then we're also running theseexperiments, of like, how far
does our independence stretch?
So like, how far away Can I gofrom mom and dad and still feel
safe? Or do I have what it takesto go out into the world on my
own? And so as we run thoseexperiments, it's sort of like
we're collecting data, and we'redrawing these conclusions, and
of course, we don't do itconsciously, but unconsciously,

(05:43):
we're forming what then becomesthese sort of defaults that live
in our in our nervous systems,and they affect the way that we
perceive ourselves and whatwe're capable of and who we are,
what it feels like to be me, andit also affects The way that we
perceive other people and howreliable and available and
dependable people are, and thenit also affects the way that we

(06:05):
see the world, whether it's aplace of adventure and
opportunity, or whether it's aplace of danger and fear. And so
the way that we sort of formthose conclusions in our early
years then cause us to developstrategies to be able to live
within what we perceive aboutourselves and other people in
the world. And then, of course,that all translates onto what we

(06:26):
understand about God and what weexpect from God as well. And so
the good news, though, is thatstrategies can be changed. So
you might feel stuck in yourcurrent strategies, but becoming
aware of those strategies thencan give you the opportunity to
try to shift those strategiesinto something different. I

think one of the things that's really helpful in
landscapes of the soul, for me,is thinking about attachment,
attachment theory as differentlandscapes. Can you just give me
an overview of what are these,these four places that you think
that most of us reside in? Well,

I'll jump in.
And then Sid, can you fill outsome of them? Just as a broad
kind of kind of understanding isSid brought up this idea we kind
of have these capacities thatGod wants to develop in us, that
we connect with being made inGod's image, which is to pursue
intimacy with others, but thenalso to practice independence.
And those two things aresupposed to be growing and
integrating within us. And sowhen we are raised in a safe,

(07:25):
stable environment, where ourcaregivers are available to us
when we're in distress, but thenalso give us courage and
encourage us right, give us thatstrength to go out. And so
there's that movement of in andout, in and out, and where
relationships are repairedregularly, then you have what's
called a secure attachment, orwhat we call kind of the pastor,

(07:46):
the pastor of peace and joy. Andwe're you're supposed to kind of
think of Psalm 23 but in somecaregiving environments there
the caregivers are inconsistent,sometimes intrusive, where you
end up long term, having tofocus on your relationships
primarily. You're alwaysscanning the world to

(08:06):
understand, is this a goodmoment to step in toward
intimacy, or do I need to hangback? Otherwise I'll kind of get
yelled at or punished orsomething like that. And so
you're, you're you end upovercompensating with that one
skill of relationships, socialemotional intelligence usually
comes out of this. Peopleemphasize intimacy, and we call
that the jungle, whererelationships can be high and

(08:26):
exciting that can also beterrifying. And so there's,
like, a lot of relationalinputs. And so that's the jungle
other people for whom theircaregivers were very dismissive
of their emotions, primarily,maybe they just kind of rewarded
you for external kind ofbehaviors, getting good grades,
sitting still, being quiet,being seen and not heard, or

(08:48):
something like that. Thosepeople will kind of tend toward
emphasizing the skills and thecapacities of independence, so
they're very self sufficient,and so Outwardly they seem very
mature. They seem very puttogether, but really they're
creating walls against intimacy.
And so we call that the desert,where they're kind of living
alone, the there's no relationalwater, and then the third or the

(09:12):
fourth, rather. So it's thepasture where the intimacy and
independence work together, thejungle where it's primarily
intimacy, that the desert whichis primarily independence, and
then you have the war zone,where you just kind of grew up
in a place of chaos, and youdon't know how these things fit
together. Sometimes you rapidlyswitch between conflicting
strategies. You confuse yourselfon why you do what you do. You
confuse others. People don'tknow. They feel like you just

(09:34):
switched personalitiesimmediately on them. So that
would be what we kind of callthe war zone,

Unknown (09:39):
yeah. And it's sort of like so the pasture is the
intimacy and independenceworking together, and the war
zone is almost like intimacy andindependence in competition with
one another, like neither. Assoon as you get too intimate, it
feels dangerous, so you switchto independence. But when you
feel too independent, it feelsdangerous, so you switch to
intimacy, and it's sort of this,nothing feels solid.

How do. Does this work in your relationship
together? Because I know you doa lot of work together, but then
you have independent work thatyou do as well. And so how do
those integrate independence andintimacy, especially when you're
working close, like you guysare?

Unknown (10:18):
Yeah, that is such a good question. Well, we have to
do a lot of I have to do a lotof checking things out, because
I fall more commonly. Mystrategies lie more in that
jungle place of a hypervigilance about my
relationships. And so, you know,the joke from our early marriage
was that, you know, Jeff wouldstand with his hands on his hips

(10:39):
because he's tall, and it wascomfortable, and you can't tell
visually right now, but he'sabout, I don't know, eight
inches taller than me. And sohe's standing there with his
hands on his hips, and he's juststanding there talking to me,
and all I can hear, because Ihave this highly attuned, you
know, to people's body languageand tone of voice, I couldn't

(11:00):
even hear what he was saying,because all I could read was,
you're mad at me, or you'repowering up and you're sort of
dominating me right now. Andthen he'd be like, what? I'm not
doing anything. I'm justcomfortable. I'm just, it's just
comfortable. So we started veryearly on in our marriage, sort
of having to figure out, like,how much of the work do I need
to do in my own, you know,understanding and saying, okay,

(11:22):
that might be what I'mperceiving, but that might not
be what he's actually intending.
And how much does he need tojust change the way he stands,
right? So that kind of carriesover into the work that we do
together. So like, even inwriting this book together, we
just have to be really clear onI have to say things like, you
know, the story I'm tellingmyself about what you're feeling
right now is this, and he'd haveto be like, That's not at all

(11:46):
what I'm experiencing right now.
And you know, here's what I'mreally meaning. And then, you
know, needing to do thatcommunication work. And then for
him, I almost have to give himhints of like, okay, I need to
have a meta conversation aboutour relationship as we're
writing this book. Because,without warning, he doesn't go
back and forth from relationshipand task and so like, when he's

(12:09):
in task mode, he's in task mode,and I can kind of navigate back
and forth, like I can talk aboutrelationship as we're working on
our task but for him and I to belike, Okay, no, this is a
conversation about ourrelationship, not the work we're
doing. Jeff, what are yourthoughts on that?

Yeah, I think we we needed different like, very
clear road signs, like, so forme, like, she just kind of said,
like, I need at least a fiveminute, if not a full day. Like,
hey, we need to have arelationship talk, or we need to
talk, or, like, for parenting,right? Because we've been

(12:45):
parenting partners more than,much more than we've been
ministry partners. But like, weneed to talk about, like, what's
going on with the kids, youknow? And I can't just, like, go
into that place in a healthy,integrated way. Like, I need,
like, a good, I need a good longon ramp before I can get like,
Okay, I'm gonna have arelationship conversation. I

(13:06):
gotta, I gotta check with myemotions. I gotta be open to
other people's emotions. I needto, right? Whereas, if you just,
like, throw a problem or an ideaor or a brainstorm at me, I'm
like, right into it. I was like,let's go right? So in our
working relationship. Sid's theopposite, though, like she needs
a full day of, like, you know,tomorrow morning, we're gonna go
out for breakfast and we'regonna have a business planning

(13:28):
meeting, and we're gonna havegoals, we're gonna have
strategy, like, we're gonna orand so I can't just be reading a
book and then throw an idea outher and have her, like, engage
with it, like she just is, like,I'm not ready for that. Whereas
the reverse, we're like, ifshe's just throwing like, some
like emotional questions or likerelationship advice, I'm just
like, I'm not ready for that.
So, so we kind of needdifferent, like, lengths on
ramps, depending on what thetopic is that's we've struggled

(13:50):
in getting to that. We used toget in a lot of fights, and we'd
also overwhelm each otherinadvertently. Whereas if we
just given someone a five minuteheads up and a little on ramp,
then it would have gone muchmore smoothly.

Unknown (14:04):
And so the thing that's been helpful is sort of
understanding the strategiesthat we both operate in most
often, so that I can havecompassion for there's nothing
wrong with the way that he seesthe world or his way of doing
things. It's more it's justdifferent. It's as if I have all
the tools I need to live in ajungle. He has all the tools he
needs to live in a desert, butwe need to be able to learn to

(14:26):
live together in the samelandscape. And so it's that
awareness of the strategies thathe's carrying with him that I
can then respect and understand,and he can do the same for me.
And then, of course, we've both,you know, because we've been
doing this work together for along time. We're both closer to
the pasture than we've everbeen, and so we're both, you
know, working on integratingthose tools more than we ever

(14:49):
have. I think,

as you're talking I mean, one of the
things with with my wife and I,we work together from the very
moment we started dating. Andbasically, and we were co
executive directors missionsorganization, like we've done
everything together, and we'vebeen married, so marriage,

(15:11):
parenting and work all together.
And this is the first year whereI'm off trying to do something
else, and she's leading byherself, without me, and so now
we're navigating a whole newdynamic and relationship where
there's a lot more independence,and so we have to work harder on
the intimacy parts, which wedidn't have to before it was

(15:33):
integrated, it felt moreintegrated. And so as as things
shift and change inrelationships. So this happens
in in our spiritual life withGod and others. This happens in
our marriages. How do youcontinue to to navigate the
winds of change when you'restill trying to integrate both

(15:55):
independence and intimacy in ahealthy way, knowing where you
have come from and where youwant to go. Well,

Unknown (16:04):
awareness is key. So first of all, being aware that
things have shifted. You know,even just the fact that you were
able to name my wife and I aredoing something independent of
each other for the first time,and having the awareness that
this is going to be a huge shiftfor us, and then having some
compassion right for we're goingto have to figure out how to do

(16:25):
things differently, and we'reprobably going to make some
mistakes along the way. So thatawareness and compassion
together, I would say, and thenalso just using the thing that
we really have, the thing thathelps me a lot, is really
looking through that lens ofintimacy and independence. And
then also we talk about thesethree defaults, of, are people

(16:46):
available to me? Will mydistress be alleviated, and how
can I use my agency? And sothose are always a really good
grid for me to be evaluatingwhen I'm running into things
that feel different. Is sort ofasking myself, what feels like
it's at stake right now. Do Ifeel like it's the availability
of another person? Am I feelinga lack of like hope in thinking

(17:09):
that this distress is ever goingto go away? So right now, I'm
actually working on a doctoralproject, and part of me is
thinking like this distress isnever going to go away, like
it's just going to last forever,and so having to coach myself
through, no, that's not, youknow, having to use the tools of
like, okay, I know that. That'swhat's at stake for me, is this
feeling that it's never going toend. And so that's the work I

(17:31):
need to do, is work on thatdefault of not only is it going
to end someday, but there arepeople who support me through
this. God is with me in it. So Ihave the availability of people,
and I can use my agency on adaily basis to just do the next
step, you know, and then,similarly, you can use that
intimacy and independence alsoas a grid of like, what's

(17:51):
feeling threatened for me rightnow? Is it my relational
intimacy, or is it my sense ofbeing able to do things
independently? And I think, youknow, I carry that into my
relationship with God too. Soit's sort of like, you know,
even just recently, I've been ina little bit of a season where I
feel like I'm not as drawn toprayer as I have been in other
seasons of life. And so sort ofstarting to ask myself, is that

(18:14):
because I am avoiding intimacy,or is it because I'm feeling
like I'm value like, what is itthat's at stake for me here. And
I think the, you know, as I'msort of investigating that, I
think I'm coming back to, okay,so I actually grew up with a
little bit more of a war zoneattachment, and so I think
there's a little bit of thissense of, like, I know

(18:36):
theologically, that God isavailable to me, but right now,
in this season, it's hard tofeel that availability. And so
sometimes it's hard to go into aprayer time and sense that, you
know, I'm getting more silencefrom God than I am getting, you
know, engagement, and that feelsdifferent in this season. And we
know from a long tradition ofspiritual formation that that's

(18:58):
not at all uncommon. And so sortof using that, that awareness of
what feels like it's at stakefor me is God's availability. So
how can I be addressing thatissue, rather than trying to be
like, I just have to prayharder, I have to pray more
often, I have to be morediligent. But it's more like,
what is going on that's makingme feel like it's not as much of

(19:19):
a draw for me, and then doingthat work of it's the
availability. And so now I canfocus on, you know, what do I
need to do to remind myself ofGod's availability, even though
he appears to be silent rightnow? So

I want to know about that. So if we're looking
then with spiritual formationand what it looks like to attach
to God and have a healthyattachment to God and a walk
with Him. It can be, if we'relooking through the lens of
these landscapes, ourattachments, where am I? There
can be a tendency, I think, totry and make God in my own image

(19:58):
and really follow. Follow afterhim, and so my view of God would
be with with all of mydysfunctions within my past, my
life, and how I'm trying to seekintimacy, that he would be
distant or he would be close. Itdoes. It's feels like it's in my
image. How do we navigatespiritual formation, knowing

(20:21):
that God is God, and I am on ajourney with him, like I How
does all of that shake out inspiritual formation? Well,

that's a that, that that's a great question,
and it's, it's what we're allkind of struggling through. And
I think you said it just rightis the research has said this,
you know. And the funny thingabout, like, psychological
research is a lot of times it'sjust kind of like a lot of money
was spent for a no duh answer,right? So, so your no duh answer

(20:54):
as a pastor and a missionaryfits with, you know, all the
research, which is somethinglike at the beginning of our
spiritual journey, we often aredrawn to God to compensate for
what we don't have, right? It'sthe God's shaped hole in our
hearts. And so that's usuallylike, whatever landscape we're
in. You know, God is there'ssomething you know, like we are

(21:15):
encountering God, the HolySpirit, Christ, love of the
Father. However, it might be forour spiritual journeys, that's
filling in that thing that welack, and so we're really drawn
to God, faith, conversion orsomething like that, and it's
usually somewhat dramatic orsomething. But then over time, I
think you're right, is overtime, those implicit kind of in
our deep in our minds, in ournervous systems, the implicit

(21:37):
ways that we understand theworld, which Sid was talking
about, those default kind ofways we see ourselves and others
and the world God kind of getssucked into that slowly, which
is what you were saying, that wekind of make God in our own
image. And so if I'm a desertkind of person, it's easy for
me, maybe not consciously, butsubconsciously this or
implicitly, to kind of expect,well, you know, God kind of is

(21:59):
like the way I expect the worldto be. And so we slowly drag
God. This is what the languagewe use in our in the book
landscapes of the soul, weslowly drag God into our
landscapes, even though, at thebeginning of our spiritual
journey we we loved the promiseof new life, of being moved into
the pasture, but slowly, it'slike we drag God into the war
zone or the jungle or thedesert, and that the and then I

(22:22):
feel like that's where the realwork of spiritual formation is,
and so that's where Sid and iOur heart is. Is that people
kind of get stuck on that secondpart in their long road of their
spiritual formation ordiscipleship? Is that that first
step is like, wow, like, youknow, like, God's available, God
speaking to me, I see all thesechanges in my life, and then
they it kind of plateaus, andthey get stuck. And I think

(22:45):
that's like that getting stuckis when we're we're making God
in our own image, and it's aftera while, it doesn't feel that
good. It's kind of like, ohyeah, distant God who kind of
just has left me on my own, iskind of how I've always thought
and and you can find enoughtheology and enough parts in the
Bible to kind of prove that viewof God true, or to prove a

(23:05):
different view of God, like thewar zone God or or a jungle God
who's kind of inconsistent is,you know, in and out is, we
can't find God is disappearingon us, right? You can find that
too, and you're right. So that'swhere, that's part of where we
get stuck, for sure.

Unknown (23:20):
Yeah. So if you take the example I was just using
about, like, being in thisseason of feeling like God is
more silent, you know, if I butas I'm aware of my own survival
strategies, I can recognize I'mexpecting God to be, like my
caregivers, who, you know, therecomes this like, I keep trying
to get their attention, but whenthey're not responding, I kind

(23:41):
of come to this place of like,all right, I'm just not going to
try anymore. I'm going to waitfor them to initiate, you know.
And if we do that in our lifewith God, it's like, Okay, God
might initiate. But there's alsoa sense where God says, you
know, seek Me and you will findme. And so there is this sort of
discipline that I need to beengaged in, of continuing to

(24:02):
seek, knowing that he isavailable and he is accessible,
he just might not communicate tome in the way that feels like,
Oh, now he's, you know, reallyhere, and so being aware of my
strategy of, well, I feel likeI've tried to access God a
little bit, And he doesn't seemto be talking to me. So maybe

(24:23):
I'll just give up knowing thatthat is a strategy for me and
that that is a pattern, youknow, in my caregivers, helps me
to say, No, I'm actually goingto choose a different strategy.
Then I'm going to choose toremember that God is not like my
caregivers, and God doesn't stopcommunicating with me. He just
might be communicating in a waythat I don't currently have a

(24:44):
category for, or this might be aseason where he's doing
something in me that is good forme, but is surprising and
unfamiliar, right? And so thatsense of like doing that work,
to be aware of the strategy I'mdefaulting into. And be
consciously shifting thatstrategy to continue to seek
Him, even though my defaultwould be, I've tried now it's

(25:06):
your turn.

I think for years, the church has given us a
programmatic view ofdiscipleship. And here's the
program. You walk through this,and it's a one size fits all
type of discipleship model. And

Unknown (25:18):
if it's not working for you, it's your problem.
Something's wrong with you

exactly. So then how does this work? Knowing that
we're all coming from differentplaces, we're all different
stages in our journey, and weall really need different set of
tools to help us in arelationship with God. Then what
does discipleship, disciplemaking look like if it's not a

(25:43):
one size fits all

Unknown (25:44):
well. That's what we are wanting to do, is help help
people understand that it's nota one size fits all. But it is
also interesting, because someof the same practices do
different things depending onwhich landscape you're in. So as
an example, Jeff, I'd love foryou to talk about silence and
solitude, because I think thatyou explain that well and how

(26:07):
silence and solitude can dodifferent work depending on
which landscape you're comingfrom.

And let's talk about Bible study too, then. But
like so silence and solitude,for someone who is in the
desert, who already, in a sense,has an inner solitude, whether
they'd call it that or not, orkind of an inner withdraw, like
their first experience ofsilence and solitude might be
refreshing, or it's like whatthey already like to do. I can

(26:33):
get away from people I'mphysically now in a space where
I emotionally already feel butif you do that long enough,
especially kind of a strictsilence as the spiritual
practice used to be for someonewho's in the desert, what's
going to happen is they're goingto actually start experiencing
their body in ways and maybeeven emotions. So people in the

(26:55):
desert usually have shut offtheir own access to their body
and emotions, as well as thebodies and emotions of other
people. And so they're going tostart feeling like, oh, like
maybe I'm a little angry aboutsomething, or maybe I'm a little
sad about something that I'vebeen distracting myself from.
And so they're going to makethat movement toward more of the
social, emotional, embodied kindof aspects of existence that

(27:16):
they've been ignoring nowsomeone in the jungle for whom
the social emotional reality isvery strong, they're picking up
on everyone else's emotions,their own emotions. Maybe they
don't even know how to regulateor manage their emotions when
they go into silence andsolitude. They're also, in a
sense, going to feel refreshedat first, because they think
that they're going to beescaping all those people.

(27:38):
They're going to quickly findthat they've brought them all
with them, right, internally, sothey've changed physical
locations, but they brought allthat kind of jungle with them.
But the work for them is to beable to then say they're going
to kind of go the other way,which is develop the skill of
like, hey, what I feel andwhat's in my body isn't
everything about me. There'sthis thing called, like, spirit

(27:59):
or soul or mind that isconnected, but different, and I
can acknowledge my emotions andI can acknowledge my body, but
then say there's more to me thanthat. There, you know, there's
God or there's spirit, sothere's actually that movement,
not out of your body. And we, wehave the Center for embodied
faith, right? We want to holdthese two things together, but
so the same practice can dodifferent things. And I think

(28:21):
the same is with like Biblestudy. So as a desert person,
oftentimes doctrine, theintellectual life like that,
comes a little more easy. And solike, actually, just studying
the Bible is actually quiterefreshing, and comes to me
fairly easily, and it's veryenjoyable. But something like
meditating on scripture orputting myself like Lectio
Divina, or an imaginative kindof situating myself in the story

(28:44):
that's actually more difficult.
And there's studies to showthat, like that imaginative life
is actually lower for people inthe desert. And so that work is
kind of hard, whereas someoneelse, more in the jungle, will
have those skills, like theyactually love, like devotional
literature, spiritualliterature. You know what? US
people in the desert are like,Oh, that's all that fluffy
spirituality stuff, right? Theyenjoy that. And then they're

(29:04):
often more skilled in kind ofthat contemplative reading, but
then they're not as skilled oras patient with more of a
doctrinal approach to Scripture.
And really, we need to kind ofbe growing and integrating all
those things, but not, not in away that it totally throws us
off spiritually. So I don't haveto give up reading the Bible for
like, you know, information, andjust do some visualizations of

(29:28):
Jesus and, you know, prodigalson or something. But, you know,
I should probably be doing bothin the same for someone in the
in the desert or the jungle,rather well,

Unknown (29:37):
in the way that we can really grow together be in a
body of believers is, you know,you're pairing up with people
who are coming from differentlandscapes, and you're bringing
different things to the samepractice and sharing what you're
both, you know, experiencingwhat you're both struggling
with, where you're both findinglife in it, and then seeing sort
of like, Oh, there's more tothis practice than I would have

(29:59):
guessed. Impressed or imagined,and sort of having that
participation together canenrich the practice for for all
of the people involved. But theway we present the practices
isn't like this is how it shouldfeel. This is how it should go,
but sort of that revealing. Asyou do this, you might
experience this, and this mightfeel really hard for you, or you

(30:22):
might experience this, and thiswill feel like so easy and
great, but just because it'seasy for you doesn't mean it
should be easy for everybody,and just because it's hard for
you doesn't mean nobody, it'snot important and nobody else
should do it. Well,

what are these different discipleship pathways?
Because not there's not a onesize fits all, which is part of
kind of the heart of our work.
But there is a sense in whichthere is something that the
whole community can do, youknow? And we always say, you
didn't, you didn't get to whereyou were by yourself, and you
can't get out of it by yourself,right? So there's only so much
that you we can do asindividuals. So the community is
really important. So just thecommunity sharing stories of how

(30:55):
we're different, but we cancelebrate and have compassion
for those differences. And thenI think this is where other
groups, like life model works,and others have have done a lot
of great work, where they focuson cultivating joy in
communities and so and that goesback to, like infant research
and how it is that we develop associal, emotional creatures.
There's there's just basically asense that when you can develop

(31:17):
the ready skills of gratitude,Thanksgiving, and particularly
of joy, that those end upcreating, kind of this
foundation that then these otherthings can get built on. So
whether you're in the desert,war zone or jungle, everyone can
practice more joy and gratitudeas a way of, kind of helping
shift our nervous systems, ourbodies, our expectations, into a

(31:38):
place of connection, rather thanbeing closed off in our own
protective kind of landscapes.
So can we create kind ofenvironments of joy that? So I
think that's something we allcan do together. And then there
is some specific work, dependingon which landscape you're on,
that you kind of need to do tomove toward integration and move
toward that sense of secureattachment with God. But then

(32:00):
there's also that work ofgratitude and joy that we can
all do together.

Gratitude and joy, seems I would start to
embody this, this path, this,this relationship with God, more
than if I just intellectuallyassent to, you know, the path of
knowing how to how to get there.
But joy and gratitude doessomething. It shifts something
in me. How do we start tocultivate then joy? What does it

(32:25):
look like to move towards Godand receive joy from him? And
really, can you just define joyat the beginning? Because some
people misunderstand it withhappiness and all sorts of
different things. Yeah,

Unknown (32:41):
well, Joy is a relational emotion. It's
something that really eitherrequires the sort of internal
memory of another person oractually being with another
person or with God. And we knowwe borrowed Jim Wilder's
definition of joy is theexperience of being with someone
who's glad to be with you. Andso we carry that as an internal
model, if our caregivers wereglad to be with us when we were

(33:03):
young, and that's part of whatgives us the courage to go out
into the world and beindependent, is that we sort of
carry that joy with us. Butyeah, it's not happiness is
circumstantial, right? Or whatkind of mood you happen to be
in. Joy is actually theawareness that someone else is
glad to be with you. And thatcan happen in the middle of
great sorrow and grief. Andeven, you know, we look at in he

(33:26):
in Hebrews, where Jesus, youknow, he he went to the cross
for the joy set before Him. Andso he wasn't feeling
circumstantially happy, but itwas that gladness of knowing
that he was making a way back tothe Father that brought him, you
know, through that suffering.
And so the joy is a withness.
It's a gladness to be with oneanother. And so we can be glad

(33:50):
to be with someone else evenwhen we don't understand them.
We can be glad to be withsomeone else when they're
experiencing something verydifferent than we are. We can be
glad to be with someone in theirgrief. We can be glad to be with
someone in their achievement,right? It's just, it's It
crosses all emotions, and it'sthat gladness to be with that
builds that foundation of thatsort of what it is like to be

(34:13):
me. Joy is actually very closeto identity in the brain. I
mean, we don't know, we don'tknow if there's a lot of mystery
in the brain, but it seems thatidentity and the place where joy
happens are very closelyconnected, and so that sort of
the more joy you experience, themore understanding of sense of
self you have, and then that joyalso increases your capacity to

(34:36):
be able to handle all the otheremotions that are harder because
you have that sort of internalsense that I'm not alone in
this. Yeah,

I think, you know, a lot of times people will
talk about, oh, you need tobelong before you believe, and
that discipleship is aboutcommunity. And that word
belonging, and we want to createa sense of belonging like that
can get thrown around a lot likea value, but this idea of joy
connected to glad to be withyou, it actually. Kind of puts
it right at the street level,which is, you know. You know if

(35:04):
you belong to somebody, when youwalk into the room and you see
on their face that they're gladthat you're there, you also know
that even if they say that youbelong here, when you walk into
the room in the church, or thatBible study or your in laws, and
their face and their body saysthat they're not glad that
you're here, you automaticallyknow you don't belong, even if
all their words are telling you,oh no, we love that you're here.

(35:25):
We're so glad that it's like youwe like our bodies know you're
lying, right? So that's why wefocus on like joy and the sense
of delight in being withsomebody. And we, you know, we
go to to Luke 15, the story ofthe lost sheep, the lost coin
and the lost sons, often calledthe prodigal son, where the
whole point is Jesus is tryingto explain to the Pharisees why

(35:48):
he's dining with sinners. Andthe whole punchline of each one
of those is all of Heavenrejoices when one of these come
back, when one of these repent,all of Heaven is throwing a
party. All of heaven is now gladthat this one sinner has
returned. And so that's, youknow, that's what it means to
belong, and that's how we have asense of belonging. And so
that's why we talk about joy andgratitude and thankfulness is

(36:11):
because that's kind of like thatground level sense of belonging.
And

I think that's, it's necessary for our lives and
our relationships, ourrelationship with God like
that's that's prettyfoundational, and it reminds me
of belovedness. I'm a child ofGod, and that's where I receive
joy in that and then thatbecomes my identity. That's who
I am, and I could live then froma place of joy and identity in

(36:37):
the world. And man, I feelunstoppable at that point,
because, hey, God delights in meno matter what. And I'm a child
of God, it's pretty amazing. Youknow, one of the things that our
church is trying to figure outis we're in a moment of we want
to focus, focus on what we'resupposed to be doing, which is
discipleship, disciple making,being disciples and making

(36:59):
disciples. And for some people,it feels like there's two
different distinct pathways ofdiscipleship. One is towards the
independence of making moredisciples, obeying the commands
of Jesus, just doing the workand just going out there. And
for others, it is more intimacy.
It is deepening your relationalcomponent with God, or your

(37:25):
relationship with God, yourintimacy with God, and then your
intimacy with others, and beingable to to be intimate with each
other and have good relationalhealth. And there feels to be
like two different pathways, butin something like John 15, I
feel like it's integrated,right? If you abide in My love,

(37:46):
Jesus says to disciples, He willobey my commands. If you obey my
commands, you're going to abidein My love. Like it feels
symbiotic, and it doesn't feellike there are two pathways. How
do we integrate then those twopathways for emotional,
spiritual health as we movetowards our relationship with
each other and God,

Unknown (38:09):
well, I think the first step is to say neither pathway
is the best and neither pathwaypathway is the worst, right? So
in that sense of like we havethese two pathways, there's a
good reason they're there,because that's really all of
that is Kingdom work. That's allreally important. And so valuing
the people who naturally want toget busy, right and go, like,

(38:30):
I'm part of God's familybusiness, let's get to work, and
valuing the people who are like,I just want to be with God. It's
sort of the martha mary paradox,but it's, I think that, that
it's going to come to a pointwhere we like to talk about, you
know, God meets us through somepractices and through some
activities, and then he moves usthrough other ones. And so if

(38:52):
you think about the things thatare natural, that come naturally
to you, that you say, this ishow I want to live out my life
with God. That's places whereGod is meeting you in the places
that are already familiar orcoming naturally. But then it
goes, God also wants to move youdeeper and further into the
pasture by taking up your crossand following him into the

(39:13):
things that are less comfortableand are you know harder for you
or feel less important to youeven. And so bringing those two
pathways together, I think, atthe base, requires each of the
people who are being formed indiscipleship to have a moment
where they have to say, I dochoose to die to myself and take

(39:37):
on the things that are not goingto be comfortable for me,
because I know that God has morefor me. And so part of the work
of of discipleship formation isunderstanding that you know
life, life can be easy and youcan follow Jesus, but they don't
always happen at the same time,right? Like life isn't going to
be easy as you follow Jesus allthe time. And so that sort of

(39:59):
what is. Your level ofwillingness to say, you know, I
will be uncomfortable for thesake of my Savior.

I think one, I totally agree with what you were
saying, that sometimes thereseems to be a dichotomy, or some
opposition between discipleshiplanguage and spiritual formation
language. I see that quite abit, and I think you're right
that they do kind of tendtoward, like, intimacy and
independence. You know, Sid's aspiritual director. She's
trained that way, right? And soshe's more in the spiritual

(40:30):
formation world, right? Soshe'll often talk about, like,
well, what is God inviting usinto? Right? It's very like open
handed. It's very like intimacyproducing, what's God inviting
and then, you know, I come fromindependent Bible, Baptist
discipleship, kind of models,right? And so sometimes I want
to counter with like, Well, howdo we just need to obey, right?

(40:50):
You know, which is kind of goesmore into that rules the law,
and then my agency, right? Orindependence, like, it's
willpower, but those thingsshouldn't be opposed, right?
Sometimes, certainly, Jesus isalways inviting us onto the
gentle way, you know, with hislight burdens, and then other
times, in the same way, he'salso asking us to be obedient,

(41:12):
right? This. So how can we bringthose two things together? Sid,
and I have we also kind of, youknow, she's like, wants to focus
on the human being, and we'renot human doings. But then I'm
also like, but, but we'resupposed to do stuff, right, you
know? So, so there is that tugof war, but really, I think
you're right, there should bemore integration, which is our

(41:33):
goal. And so that's why we kindof rely on some of the
attachment science. But then wealso, you know, you see it all
over in Scripture, we go back tobeing made in the image of God,
that certainly we are made forintimacy with God and communion
with God, and there's all thatlanguage. But then we're also
made to be image bearers outinto the world. We're extending
God's kingdom in some fashion.
We're heralds. We're royalrepresentatives of God's rule

(41:53):
and reign, and that we'repartners with God, who kind of
make a beautiful new world inpartnership with God. And so how
do we, you know, we're childrenof God, who's also, and Sid used
this language already, who'sbeen entrusted with the share of
the family business. And thefamily business of God is
bringing God's kingdom to theworld, or in other ways that you
were talking about in John 15is, you know, extending God's

(42:14):
love, like, how can we just bebetter lovers of all of God's
creation

Unknown (42:21):
together, and maybe like to boil it down to
something really tangible andconcrete would be like. So an
integration of those twopathways might be like, Okay,
how do we read Scripturetogether? Because the people
that want to go and makedisciples have to be able to
communicate how we read theBible, and the people who just
want to be with Jesus are alsohopefully reading the Bible,

(42:41):
right? So if we talk about like,when we read the Bible, there
are, there are different ways ofreading the Bible, and we can
actually do both some of thoseways at the same time, right? So
maybe even, okay, let's dig intothis text. Let's look at all of
the different patterns we see.
Let's look at these words thatare used and where else they're
used in Scripture. Let's do allof that, but then let's take a

(43:02):
pause, and let's consider, howam I receiving what I'm hearing
right now? How is this affectingme? And what am I noticing, as
far as like things that aregetting kicked up for me, and
where do I feel resistance?
Where do I feel invitation?
Where do I feel like this isgood news that I can really
absorb and sink in? And where amI really confronted by this?

(43:25):
Like this doesn't feel good. Andso allowing the study and the
sort of logical, linear work oflooking at what the Bible is
saying, but then also allowingit to speak on another level of
you know, Jesus didn't call justheads. He also called whole
bodies, because Jesus himselfwas embodied, and, you know,

(43:47):
touched people and loved peopleand ate with people. And so how
do we bring our bodies into theunderstanding of Scripture,
rather than keeping themseparated? And so that would be
one way to integrate just asimple thing, like, hopefully
we're all reading our Bibles.
Can we all be reading them ondifferent in different ways, and

(44:10):
not just in the one way that we

that we know? It seems to me that within these
these different landscapes, theycould be individual, but they
could also be family. They couldalso be a church. Landscape. The
church is like this. It couldalso be our our city or
community, and it also be ournation. Feels like there's
different landscapes that we alllike, gravitate towards, or

(44:35):
we've we've been in this, thisfear mode in America for a long
time, and where things are basedout of fear and a scarcity
model, which I don't know why wehave scarcity when we have
really we have abundance. Andthere's a there's so much stuff
that we have, but so how do wethen break those cycles? Because
it seems to me like all of thesethings then cycle into either

(44:58):
the next generation or the.
People around us. How do webreak a cycle to move us all
towards the pasture and not getstuck in the deserts or the
jungle or the war zone?

Unknown (45:11):
Well, I think the first thing we need to do is be
explicit about it, right? So wetalk about like, explicit. It's
the things you can talk about.
It's the things you know youknow, or you know you don't
know. And then there's theimplicit, is the stuff that
you're unaware of, or the stuffthat you just sort of act
impulsively out of. And so, youknow, part of the way that, part
of the way that we wrote thebook, was to try to help people
become more explicit or havebetter language or understanding

(45:36):
of frameworks to understand howthey're living out of defaults,
because once you can bring thatup into your level of awareness
and be explicit about it andtalk about it with other people
in your community, so you're notjust learning it for yourself,
but you're also communicatingwith other people, saying, I'm
noticing this about myself, andI'm learning this as my default,
and this is my strategy, andbeing able to communicate about

(45:57):
that, and then being able tointentionally say, but this
strategy worked for me in thepast, and I needed it, but it's
not working anymore, and I don'tneed it anymore. And this
strategy is basically me tryingto protect myself in one way or
another. And instead ofprotecting myself, I want to
make the choice to learn toconnect, right, to connect to

(46:18):
God's joy, to learn to connectto relational joy. And so
there's that sort of intentionalshift. And without intentional
shifts, we will pass oneverything that we are living
out of. And withoutintentionally trying to come up
with understanding and awarenessand like language around it,
sharing that in community,making some intentional shifts

(46:40):
and practicing those shifts thatthen they will sink down again
into a level of implicit ways ofbeing where we don't have to
think so hard anymore, becauseit's like we've run new
experiments, we've collected newdata, we've drawn new
conclusions, and now it's sortof like we've updated our
strategies to make sense in thekingdom of God, rather than in

(47:02):
the kingdom of self.

I love, well, one I love. You know, the name
of this podcast is shiftingculture, and there is a way to
kind of look at the big macroculture of like Western culture.
And this is a whole nother kindof podcast, but it's created
these lopsided discipleshipprograms, I think because in the
West, we could say there's kindof been this kind of an entire

(47:26):
desert mentality overrationalized, disembodied, kind
of really pressed into thescientific, kind of
reductionistic view of theworld, you know, that's kind of
created like a desert mentalitywith its own desert discipleship
pathways that were kind ofraised up as the way or leading
us into the pasture, but theyweren't. They were just

(47:46):
lopsided. And then within that,of course, you have people
reacting against that in a waythat maybe overreacted. So then
they just go to the jungle like,oh, it's not about, you know,
the mind or the doctrine ortruth, like, it's about feelings
and emotions and experiencingGod. And so then we kind of over
corrected. And so I thinkthere's a lot of church pockets
that kind of went that way andkind of moved into the jungle.

(48:08):
And I would say, as a wholeculture, this is just my view,
that in the last 50 plus years,I think our whole culture in the
West is rapidly, like, headedtoward the jungle, or we're just
kind of like, but that's a wholenother thing, right? Which will
kind of create its own othercounteractions, counter
reactions, right? And so I thinkjust acknowledging that we've
had a lot of reactions andcounter reactions within the

(48:31):
jungle and desert in the Westthat have created these very
lopsided discipleship pathwaysthat then create their own
lopsided reactions. And so we'rejust trying to understand that
and then say, I think, you know,the science and Scripture is
saying there's an integrated wayto move forward. And can we, can
we do that together and be alittle more generous and open

(48:52):
handed and compassionate to oneanother and the different places
we're all coming from, but thenbuild off of each other's
strengths while we support eachother's weaknesses. Is, I think,
kind of the hope that we havethat's

great, and we'll get into some ways that people
can engage, that those theintegrated things in things that
you're providing, which islandscapes of the soul this
book, and some other things thatyou guys could be doing. But
before that, we have, I have acouple questions I'd like to ask
at the end. So this is for bothof you. If you go back to your
21 year old self, what advicewould you give?

I think for me, I think it would be to realize
that it's good for me to be verylike goal focused. But not
everyone is like that. I think,like I brought into our marriage
and then parenting, kind oflike, if someone's like, oh, I

(49:48):
have a goal. I want to do this,I was like, Okay, I will help
you do that. And then I wouldget more excited about it than
they were, and then I'd kind ofruin it for him, or something
like that. So I think it's verythat high independence side. I.
Of me. That's kind of where Icame from, and I had to round
out the intimacy. So I thinkkind of maybe that would have
been helpful to know a littlemore explicitly, a little

(50:08):
earlier on. Yeah, so I guessthat's off the top of my head.
Maybe something else willemerge.

Unknown (50:13):
Yeah, mine would be very different. I didn't know
Jeff. I'm older than Jeff, sowhen I was 21 I was dating
someone that I had no businessdating. So I would have said to
myself, quit, like, stop datingthis guy right now. Don't waste
another moment with him. And Ialso would have just said, just
relax. Like, I think I had somuch anxiety about my future and

(50:35):
anxiety about relationships andjust sort of overthinking
everything. So I think I think Iwould have just wanted to say to
myself, relax, you're going tobe okay.

Anything you've been reading or watching lately,
you guys could recommend,

you know, we really liked, is it called
shrinking. So it's about theirtherapist is on Apple TV. Kind
of just the everyday lives oftherapists. That was pretty
entertaining. We kind of likethe light fare, because, you
know, our lives can be veryserious in our real life, so
then we're always kind oflooking for a little
entertainment.

Unknown (51:08):
I've just been reading a lot of fiction by an author
that I just found recently whodoes a really nice job of doing
really great characterdevelopment, but then also
integrates, like difficult faithissues that her characters are
having I'm not usually a fan ofChristian fiction, but I really
like hers. So her name is LynnAustin, and I've sort of been
reading book after book of hersand finding just the way that

(51:33):
she handles issues of faith tobe really refreshing. Great.

That's good. Sid and Jeff's new book, landscapes
of the soul is available August5, right? Anywhere you get, get
your books. So go out and getthis. It's a fantastic read, and
it's helpful, right, to makethings explicit so that we can
start to talk about thesethings, navigate our landscapes,
know where we're where we'refrom, know where we're going,

(51:59):
and headed towards the pastureso that we could have a joyful
attachment to God and to othersin our relationships. It's a
it's a great, great book. Isthere anywhere else that you
would like to point people to,anything that you would want
them to know about? Yeah, you

can find our podcast, my sub stack, and kind
of all the trainings we do atembodied faith, dot life.
Embodied faith is one word andthen dot life, so that's kind of
where you can find all the stuff

that we're doing. Great. Sounds good? Well
said, Jeff, thank you so muchfor this conversation. Thank you
for taking us into thesedifferent landscapes and helping
us navigate what it looks likein spiritual formation, our
interpersonal relationships andour relationship with God, it
was fantastic conversation. Ireally enjoyed it. So thank you
so much. Yeah, thank you. You

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Ep. 323 Cyd & Geoff Holsclaw - Discipleship and Attachment: Healing the Way We Relate to God

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 323 Cyd & Geoff Holsclaw - Discipleship and Attachment: Healing the Way We Relate to God