July 13, 2025 • 41 mins
Episode 9 - Phantom Faith
While they’ve left their former religious tradition behind, Sarah and Corinne now must begin the arduous task of creating a new paradigm through which to live and understand. When Sarah’s beloved father-in-law passes, she falls back on her old ways and walks into a Christian church – only to be confronted with triggering music and environment that send her running outside in a panic. Corinne listens to Robyn Sherwell’s cover of “Landslide” and begins to identify with it in ways she did not before.
Both women come to see that they gave up their own agency in order to live within the Christian tradition and that stepping outside of it requires a conscious change in habitual behaviors. Echoes of their former belief structure and church ecosystem ripple through their lives, leaving in their wake a phantom faith akin to an amputee’s sensation of the lost limb.
They examine the intentions behind the oft-repeated Christian phrase, “I’ll pray for you,” and find that, while it could be about trying to affect a desired outcome, it also could simply be an expression of “with you.” It is this latter sentiment that still rings true amidst the ghostly waves of the phantom faith reverberations.
Far from needing answers or outcomes for everything, they’re learning that questions don’t always need answers. Unknowing from an attitude of marvel and presence – sitting with each other in the uncertainty - can sometimes be the full experience.
In the Christianity they practiced before, they outsourced wisdom and power to a being beyond themselves. Now they’re now coming to wonder if what they’ve been waiting for and needing has actually been within them all along.
To connect with Sarah or Corinne, find them on Instagram:
@heysarahcarter @thesaltyshark @sarahandcorinne
For more information about Spiritual Pyro, visit www.spiritualpyro.com.
While they’ve left their former religious tradition behind, Sarah and Corinne now must begin the arduous task of creating a new paradigm through which to live and understand. When Sarah’s beloved father-in-law passes, she falls back on her old ways and walks into a Christian church – only to be confronted with triggering music and environment that send her running outside in a panic. Corinne listens to Robyn Sherwell’s cover of “Landslide” and begins to identify with it in ways she did not before.
Both women come to see that they gave up their own agency in order to live within the Christian tradition and that stepping outside of it requires a conscious change in habitual behaviors. Echoes of their former belief structure and church ecosystem ripple through their lives, leaving in their wake a phantom faith akin to an amputee’s sensation of the lost limb.
They examine the intentions behind the oft-repeated Christian phrase, “I’ll pray for you,” and find that, while it could be about trying to affect a desired outcome, it also could simply be an expression of “with you.” It is this latter sentiment that still rings true amidst the ghostly waves of the phantom faith reverberations.
Far from needing answers or outcomes for everything, they’re learning that questions don’t always need answers. Unknowing from an attitude of marvel and presence – sitting with each other in the uncertainty - can sometimes be the full experience.
In the Christianity they practiced before, they outsourced wisdom and power to a being beyond themselves. Now they’re now coming to wonder if what they’ve been waiting for and needing has actually been within them all along.
To connect with Sarah or Corinne, find them on Instagram:
@heysarahcarter @thesaltyshark @sarahandcorinne
For more information about Spiritual Pyro, visit www.spiritualpyro.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Sarah (00:02):
For all the Match Strikers, this
is spiritual pyro.
>> Corinne (00:25):
Okay, so, we have, like, just kind
of a really good conversation to have today.
I'm actually really looking forward to this one ca. Because it feels
like it's really the
core of the deconstruction
conversations that we've been, swirling.
And because it's the grief
part, it's the hard part,
(00:48):
it's the liminal space, it's the in between.
You know, we've set down the things that we thought we
knew for sure and the time
when we hadn't yet picked up anything else. And
all of that feels, like the meat of the
conversation. And I just feel like
the responses that we have received
(01:08):
online know, in DMs and
texts and comments, some of those
conversations that we've been having with people feel like
this is the part that's the hardest. This
is the part that maybe people don't talk
about as much. the part that maybe feels the loneliest.
So, I don't know. In a weird way, I'm kind of looking forward
(01:28):
to this part of the conversation the most.
>> Sarah (01:32):
That's very un. Seven of you. Very un.
Enneagram. Seven of you to be like, let's talk about the
hard, sad part, but maybe, like,
very evolved.
>> Corinne (01:42):
Right.
>> Sarah (01:42):
This is, like a healthy thing.
>> Corinne (01:44):
This is good.
>> Sarah (01:45):
This is way more in my wheelhouse as a four. I'm like, let's get
into this saddest, darkest, hardest
parts. I know.
>> Corinne (01:52):
Well, you know how many times I'm like, am I even a seven
anymore? You know, like, And then, obviously that's the
most seven thing of me to say is, am I
even a seven if I'm talking about grief? Right.
Very true, very true.
>> Sarah (02:05):
So that's. Yeah. I think
the language, even the phrasing of referring to
this grief as kind of a phantom grief or
a phantom faith, a phantom aching.
I just feel like that's such an accurate portrayal
of that feeling of reaching
for something that's brought comfort or
(02:25):
familiarity for so long and then
finding it not there, or finding it changed
or you changed. Regardless, there's a change.
And change initiates grief.
Even if it's a good grief, even if it's important. Right.
It's still ye. difficult.
>> Corinne (02:42):
Yeah. Even
just a
surface look at the idea of a
phantom limb or phantom pain and
a very real sensation that,
anyone who has experienced an
amputation of any sort,
seems to be able to relate to in some
(03:05):
way. I think that, you know,
borrowing that significant
sensation and applying it
to a change or a loss
in something that had been so
deeply woven into our
identities, our lives, the way that we
move throughout the world. to then
(03:27):
be missing that, like you said,
to reach for it in a moment, whether its in a
moment of difficulty or decision making
or even in a moment of hope and
it not be there. That painful sensation
of what do I reach for?
How do I steady myself? What is it that
(03:48):
moors me? What is it that keeps me buoyant?
I have had so many moments. We've talked so
much about how deconstruction isn't just like this
one massive response to
a difficult moment. It's been this ongoing
questioning, searching, pushing and
pulling, unraveling. It's been such a. We've always
(04:08):
been deconstructing in some way. So this
idea that then we reach for something
and one day realize it's really no
longer there in the way that it always was.
I don't know about you, but I can think of so many
moments where that was a
little unnerving, that was a little
unsettling or maybe even scary.
(04:31):
But definitely lonely. Definitely lonely
for me to not know what it is
that I would then depend on
or seek.
And I'll say for
myself, I think that one of the hardest parts of
deconstruction and the phantom faith was
realizing in those moments that it was just me.
(04:53):
That I had outsourced my decision
making, I had outsourced my hope, I had
outsourced my intuition
for so long that to
then be left knowing that it was just
me, I was the one I'd been waiting
for. That wasn't a powerful phrase at
(05:13):
first. It was like oh, I'm the one I've been waiting for.
This is up to me. Like oh shit.
I really liked having something else I could
something else I could reach for outside of myself. But really
coming to that place of needing to reach
in instead of out,
that was, that took some new musculature. That
(05:34):
took some learning. How about you?
>> Sarah (05:36):
Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's so
profound because really a
lot of. I'm thinking of a few different moments
when out of deconstruction
you know, you're going. I, I'm thinking of a time
actually where I experienced a real loss
when my husband Steves dad passed
away. And it was after we'd gone through everything
(05:59):
we'd gone through at our church in Illinois and moved to Arizona.
We were a few months
into sort of trying to establish a new normal
there. M And his father passed away after a long
challenging battle with leukemia.
And it was the loss that we
had anticipated at some point and yet you're never really
(06:19):
ready when it, when you face it, right. And
That coming out of having experienced so
much loss, it just felt so overwhelming. It was like coming
to the end of myself and not having anything
more to reach for. And those are moments in the
past when I would have reached for the church,
I would have reached for my faith. I would have reached for some
(06:40):
comfort and some certainty in the midst of
so much loss and unknown. And I
actually tried. I actually tried. I found a local church
and I, I have this very specific memory
of, you know, wanting that comfort. I wanted the
worship songs, I wanted the sense of familiarity and
predictability and just you walk in, you know how it's gonna
(07:00):
feel, you know you're goingna be met with kindness, the whole
thing, right? And I
had a massive panic attack as soon as
I got into the sanctuary. It was, I, ah, mean I
still can feel that, that anxiety where it was really just
my whole, my whole being was saying you need to get
out of here. Like this isn't, this is not going to bring
(07:21):
you, this is no longer it, this isn't the thing.
And that, that realization
of what I had reached for,
expecting to kind of hold me and help me through
wasn't going to be it. I felt like I was
floating, right, like kind of like untethered, like
lost at sea, like with no sense of my
bearings. And if it's, if I don't have this
(07:44):
certainty that I can reach for,
then what? And letting that question
sit because it's like, yeah, then
what? And it's similar to what you're saying with like you're who
you've been waiting for. Like that means
all of a sudden I love your language about
outsourcing. Cause it's like all of a sudden
the reckoning of the,
(08:06):
the amounts of self led and
self responsibility that we've handed
off to a religion, a
system, a belief,
suddenly we're holding the
accountability ourselves and the responsibility
ourselves. And we're doing that
without the development that would come
(08:27):
naturally if that had been our posture all along, right? At
least for me was like I felt
stunted because I had spent so many years not
working those muscles and not practicing and not developing and
not growing the way I, nor I think I'd like to think
naturally I would have, but instead of doing
that I had just handed off so much of that
responsibility to the
(08:50):
church.
>> Corinne (08:53):
The development piece. Like I always think of the
phrase related to my faith
that there's moments where I recognize my
Arrested development. Right. So I just always loved that
old show. But like, there is so many
points along the way where we can notice our Arrested Development.
Where we stopped, where we
(09:13):
started handing off, where we started abdicating our
agency, where we started outsourcing. I just
want toa take a minute with that panic attack moment.
And as you look back at it now,
do you see that you felt a
lack of safety in trying
to reach for something, trying to reach for the church
(09:34):
again? Or did it feel empty?
Did it feel like there just wasn't anything there
for you anymore? I'm just kind of wondering maybe as you think back to
that panic attack moment. Cause it's so
significant, informative for how you moved
forward. What do you kind of, what's your
sense about that now?
>> Sarah (09:54):
I really think the panic attack was a
lot more kind of primal than it was cognitive. I
wasn't really thinking about, oh, this doesn't
feel safe where the church isn't. This isn't where I'mnna get what I
need. A lot of those thoughts came later really, in the moment. It
was, it was kind of a snap back
to. Everything about this environment is
triggering. Everything about this environment is reminding
(10:16):
me of, of what I came out of and what
was what caused myself and my family and so many people
that I love so much harm. And
I think I, I guess I just hadn't considered
it. I was so desperate for comfort
and support in the midst of the grief that I went to the thing that,
that was most familiar and I did. Muscle memory
(10:37):
associate. Exactly. It was just like, this is where,
this is where we go. And it wasn't until
I stepped into that space and heard the
worship songs, that I just, I had to leave. I had to.
I, I just had to leave. I, I remember
going and sitting on a bench, like outside of the sanctuary,
thinking, I can like get a handle on this. It's fine, calm
down. And of course that does not work when
(10:59):
you'like on the cusp of a panic attack. It just makes it
worse. And so, yeah, ended up just having to leave.
Had to come, had to come back home and, and find a new
way to, to
process grief, to, to process
something hard that didn't require
something outside of myself. And yeah, and that mean
(11:20):
that took a long time.
>> Corinne (11:21):
Right?
>> Sarah (11:21):
That's, that's a. I think that's a challenge
always. I, I wonder if it will Always be a
challenge. Just because I spent so many years
immersed in. In a type of
dependence scene.
>> Corinne (11:58):
I feel like the comment that you
made about something that feels
like comfort, and it was that
familiar place of comfort,
I think that is such a common thread for so many of us
where, what
religion, you know, in lots of different senses,
(12:19):
often is something that provides people comfort. And that's
a big reason why we participate in it. So
when something that has always provided
comfort, all of a sudden no longer does, that's so
jarring. your language
about feeling lost at sea really,
like, resonates with me because I'm thinking
about what I always refer to as my
(12:41):
landslide moment, where I was
teaching yoga in my living room
on a weekly basis when we lived in Thailand.
And, I had been doing it for quite
some time at that point and had regular
people in my classes. And, there was
always, so much spirituality
involved in the practice, and
(13:03):
already built in just in terms of, you know, the tradition of
the practice. And then, you know, that was something that I
was, sharing in the
expat community that I was living in. So there was an
additional, like, Christian
evangelical, bent
to the yoga that I was teaching.
And I will never forget there
(13:25):
was. It was a shift, it was
a pivot. It was like a before and
after moment where I was like, not the same after. And
I had been wrestling with a lot of things, while we were
there. You know, moving overseas
and living in a Buddhist monarchy really
forced me to reconcile with a lot of those
(13:46):
remaining threads that I was trying so hard to hold. Ono, you're talking
about that certainty, right? I mean, that keeps coming up for us
is, damn, I loved my
certainty. But I was teaching
that class, and I remember being in a
shoulder opener pose that had me
facing the wall, away from the
people that were in my class. And
(14:09):
the song on my playlist was Robin
Sherwell's cover of Stevie Nick
singing, Landslide. And I'd heard that
song a million times. I heard it. I'd heard that version
a million times. But in that moment,
and in a situation
where. Or maybe I should not
(14:30):
really a situation more of like an atmosphere where I had
been practicing being so connected
to my physical self, to my body,
the embodiment practices that had become
so deeply important to me,
those two things together, hearing that
song in a moment where even just visually, I was by myself,
(14:51):
even though in the room I wasn't hearing those words. I
took my love and I took it down Climbed
A mountain. And I turned around. Like, I mean, everybody
knows those lyrics, but if you have a chance, if you're
listening, go and listen to Robin Sherwell's cover of
that. It's different. And,
it was a pivotal point for me. I, in that
(15:12):
moment, realized that was not a love song to
me, was a song that was a
breakup song to me with
the church. And I had realized
that this sense of patching holes
on a ship that was sinking my own
faith, I was so
(15:32):
exhausted, patching these holes
constantly. And that moment
of experiencing that song and letting it
really, that wave just roll
through my body in that moment, I started to cry right
there on my mat. It was a very somatic experience.
And I realized that I had to stop
trying to patch the holes. All the holes,
(15:55):
all the certainty I wanted so much was just
me swimming around that ship, just trying to
keep the water out. And in that moment when I let
that wave roll through me, I just let the water roll in.
And come what may, if the
ship was going to sink or float, it wasn't
going to be because of me. There was nothing that I
(16:15):
was going to be able to do to keep this faith afloat.
It either is true enough to float on
its own or false enough to
sink to the bottom of the ocean floor. And that really had nothing
to do with me. So I could rest
for a minute. So anyway, taking my love and taking
it down, that song, those lyrics, was
(16:36):
me just deciding to just
be done. Trying
so damn hard
to keep that certainty intact.
I was never the same after that moment. And I remember I
was like, how do I finish this class?
How do I. How do I. Like. Like
(16:57):
nobody in this room knows. The moment that I just had.
Was very internal and very
lonely. But it was also really
beautiful because it was this giant
exhale of, you don't have to. You don't
have to crawl on your knees, right?
That poem that we love so much is that Wild geese.
(17:17):
Yeah, like. Yeah, like,
it's okay. You don't have to try so hard. And once
I stop trying so hard to keep it all
patched together and keep it all
intact. I changed everything.
>> Sarah (17:32):
Ye.
>> Corinne (17:32):
But it also washed in
all that grief to. Started to flood in too.
>> Sarah (18:06):
Yeah, it's that, It's the dec. In
the midst of the deconstruction, there's a piece
that I think we have to make peace
with the.
Without having certainty, we have to let it go. We have to let that
go. And that. That is so terrifying. And
Also it does leave a
(18:27):
massive you know,
emptiness, an absence, that, that is
felt, that is that phantom ache that
you reach for and it's not there.
And it makes me think of the phrase that you,
you use often. The. I know, honey, I
know that that inner kindness that you use for
yourself and I'm curious if that it remind, what
(18:49):
you just shared reminds me of that phrase. And I,
I just feel like it's, it's such a
beautiful also moment of like you
don't have to have it all figured out and you can,
you can like open your hands. They don't have to be so tight
fisted and there's, there's
like self compassion in that. There's a sense of,
(19:10):
of. Yeah, like I, I,
I've been trying so hard and you get to the end of
that and there's this exhale in,
it's all wrapped together. The grief,
the, the loneliness, the uncertainty. But also
somehow the relief that comes from not
having to hold it all together or keep trying
to make sense of something or make something fit that doesn't
(19:32):
fit.
>> Corinne (19:33):
Yeah, that
lyric that's in the song. I've been afraid of
changing because I built my life around you.
That moment was
likeo. Like
that, that was me telling the truth
about my own life. Like I was afraid
of changing not just because of this
(19:53):
idea of God that I had had, but I built
my life around this. Like if this
isn't like what happens like when you said what
then? I built my. I'm afraid of changing because I built my
life. I was living in Southeast Asia.
I went as far as I could go, I took it as far as
I could take it. Built, I literally built my life around it.
(20:14):
what then? If it's not this, then
what, like what have I been doing with my life all these years?
And I think that if we're honest with ourselves and I
say we meaning collectively, like that's a
really hard thing to
take down off the shelf when you've
invested so many years, so many
(20:35):
decisions, so much time, so much energy, so much money,
frankly for a lot of us, we've invested
so much. And if not that, then
what? Right? So that was a truth
telling moment of
honesty with myself that I had to
admit that I was afraid of changing because I had
built my life around the church. And
(20:57):
so it wasn't just a loss of a sense
of self or a sense of belief. It
was also like, what do I have to
show for my life if this isn't Real
or true or good. I mean, you know, whatever word we want to attach to
it. Like if I let this ship sink.
What do I, what do I have? What then? So
(21:18):
I want to honor the fact that there's so many of us
on that path of asking that question and we're in
so many different places on that path and,
and it's hard to tell ourselves the truth
about our own lives. And we don't do it
willingly most of the time, quite frankly. We don't do it willingly.
Right. Something has to happen or we have to have a
moment, A before and after moment
(21:40):
that is a mirror
for ourselves. And that was one of those things. So the
I know, honey, I know is that open
palm on my chest. That kind
of is
what I started to whisper to myself in
those moments when I didn't have
(22:01):
prayer anymore. I didn't have prayer in the same
sense anymore. I didn't know what
prayer was. What was prayer going toa be
if it wasn't this, you know? And I know
honey became this like little
whisper to myself, of it's okay. I know this is
hard. I know there's a loss. I know
there's a vacancy. I know there's a space that
(22:23):
you don't know what to fill it with.
And I think what I realize is that
I don't have to fill it. Like it's just
me in there. Like it's just
I can be with myself
in that moment and I can just stay.
And really isn't that where with you
(22:44):
also originated for us too?
>> Sarah (22:46):
Right, yeah, that's. I was just
thinking, I, first of all, I want to hear more
about what you were saying about prayer. And what it
made me think of was, you know, really
I recognized one of the things that, that I
really noticed like stood out to me post, post
my kind of church life was
(23:07):
how when someone that I cared about
would share something hard
or uncertain that maybe they were going
through. My knee jerk response
was to say, I'll pray for you.
Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold that in prayer. I'm going to be
praying for you. And it, it, it came from
this deep sense of wanting to support
(23:29):
and wanting to offer my withness, my
connection, my, my thoughts and
prayers.
>> Corinne (23:35):
Right.
>> Sarah (23:36):
But when I, when I started to really think
about and pull that apart and go, what do I
actually mean when I say that?
What does that mean? And even if, even if it is
the actual literal practice of prayer, what, what
is that kind of breaking it all down and
recognizing so
much of my intention behind those words was
(23:59):
to express and create a connection
with someone that I cared about to if they were going through
something hard to help them hold that hard thing, to let them
know they're not alone and to offer
support. And that really is
where that with you phrase for us
has come to mean so much. Because that's really
(24:19):
what I mean when I say that that's what I'm, that's what
I'm actively intending
and creating and focusing on when I say
that is this connection, this withness, this
support. And where
prayer can mean so many
things. And I think I,
I experience the connection
(24:41):
of something bigger than myself. But it's
not like sticking a quarter in the gumball
machine and getting your wish right. It's not like if
I pray this way I'll get this. Or if
I pray enough times or if I spend
enough hours doing, if I have a prayer journal and I'm up at
5am If I do all these things the right way, then I'll
(25:01):
get what I want. And if I don't get what I
want, it's just God's will,
which is like we can sit in that
for a little while.
>> Corinne (25:12):
I mean that's a whole episode,
honestly. Yeah. Because
really when that knee jerk of I'll pray for
you insinuates that there is
some power to change
something and I think the, with
you is
the, even if nothing changes,
(25:35):
I'm here, that feels like it's a
different sentiment. I'll pray for
you, at least for me was always like,
so that this thing happens or
doesn't happen, whichever
applies. it makes me think of
the wood carving that
(25:55):
that is and has been for as
long as I can remember above my parents kitchen window
that says it'a wood carving that says prayer changes
things and it's just been there forever.
Nobody even thinks about it because it'just it's like a part of the
house. Right. And I
remember when I started looking at that differently
and being like, but does it,
(26:18):
but does it? Because
when you experience tragic loss,
whether it'expected or
not, like your father in
law in his passing or like when
my younger brother passed away years ago
when he died after almost
three years of battle, ah with brain
(26:40):
cancer and
the grief, I was part of
his know care whether it was emotionally or
physically at some point. and it was textbook
for me. Three months, almost
exactly three months after he died is when
the depression and the anxiety and the grief
like hit like
(27:03):
I was. I didn't have the
tools. I had not experienced, grief
like that. I had never experienced depression or anxiety
like that. And it completely took over my
life.
I mean, I was grieving after he
died, but it was at that point that I was like,
oh, I don't know how to deal with this. I don't
(27:26):
have the tools for this. but I remember laying on my
floor one night next to my bed,
and I had been just an absolute mess
emotionally and was really
just working hard to make sure I didn't wake up my kids that
night. And I was reading C.S.
lewis as a grief observed at that point. And I remember there
(27:46):
was a part of the book that,
he's talking with a colleague about prayer,
and I think after he loses his wife
to cancer or when she's battling cancer, I can't remember
actually. It was so long ago, I haven't read it
recently. But, the colleague says,
what's the point? Why do you pray, basically?
(28:08):
And, his response back is,
prayer doesn't change God. Prayer changes me.
And I felt like that
was a really big shift from what I
had always been taught about prayer. And that
really opened up. I mean, C.S. lewis is a
very specifically Christian, theologian and
philosopher. But, it really opened me
(28:30):
up to start considering prayer differently.
And that got broader and
wider and more expansive and more inclusive of what prayer
could be. But it also really made me think, like, does
prayer change things? What is it that we're doing? So coming
back to what is it that we're really getting at when we say that we're go goingna pray
for somebody? especially in those moments when
(28:52):
whether it all feels lost or
we're out of control because we are experiencing emotions we've
never experienced before and we haven't yet, gained the
tools to navigate those things. I
mean, right now we can look anywhere in the
world. You know, we were just in our group
chat talking about all the while, all
the while, all of these things are going on around us all the
(29:14):
time. And do we really think that prayer
changes things or does prayer change us? Does
prayer change our posture toward one another? And, is
that really the with you of
come what may, I'm here. The linking
arms, the hands at each other's
backs, the backs against the door. You know, it's
(29:35):
all of these postures that
we, that we're trying to communicate to each other
that you're not alone, like you said.
Yeah.
>> Sarah (29:45):
O. just holding that.
Holding. You know, there's a timelessness to grief.
I think even as we talk about. About it
just taking a minute because I know that loss was
so great for you with your brother.
And it's interesting how
we've both shared stories of loss of
loved ones as we're having this conversation about this
(30:07):
phantom faith and this grief that comes after
stepping away from everything we thought we knew for sure.
And I think our bodies hold that. It
all feels. Y. Feels very similar. It feels like
the same kinds of ache. And it's. I think it's really
good to honor that. And I think even as we're,
you know, we've got people in our lives that are walking through
(30:28):
their own types of deconstruction. All kinds.
Not always just faith, just. Just m. All kinds.
And it's just a good. It's a good
reminder. I'm having like a. This is a good reminder of
the softness that we need as we're going
through the process. Because this part, the come
down part off of deconstruction is really
(30:49):
a bridge.
>> Corinne (30:50):
Right?
>> Sarah (30:50):
It's. It's not where we live forever, but it
is something we. It's a phantom
ache. It. It doesn't necessarily go away either.
It's. It's not going to
be so overwhelming that we can't live our lives and function. It's not
that, but it's. It's just sort of acknowledging and naming. yeah, this
is. This too is part of
it, right? Mm.
>> Corinne (31:12):
Mm, H. Yeah.
And that it's universal.
So if it's
universal, then that means that
we all have access to
whatever it is that connects us.
Right. So the idea that one
(31:32):
branch of a belief system has the
market cornered on how to
communicate with this sense
that there's something bigger than us, the sense that
there is, you know, this presence
in our lives or this connective
tissue that we are
all, woven into, like the idea
(31:55):
that one group of people has the market cornered on that
is. I
mean, it's a little silly
because grief is so universal.
We all are finding ways
to engage what happens
when loss visits
us. Right.
(32:46):
You know, you and I both come from high control systems
where. Or actually, you know, we've
talked about that. That wasn't necessarily something that we're
coming from in our childhood, but something that we come from
in our adulthood. mostly. But we're
coming from these systems where
prayer and this engagement with. Whether
(33:06):
it's divinity or whether it
is, love. This idea that
the idea of prayer is.
Or that God's actions
are spirit led this idea that
we can claim that.
Creates a system that we've seen
(33:28):
be ripe for abuse in that sense.
So the idea that somebody can have the market
cornered on what prayer looks like or what grief looks like
or what anything looks like, and claim that that
is God's plan or that is something that
is spirit led puts. I mean quite frankly, if you
say something as spirit led in certain communities,
(33:48):
it's above approachach. There's no arguing, right? There's
no discussion it period. so I
think even some of the language that we have set
down and we've chosen different
ways to talk about our
experiences of this phantom faith or grief or
loss, allow for
accountability like you said before, allow for
(34:09):
responsibility. But that also then means that
we are then responsible for the decisions that we make.
And I think that starts to touch on agency, which you and
I talk about all the time.
so I'm curious know your thoughts
about how we start
practicing agency in a different way
(34:30):
as we have reconsidered
what the core of the idea of prayer actually
is for us. So yeah, just, I'm curious what you think about
that.
>> Sarah (34:40):
Well, I mean as you were talking, that was the word in
my head. I was like, oh my gosh, this is agency. That's what we're
talking about here. Because it's what,
it's what sort of fills the
void that's been left from that phantom
faith. It's that what, what we can
replace that dependency that
was, was placed so squarely on a system or
(35:03):
a religion back onto us.
It becomes our responsibility and
also it empowers us toward that
agency that you know, makes me think back to
your landslide story of just recognizing
like when you set it down, it's that come what
may and no one else is coming for us.
>> Corinne (35:22):
Right.
>> Sarah (35:22):
We've got to save ourselves. That mentality,
as scary and overwhelming as it is, it's
also incredibly empowering because you recognize
you are allowed to take up space, you are
allowed to be self led, you are allowed to say
yes, you're allowed to say no. And you
are responsible for the consequences.
>> Corinne (35:42):
Right? The outcomes.
>> Sarah (35:43):
Yep.
>> Corinne (35:44):
Yeah.
>> Sarah (35:45):
And, and I think that that the
interesting thing to me, what I've experienced time and again
is practicing self led
agency. Making decisions from that
place and following through. Living my life from
that place as best I possibly can leads to
so much more connection where there
(36:05):
was loss and emptiness and
loneliness. The less I know for
sure, the more I can set down and the more space
I can take up in my own life. The
more connections I see and experience, the
more empathy I can access. The more, the
more I want that with you and I want to be able to extend it
(36:25):
and I want to be able to receive it. It's just so
fascinating to me that so much of what I was grasping for within
a system, this community, this belonging,
this sense of security, so much of
that I'm finding now through
this practice of living with my own
agency.
>> Corinne (36:43):
Yeah. And that own
agency and having a
greater capacity for that, for that to open up that
space. Practicing our own
agency also means we're
so much more willing to be okay if we get it
wrong or if we make a mistake. And
(37:04):
how much of a relief that is
to not have to always be certain,
to not know, come what may. I don't know what's goingn to come from
this. I don't know what going to happen next. I'm going to
make a decision based on my own
intuitive embodied
sense of growth and
trust. This idea that we couldn't trust ourselves
(37:27):
when we start to realize that we actually
can and we can begin
making decisions and plotting
a course for our life that is
centered in our own decision making. Our
own agency like that also ups the
ante of what we might get wrong.
The mistakes we might make, the things that might
(37:49):
not go according to plan, the hard conversations we
might have to have, like. And yet
somehow that is so much
more beautiful.
>> Sarah (38:00):
M M Yeah. It also, it weirdly lowers
the stakes of getting it wrong or making
a mistake or having to develop
those. The muscles of I'm sorry or
I messed up and sitting with that and
allowing that to be true without it meaning
there's punishment or you're. You are
(38:20):
worth less than you were pre mistake or
that the world's go going toa come tumbling down because you got this
thing wrong. It just, it relieves of the pressure and
it allows for you, for us, for
everyone to be more human. Like fully
human. Not just the shiny parts that you get rewarded
for because y that's not honest.
>> Corinne (38:40):
Right.
>> Sarah (38:40):
Even when we get really good at projecting
just those shiny parts, the parts that fit
best at a church service.
>> Corinne (38:48):
Right.
>> Sarah (38:49):
It's still not honest. The other stuff is still there.
We just have a not embodied it and we haven't made peace with it.
And this side of deconstruction, this
phantom faith is where I think a lot of that
happens. It's that in the midst of the grief
and the loss and the understanding that what you had before is no
longer what you have and before you find what
(39:09):
you will have. The in between part
is where a lot of this work, I think, takes place. That's been my
experience, at least.
>> Corinne (39:17):
Yep. Yep. And come what
may, when we start to understand
that at the end of the day, we will always
have ourselves and that that is a safe
home for all of those
parts, only then can we
be safe for other people.
(39:37):
Right?
>> Sarah (39:38):
Yeah, that's really true. That's
very, very true.
>> Corinne (39:42):
So for anyone who
has set it all down and doesn't yet
know what's gonna come next,
like, I just feel like we are so with
you in that
space, of belonging to
yourself first before you can belong
(40:03):
with anyone else. And damn
if that's not just the most beautiful place to be. So I'm here
for it.
>> Sarah (40:10):
Yeah. Love it.
>> Corinne (40:11):
We're here.
>> Sarah (40:11):
We're with you. Love that.
>> Rebeca (40:21):
You'Ve been listening to Spiritual Pyro with
Sarah Carter and Ken shark on the 1C
Story Network. For more information about this
and all of our stories, please visit
just1c.com. That's J
U S T O N E
C.com
>> Sarah (40:58):
Wrap her up. Put a bow on her.
The One C Story Network. For
the love of stories.
For all the Match Strikers, this
is spiritual pyro.
>> Corinne (00:25):
Okay, so, we have, like, just kind
of a really good conversation to have today.
I'm actually really looking forward to this one ca. Because it feels
like it's really the
core of the deconstruction
conversations that we've been, swirling.
And because it's the grief
part, it's the hard part,
(00:48):
it's the liminal space, it's the in between.
You know, we've set down the things that we thought we
knew for sure and the time
when we hadn't yet picked up anything else. And
all of that feels, like the meat of the
conversation. And I just feel like
the responses that we have received
(01:08):
online know, in DMs and
texts and comments, some of those
conversations that we've been having with people feel like
this is the part that's the hardest. This
is the part that maybe people don't talk
about as much. the part that maybe feels the loneliest.
So, I don't know. In a weird way, I'm kind of looking forward
(01:28):
to this part of the conversation the most.
>> Sarah (01:32):
That's very un. Seven of you. Very un.
Enneagram. Seven of you to be like, let's talk about the
hard, sad part, but maybe, like,
very evolved.
>> Corinne (01:42):
Right.
>> Sarah (01:42):
This is, like a healthy thing.
>> Corinne (01:44):
This is good.
>> Sarah (01:45):
This is way more in my wheelhouse as a four. I'm like, let's get
into this saddest, darkest, hardest
parts. I know.
>> Corinne (01:52):
Well, you know how many times I'm like, am I even a seven
anymore? You know, like, And then, obviously that's the
most seven thing of me to say is, am I
even a seven if I'm talking about grief? Right.
Very true, very true.
>> Sarah (02:05):
So that's. Yeah. I think
the language, even the phrasing of referring to
this grief as kind of a phantom grief or
a phantom faith, a phantom aching.
I just feel like that's such an accurate portrayal
of that feeling of reaching
for something that's brought comfort or
(02:25):
familiarity for so long and then
finding it not there, or finding it changed
or you changed. Regardless, there's a change.
And change initiates grief.
Even if it's a good grief, even if it's important. Right.
It's still ye. difficult.
>> Corinne (02:42):
Yeah. Even
just a
surface look at the idea of a
phantom limb or phantom pain and
a very real sensation that,
anyone who has experienced an
amputation of any sort,
seems to be able to relate to in some
(03:05):
way. I think that, you know,
borrowing that significant
sensation and applying it
to a change or a loss
in something that had been so
deeply woven into our
identities, our lives, the way that we
move throughout the world. to then
(03:27):
be missing that, like you said,
to reach for it in a moment, whether its in a
moment of difficulty or decision making
or even in a moment of hope and
it not be there. That painful sensation
of what do I reach for?
How do I steady myself? What is it that
(03:48):
moors me? What is it that keeps me buoyant?
I have had so many moments. We've talked so
much about how deconstruction isn't just like this
one massive response to
a difficult moment. It's been this ongoing
questioning, searching, pushing and
pulling, unraveling. It's been such a. We've always
(04:08):
been deconstructing in some way. So this
idea that then we reach for something
and one day realize it's really no
longer there in the way that it always was.
I don't know about you, but I can think of so many
moments where that was a
little unnerving, that was a little
unsettling or maybe even scary.
(04:31):
But definitely lonely. Definitely lonely
for me to not know what it is
that I would then depend on
or seek.
And I'll say for
myself, I think that one of the hardest parts of
deconstruction and the phantom faith was
realizing in those moments that it was just me.
(04:53):
That I had outsourced my decision
making, I had outsourced my hope, I had
outsourced my intuition
for so long that to
then be left knowing that it was just
me, I was the one I'd been waiting
for. That wasn't a powerful phrase at
(05:13):
first. It was like oh, I'm the one I've been waiting for.
This is up to me. Like oh shit.
I really liked having something else I could
something else I could reach for outside of myself. But really
coming to that place of needing to reach
in instead of out,
that was, that took some new musculature. That
(05:34):
took some learning. How about you?
>> Sarah (05:36):
Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's so
profound because really a
lot of. I'm thinking of a few different moments
when out of deconstruction
you know, you're going. I, I'm thinking of a time
actually where I experienced a real loss
when my husband Steves dad passed
away. And it was after we'd gone through everything
(05:59):
we'd gone through at our church in Illinois and moved to Arizona.
We were a few months
into sort of trying to establish a new normal
there. M And his father passed away after a long
challenging battle with leukemia.
And it was the loss that we
had anticipated at some point and yet you're never really
(06:19):
ready when it, when you face it, right. And
That coming out of having experienced so
much loss, it just felt so overwhelming. It was like coming
to the end of myself and not having anything
more to reach for. And those are moments in the
past when I would have reached for the church,
I would have reached for my faith. I would have reached for some
(06:40):
comfort and some certainty in the midst of
so much loss and unknown. And I
actually tried. I actually tried. I found a local church
and I, I have this very specific memory
of, you know, wanting that comfort. I wanted the
worship songs, I wanted the sense of familiarity and
predictability and just you walk in, you know how it's gonna
(07:00):
feel, you know you're goingna be met with kindness, the whole
thing, right? And I
had a massive panic attack as soon as
I got into the sanctuary. It was, I, ah, mean I
still can feel that, that anxiety where it was really just
my whole, my whole being was saying you need to get
out of here. Like this isn't, this is not going to bring
(07:21):
you, this is no longer it, this isn't the thing.
And that, that realization
of what I had reached for,
expecting to kind of hold me and help me through
wasn't going to be it. I felt like I was
floating, right, like kind of like untethered, like
lost at sea, like with no sense of my
bearings. And if it's, if I don't have this
(07:44):
certainty that I can reach for,
then what? And letting that question
sit because it's like, yeah, then
what? And it's similar to what you're saying with like you're who
you've been waiting for. Like that means
all of a sudden I love your language about
outsourcing. Cause it's like all of a sudden
the reckoning of the,
(08:06):
the amounts of self led and
self responsibility that we've handed
off to a religion, a
system, a belief,
suddenly we're holding the
accountability ourselves and the responsibility
ourselves. And we're doing that
without the development that would come
(08:27):
naturally if that had been our posture all along, right? At
least for me was like I felt
stunted because I had spent so many years not
working those muscles and not practicing and not developing and
not growing the way I, nor I think I'd like to think
naturally I would have, but instead of doing
that I had just handed off so much of that
responsibility to the
(08:50):
church.
>> Corinne (08:53):
The development piece. Like I always think of the
phrase related to my faith
that there's moments where I recognize my
Arrested development. Right. So I just always loved that
old show. But like, there is so many
points along the way where we can notice our Arrested Development.
Where we stopped, where we
(09:13):
started handing off, where we started abdicating our
agency, where we started outsourcing. I just
want toa take a minute with that panic attack moment.
And as you look back at it now,
do you see that you felt a
lack of safety in trying
to reach for something, trying to reach for the church
(09:34):
again? Or did it feel empty?
Did it feel like there just wasn't anything there
for you anymore? I'm just kind of wondering maybe as you think back to
that panic attack moment. Cause it's so
significant, informative for how you moved
forward. What do you kind of, what's your
sense about that now?
>> Sarah (09:54):
I really think the panic attack was a
lot more kind of primal than it was cognitive. I
wasn't really thinking about, oh, this doesn't
feel safe where the church isn't. This isn't where I'mnna get what I
need. A lot of those thoughts came later really, in the moment. It
was, it was kind of a snap back
to. Everything about this environment is
triggering. Everything about this environment is reminding
(10:16):
me of, of what I came out of and what
was what caused myself and my family and so many people
that I love so much harm. And
I think I, I guess I just hadn't considered
it. I was so desperate for comfort
and support in the midst of the grief that I went to the thing that,
that was most familiar and I did. Muscle memory
(10:37):
associate. Exactly. It was just like, this is where,
this is where we go. And it wasn't until
I stepped into that space and heard the
worship songs, that I just, I had to leave. I had to.
I, I just had to leave. I, I remember
going and sitting on a bench, like outside of the sanctuary,
thinking, I can like get a handle on this. It's fine, calm
down. And of course that does not work when
(10:59):
you'like on the cusp of a panic attack. It just makes it
worse. And so, yeah, ended up just having to leave.
Had to come, had to come back home and, and find a new
way to, to
process grief, to, to process
something hard that didn't require
something outside of myself. And yeah, and that mean
(11:20):
that took a long time.
>> Corinne (11:21):
Right?
>> Sarah (11:21):
That's, that's a. I think that's a challenge
always. I, I wonder if it will Always be a
challenge. Just because I spent so many years
immersed in. In a type of
dependence scene.
>> Corinne (11:58):
I feel like the comment that you
made about something that feels
like comfort, and it was that
familiar place of comfort,
I think that is such a common thread for so many of us
where, what
religion, you know, in lots of different senses,
(12:19):
often is something that provides people comfort. And that's
a big reason why we participate in it. So
when something that has always provided
comfort, all of a sudden no longer does, that's so
jarring. your language
about feeling lost at sea really,
like, resonates with me because I'm thinking
about what I always refer to as my
(12:41):
landslide moment, where I was
teaching yoga in my living room
on a weekly basis when we lived in Thailand.
And, I had been doing it for quite
some time at that point and had regular
people in my classes. And, there was
always, so much spirituality
involved in the practice, and
(13:03):
already built in just in terms of, you know, the tradition of
the practice. And then, you know, that was something that I
was, sharing in the
expat community that I was living in. So there was an
additional, like, Christian
evangelical, bent
to the yoga that I was teaching.
And I will never forget there
(13:25):
was. It was a shift, it was
a pivot. It was like a before and
after moment where I was like, not the same after. And
I had been wrestling with a lot of things, while we were
there. You know, moving overseas
and living in a Buddhist monarchy really
forced me to reconcile with a lot of those
(13:46):
remaining threads that I was trying so hard to hold. Ono, you're talking
about that certainty, right? I mean, that keeps coming up for us
is, damn, I loved my
certainty. But I was teaching
that class, and I remember being in a
shoulder opener pose that had me
facing the wall, away from the
people that were in my class. And
(14:09):
the song on my playlist was Robin
Sherwell's cover of Stevie Nick
singing, Landslide. And I'd heard that
song a million times. I heard it. I'd heard that version
a million times. But in that moment,
and in a situation
where. Or maybe I should not
(14:30):
really a situation more of like an atmosphere where I had
been practicing being so connected
to my physical self, to my body,
the embodiment practices that had become
so deeply important to me,
those two things together, hearing that
song in a moment where even just visually, I was by myself,
(14:51):
even though in the room I wasn't hearing those words. I
took my love and I took it down Climbed
A mountain. And I turned around. Like, I mean, everybody
knows those lyrics, but if you have a chance, if you're
listening, go and listen to Robin Sherwell's cover of
that. It's different. And,
it was a pivotal point for me. I, in that
(15:12):
moment, realized that was not a love song to
me, was a song that was a
breakup song to me with
the church. And I had realized
that this sense of patching holes
on a ship that was sinking my own
faith, I was so
(15:32):
exhausted, patching these holes
constantly. And that moment
of experiencing that song and letting it
really, that wave just roll
through my body in that moment, I started to cry right
there on my mat. It was a very somatic experience.
And I realized that I had to stop
trying to patch the holes. All the holes,
(15:55):
all the certainty I wanted so much was just
me swimming around that ship, just trying to
keep the water out. And in that moment when I let
that wave roll through me, I just let the water roll in.
And come what may, if the
ship was going to sink or float, it wasn't
going to be because of me. There was nothing that I
(16:15):
was going to be able to do to keep this faith afloat.
It either is true enough to float on
its own or false enough to
sink to the bottom of the ocean floor. And that really had nothing
to do with me. So I could rest
for a minute. So anyway, taking my love and taking
it down, that song, those lyrics, was
(16:36):
me just deciding to just
be done. Trying
so damn hard
to keep that certainty intact.
I was never the same after that moment. And I remember I
was like, how do I finish this class?
How do I. How do I. Like. Like
(16:57):
nobody in this room knows. The moment that I just had.
Was very internal and very
lonely. But it was also really
beautiful because it was this giant
exhale of, you don't have to. You don't
have to crawl on your knees, right?
That poem that we love so much is that Wild geese.
(17:17):
Yeah, like. Yeah, like,
it's okay. You don't have to try so hard. And once
I stop trying so hard to keep it all
patched together and keep it all
intact. I changed everything.
>> Sarah (17:32):
Ye.
>> Corinne (17:32):
But it also washed in
all that grief to. Started to flood in too.
>> Sarah (18:06):
Yeah, it's that, It's the dec. In
the midst of the deconstruction, there's a piece
that I think we have to make peace
with the.
Without having certainty, we have to let it go. We have to let that
go. And that. That is so terrifying. And
Also it does leave a
(18:27):
massive you know,
emptiness, an absence, that, that is
felt, that is that phantom ache that
you reach for and it's not there.
And it makes me think of the phrase that you,
you use often. The. I know, honey, I
know that that inner kindness that you use for
yourself and I'm curious if that it remind, what
(18:49):
you just shared reminds me of that phrase. And I,
I just feel like it's, it's such a
beautiful also moment of like you
don't have to have it all figured out and you can,
you can like open your hands. They don't have to be so tight
fisted and there's, there's
like self compassion in that. There's a sense of,
(19:10):
of. Yeah, like I, I,
I've been trying so hard and you get to the end of
that and there's this exhale in,
it's all wrapped together. The grief,
the, the loneliness, the uncertainty. But also
somehow the relief that comes from not
having to hold it all together or keep trying
to make sense of something or make something fit that doesn't
(19:32):
fit.
>> Corinne (19:33):
Yeah, that
lyric that's in the song. I've been afraid of
changing because I built my life around you.
That moment was
likeo. Like
that, that was me telling the truth
about my own life. Like I was afraid
of changing not just because of this
(19:53):
idea of God that I had had, but I built
my life around this. Like if this
isn't like what happens like when you said what
then? I built my. I'm afraid of changing because I built my
life. I was living in Southeast Asia.
I went as far as I could go, I took it as far as
I could take it. Built, I literally built my life around it.
(20:14):
what then? If it's not this, then
what, like what have I been doing with my life all these years?
And I think that if we're honest with ourselves and I
say we meaning collectively, like that's a
really hard thing to
take down off the shelf when you've
invested so many years, so many
(20:35):
decisions, so much time, so much energy, so much money,
frankly for a lot of us, we've invested
so much. And if not that, then
what? Right? So that was a truth
telling moment of
honesty with myself that I had to
admit that I was afraid of changing because I had
built my life around the church. And
(20:57):
so it wasn't just a loss of a sense
of self or a sense of belief. It
was also like, what do I have to
show for my life if this isn't Real
or true or good. I mean, you know, whatever word we want to attach to
it. Like if I let this ship sink.
What do I, what do I have? What then? So
(21:18):
I want to honor the fact that there's so many of us
on that path of asking that question and we're in
so many different places on that path and,
and it's hard to tell ourselves the truth
about our own lives. And we don't do it
willingly most of the time, quite frankly. We don't do it willingly.
Right. Something has to happen or we have to have a
moment, A before and after moment
(21:40):
that is a mirror
for ourselves. And that was one of those things. So the
I know, honey, I know is that open
palm on my chest. That kind
of is
what I started to whisper to myself in
those moments when I didn't have
(22:01):
prayer anymore. I didn't have prayer in the same
sense anymore. I didn't know what
prayer was. What was prayer going toa be
if it wasn't this, you know? And I know
honey became this like little
whisper to myself, of it's okay. I know this is
hard. I know there's a loss. I know
there's a vacancy. I know there's a space that
(22:23):
you don't know what to fill it with.
And I think what I realize is that
I don't have to fill it. Like it's just
me in there. Like it's just
I can be with myself
in that moment and I can just stay.
And really isn't that where with you
(22:44):
also originated for us too?
>> Sarah (22:46):
Right, yeah, that's. I was just
thinking, I, first of all, I want to hear more
about what you were saying about prayer. And what it
made me think of was, you know, really
I recognized one of the things that, that I
really noticed like stood out to me post, post
my kind of church life was
(23:07):
how when someone that I cared about
would share something hard
or uncertain that maybe they were going
through. My knee jerk response
was to say, I'll pray for you.
Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold that in prayer. I'm going to be
praying for you. And it, it, it came from
this deep sense of wanting to support
(23:29):
and wanting to offer my withness, my
connection, my, my thoughts and
prayers.
>> Corinne (23:35):
Right.
>> Sarah (23:36):
But when I, when I started to really think
about and pull that apart and go, what do I
actually mean when I say that?
What does that mean? And even if, even if it is
the actual literal practice of prayer, what, what
is that kind of breaking it all down and
recognizing so
much of my intention behind those words was
(23:59):
to express and create a connection
with someone that I cared about to if they were going through
something hard to help them hold that hard thing, to let them
know they're not alone and to offer
support. And that really is
where that with you phrase for us
has come to mean so much. Because that's really
(24:19):
what I mean when I say that that's what I'm, that's what
I'm actively intending
and creating and focusing on when I say
that is this connection, this withness, this
support. And where
prayer can mean so many
things. And I think I,
I experience the connection
(24:41):
of something bigger than myself. But it's
not like sticking a quarter in the gumball
machine and getting your wish right. It's not like if
I pray this way I'll get this. Or if
I pray enough times or if I spend
enough hours doing, if I have a prayer journal and I'm up at
5am If I do all these things the right way, then I'll
(25:01):
get what I want. And if I don't get what I
want, it's just God's will,
which is like we can sit in that
for a little while.
>> Corinne (25:12):
I mean that's a whole episode,
honestly. Yeah. Because
really when that knee jerk of I'll pray for
you insinuates that there is
some power to change
something and I think the, with
you is
the, even if nothing changes,
(25:35):
I'm here, that feels like it's a
different sentiment. I'll pray for
you, at least for me was always like,
so that this thing happens or
doesn't happen, whichever
applies. it makes me think of
the wood carving that
(25:55):
that is and has been for as
long as I can remember above my parents kitchen window
that says it'a wood carving that says prayer changes
things and it's just been there forever.
Nobody even thinks about it because it'just it's like a part of the
house. Right. And I
remember when I started looking at that differently
and being like, but does it,
(26:18):
but does it? Because
when you experience tragic loss,
whether it'expected or
not, like your father in
law in his passing or like when
my younger brother passed away years ago
when he died after almost
three years of battle, ah with brain
(26:40):
cancer and
the grief, I was part of
his know care whether it was emotionally or
physically at some point. and it was textbook
for me. Three months, almost
exactly three months after he died is when
the depression and the anxiety and the grief
like hit like
(27:03):
I was. I didn't have the
tools. I had not experienced, grief
like that. I had never experienced depression or anxiety
like that. And it completely took over my
life.
I mean, I was grieving after he
died, but it was at that point that I was like,
oh, I don't know how to deal with this. I don't
(27:26):
have the tools for this. but I remember laying on my
floor one night next to my bed,
and I had been just an absolute mess
emotionally and was really
just working hard to make sure I didn't wake up my kids that
night. And I was reading C.S.
lewis as a grief observed at that point. And I remember there
(27:46):
was a part of the book that,
he's talking with a colleague about prayer,
and I think after he loses his wife
to cancer or when she's battling cancer, I can't remember
actually. It was so long ago, I haven't read it
recently. But, the colleague says,
what's the point? Why do you pray, basically?
(28:08):
And, his response back is,
prayer doesn't change God. Prayer changes me.
And I felt like that
was a really big shift from what I
had always been taught about prayer. And that
really opened up. I mean, C.S. lewis is a
very specifically Christian, theologian and
philosopher. But, it really opened me
(28:30):
up to start considering prayer differently.
And that got broader and
wider and more expansive and more inclusive of what prayer
could be. But it also really made me think, like, does
prayer change things? What is it that we're doing? So coming
back to what is it that we're really getting at when we say that we're go goingna pray
for somebody? especially in those moments when
(28:52):
whether it all feels lost or
we're out of control because we are experiencing emotions we've
never experienced before and we haven't yet, gained the
tools to navigate those things. I
mean, right now we can look anywhere in the
world. You know, we were just in our group
chat talking about all the while, all
the while, all of these things are going on around us all the
(29:14):
time. And do we really think that prayer
changes things or does prayer change us? Does
prayer change our posture toward one another? And, is
that really the with you of
come what may, I'm here. The linking
arms, the hands at each other's
backs, the backs against the door. You know, it's
(29:35):
all of these postures that
we, that we're trying to communicate to each other
that you're not alone, like you said.
Yeah.
>> Sarah (29:45):
O. just holding that.
Holding. You know, there's a timelessness to grief.
I think even as we talk about. About it
just taking a minute because I know that loss was
so great for you with your brother.
And it's interesting how
we've both shared stories of loss of
loved ones as we're having this conversation about this
(30:07):
phantom faith and this grief that comes after
stepping away from everything we thought we knew for sure.
And I think our bodies hold that. It
all feels. Y. Feels very similar. It feels like
the same kinds of ache. And it's. I think it's really
good to honor that. And I think even as we're,
you know, we've got people in our lives that are walking through
(30:28):
their own types of deconstruction. All kinds.
Not always just faith, just. Just m. All kinds.
And it's just a good. It's a good
reminder. I'm having like a. This is a good reminder of
the softness that we need as we're going
through the process. Because this part, the come
down part off of deconstruction is really
(30:49):
a bridge.
>> Corinne (30:50):
Right?
>> Sarah (30:50):
It's. It's not where we live forever, but it
is something we. It's a phantom
ache. It. It doesn't necessarily go away either.
It's. It's not going to
be so overwhelming that we can't live our lives and function. It's not
that, but it's. It's just sort of acknowledging and naming. yeah, this
is. This too is part of
it, right? Mm.
>> Corinne (31:12):
Mm, H. Yeah.
And that it's universal.
So if it's
universal, then that means that
we all have access to
whatever it is that connects us.
Right. So the idea that one
(31:32):
branch of a belief system has the
market cornered on how to
communicate with this sense
that there's something bigger than us, the sense that
there is, you know, this presence
in our lives or this connective
tissue that we are
all, woven into, like the idea
(31:55):
that one group of people has the market cornered on that
is. I
mean, it's a little silly
because grief is so universal.
We all are finding ways
to engage what happens
when loss visits
us. Right.
(32:46):
You know, you and I both come from high control systems
where. Or actually, you know, we've
talked about that. That wasn't necessarily something that we're
coming from in our childhood, but something that we come from
in our adulthood. mostly. But we're
coming from these systems where
prayer and this engagement with. Whether
(33:06):
it's divinity or whether it
is, love. This idea that
the idea of prayer is.
Or that God's actions
are spirit led this idea that
we can claim that.
Creates a system that we've seen
(33:28):
be ripe for abuse in that sense.
So the idea that somebody can have the market
cornered on what prayer looks like or what grief looks like
or what anything looks like, and claim that that
is God's plan or that is something that
is spirit led puts. I mean quite frankly, if you
say something as spirit led in certain communities,
(33:48):
it's above approachach. There's no arguing, right? There's
no discussion it period. so I
think even some of the language that we have set
down and we've chosen different
ways to talk about our
experiences of this phantom faith or grief or
loss, allow for
accountability like you said before, allow for
(34:09):
responsibility. But that also then means that
we are then responsible for the decisions that we make.
And I think that starts to touch on agency, which you and
I talk about all the time.
so I'm curious know your thoughts
about how we start
practicing agency in a different way
(34:30):
as we have reconsidered
what the core of the idea of prayer actually
is for us. So yeah, just, I'm curious what you think about
that.
>> Sarah (34:40):
Well, I mean as you were talking, that was the word in
my head. I was like, oh my gosh, this is agency. That's what we're
talking about here. Because it's what,
it's what sort of fills the
void that's been left from that phantom
faith. It's that what, what we can
replace that dependency that
was, was placed so squarely on a system or
(35:03):
a religion back onto us.
It becomes our responsibility and
also it empowers us toward that
agency that you know, makes me think back to
your landslide story of just recognizing
like when you set it down, it's that come what
may and no one else is coming for us.
>> Corinne (35:22):
Right.
>> Sarah (35:22):
We've got to save ourselves. That mentality,
as scary and overwhelming as it is, it's
also incredibly empowering because you recognize
you are allowed to take up space, you are
allowed to be self led, you are allowed to say
yes, you're allowed to say no. And you
are responsible for the consequences.
>> Corinne (35:42):
Right? The outcomes.
>> Sarah (35:43):
Yep.
>> Corinne (35:44):
Yeah.
>> Sarah (35:45):
And, and I think that that the
interesting thing to me, what I've experienced time and again
is practicing self led
agency. Making decisions from that
place and following through. Living my life from
that place as best I possibly can leads to
so much more connection where there
(36:05):
was loss and emptiness and
loneliness. The less I know for
sure, the more I can set down and the more space
I can take up in my own life. The
more connections I see and experience, the
more empathy I can access. The more, the
more I want that with you and I want to be able to extend it
(36:25):
and I want to be able to receive it. It's just so
fascinating to me that so much of what I was grasping for within
a system, this community, this belonging,
this sense of security, so much of
that I'm finding now through
this practice of living with my own
agency.
>> Corinne (36:43):
Yeah. And that own
agency and having a
greater capacity for that, for that to open up that
space. Practicing our own
agency also means we're
so much more willing to be okay if we get it
wrong or if we make a mistake. And
(37:04):
how much of a relief that is
to not have to always be certain,
to not know, come what may. I don't know what's goingn to come from
this. I don't know what going to happen next. I'm going to
make a decision based on my own
intuitive embodied
sense of growth and
trust. This idea that we couldn't trust ourselves
(37:27):
when we start to realize that we actually
can and we can begin
making decisions and plotting
a course for our life that is
centered in our own decision making. Our
own agency like that also ups the
ante of what we might get wrong.
The mistakes we might make, the things that might
(37:49):
not go according to plan, the hard conversations we
might have to have, like. And yet
somehow that is so much
more beautiful.
>> Sarah (38:00):
M M Yeah. It also, it weirdly lowers
the stakes of getting it wrong or making
a mistake or having to develop
those. The muscles of I'm sorry or
I messed up and sitting with that and
allowing that to be true without it meaning
there's punishment or you're. You are
(38:20):
worth less than you were pre mistake or
that the world's go going toa come tumbling down because you got this
thing wrong. It just, it relieves of the pressure and
it allows for you, for us, for
everyone to be more human. Like fully
human. Not just the shiny parts that you get rewarded
for because y that's not honest.
>> Corinne (38:40):
Right.
>> Sarah (38:40):
Even when we get really good at projecting
just those shiny parts, the parts that fit
best at a church service.
>> Corinne (38:48):
Right.
>> Sarah (38:49):
It's still not honest. The other stuff is still there.
We just have a not embodied it and we haven't made peace with it.
And this side of deconstruction, this
phantom faith is where I think a lot of that
happens. It's that in the midst of the grief
and the loss and the understanding that what you had before is no
longer what you have and before you find what
(39:09):
you will have. The in between part
is where a lot of this work, I think, takes place. That's been my
experience, at least.
>> Corinne (39:17):
Yep. Yep. And come what
may, when we start to understand
that at the end of the day, we will always
have ourselves and that that is a safe
home for all of those
parts, only then can we
be safe for other people.
(39:37):
Right?
>> Sarah (39:38):
Yeah, that's really true. That's
very, very true.
>> Corinne (39:42):
So for anyone who
has set it all down and doesn't yet
know what's gonna come next,
like, I just feel like we are so with
you in that
space, of belonging to
yourself first before you can belong
(40:03):
with anyone else. And damn
if that's not just the most beautiful place to be. So I'm here
for it.
>> Sarah (40:10):
Yeah. Love it.
>> Corinne (40:11):
We're here.
>> Sarah (40:11):
We're with you. Love that.
>> Rebeca (40:21):
You'Ve been listening to Spiritual Pyro with
Sarah Carter and Ken shark on the 1C
Story Network. For more information about this
and all of our stories, please visit
just1c.com. That's J
U S T O N E
C.com
>> Sarah (40:58):
Wrap her up. Put a bow on her.
The One C Story Network. For
the love of stories.
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