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The Role of Ritual and Reflection in Transformational Healing-With Dr. Christy Bauman (Pt. 2)
28 Plays5 days ago
Have we got a treat for you! Surviving Saturday is so excited to bring you our first podcast GUEST, the intrepid, insightful indomitable, and inimitable Dr. Christy Bauman! Christy joins Wendy for a delightful conversation about their respective journeys as women counseling other women dealing with issues and challenges they, themselves, know all too well. They also vibe strong on the transformative and healing power of "body work" (also known as "somatic experiencing") and healing rituals, as a complement to more narrative based "story work."
Christy is a counselor, author, and teacher based out of Brevard, NC. She earned her Masters in Counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary and her Ph. D. in counseling at Seattle Pacific University. With her husband, Dr. Andrew Bauman, she is the co-founder and co-director of the Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health & Trauma, and she has spent over 18 years counseling women dealing with the aftereffects of sexual and/or spiritual abuse.
For more about Christy and her counseling work with women, check out her website at www.christybauman.com
**IMPORTANT SCHEDULING UPDATE: Christy's "Her Rites" workshop in Charlotte will be held on Saturday, February 1 from 9:00 to 4:00, rather than the January date originally mentioned in the podcast, part 2. Additional info available at: www.christybauman.com/herrites
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Transcript
Introduction to Surviving Saturday
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to Surviving Saturday, a podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons. Times like that remind us of the agony and despair the followers of Jesus felt on the Saturday of Easter weekend, in between the Friday on which he was crucified and the Sunday on which he rose from the dead.
00:00:26
Speaker
That someday forever changed the way that humans can relate to God. But what does it look like to be honest about the very real pain we experience in the in-between? To fervently cling to hope in the God who promised us his peace and his presence at times when he feels distant or even cruel. I'm Wendy Osborne, a licensed counselor in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm her husband, Chris, a marriage mediator, conflict resolution coach, and trauma-informed story work
Self-reflection and Mirror Work
00:00:54
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coach.
00:00:54
Speaker
Join us each episode for authentic conversations about how life not turning out as we'd expected has created the contextual soil for the growth of a tenacious hope in the resurrection and in a God who is still making all things new.
00:01:11
Speaker
I think it was the same trip to Seattle, but I was sitting with two other friends doing some mirror work around stories my face holds. And one of the friends asked if while we were sitting in silence, I wanted to play music. And I'm a huge Swifty. So I was like, let's play Taylor.
00:01:33
Speaker
So as they began to ask me questions that lead me to engage with my face and have a conversation with my face, one of the friends, Kathy, was like, we got to stop the music.
Embracing the Crone Archetype
00:01:47
Speaker
Taylor is a maiden and the whole world wants maidens to run the world, but they don't know how to do it. And this is a crone moment.
00:01:57
Speaker
And so we stopped the music. I think it was a good call. It was very discordant. yeah So we sat largely in silence while another friend Karen was asking me questions to continue this dialogue with my face.
00:02:15
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And what began to happen is Karen's questions got overtaken by words from my great grandmother. And I didn't see that coming. And this is a great grandmother on my father's side that I had probably seen eight to 10 times in my entire life. It was not somebody that I saw all the time. But with all of her wrinkles and her gray hair and a bun,
00:02:43
Speaker
she began to ask me so many questions and offer the most beautiful blessing to my face that I had been desperate for my entire life. And this was just this year. So it was right before I turned 54. So we're talking ah decades in the making of living with this space. And so I ended up writing a very long poem that is our conversation and realizing the loveliness and the beauty and the tenderness of the crone and that while I am moving toward crone myself,
00:03:25
Speaker
I'm past mother, if we have maiden, mother and crone for those archetypes of female development on a very general scale.
Wisdom of Aging and Transitioning to Crone
00:03:35
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I'm more in the place of the crone, but to me that had signaled old and outdated. And to have my great grandmother speak this blessing um and to talk specifically to my face and to mother my face with a kindness that it was desperate for um changed everything you for me. And I began to see the old woman as powerfully beautiful, as captivating. As captivating. I love that. And I love that story. I would even say that as you're making your way to the old crone, I would say you are in the right of intuition.
00:04:22
Speaker
which is the right, right before legacy. And it is into that. Tell us about that. Well, you're right on the cusp of it. So, so you're right that you are not maiden or mother, right? You're, you've created your children. You've moved past that, but now you're in a place of initiating those younger than you and moving towards than the old crone.
00:04:49
Speaker
And so that's your intuition. that's your that's it And that's all housed in your gut. If we want to go to a physical place on your body, that's when you know what you know. That's whenever you feel something and it and you may not be in a safe enough place to say it, but you at least know it. Your body tells you.
00:05:08
Speaker
now The wise woman, she will usually put herself in a place where people will hear her voice. Like she's wise enough to know, I've lived enough of my life. It's not about being beautiful, but it is about being wise. And me being able to use my voice, um it's it's time.
00:05:31
Speaker
It's more than time. I have earned, right? What you have lived through, being the maiden, being the mother, you know things. Your intuition, you've you've been around the sun multiple times. You have a sense. And if you actually settle into your gut, you have a pretty clear sense. And that's where you lead from in intuition, in the right of intuition. It's actually taking your place as the wise one. And then the old crone is the one saying, I'm leaving you because I'm going to something other. And so she's turning to the 50, 60, 70 year olds. And she said, okay, wise ones, I'm going to go and live. If you need to come ask me some questions, you can, but ah you're the wise ones. Like this is the baton, lead them.
00:06:30
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The intuition, she initiates those who are going through initiation. She is the one who oversees the younger ones who are saying, what do I do? I'm bleeding. What do I do? um I'm in this relationship and I think it's not good for me. What do I do? I feel suffocated or smothered. And the wise, intuitive woman says, yes, this is what I know.
00:06:59
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after all these years, after what I've lived through, after what I've birthed, I can help lead you. I can help initiate you. That's the role I think you're in right now as you're turning towards the old crone. You're not there yet, right? Like you're not in that space, but you're in a space of wisdom. And I write in that, that there's a lot of ah initiators And some of us who are in the right of intuition, we just want to, um some of us will just focus on what we look like. We still try to fight for every moment of being visible. And and that's really ah leaving our younger women in the dust.
Societal Pressures on Women and Embracing Wisdom
00:07:44
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That's leaving our maidens alone, right? they're They're not looking and saying, oh, that woman, I want to be like her.
00:07:51
Speaker
I want to go and study under her because all we're trying to do is still compete with them. And when if you're still with the maiden, you know, you're not actually in the right of intuition. yeah It's not where your mother heart and body is actually supposed to be. And what you described Hayden doing by taking you kind of in this medicine walk is what an initiator does. And the a woman in her intuition says, okay, I know what you need.
00:08:22
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here, come and sit here, then go, then let me sing over you, then be on your way. right she's That's an initiator. she did She's not worried about what she looks like in that moment. She's actually preparing the space for you. And and I think we're at a loss for those. We have a lot of 50 to 70-year-old women who are trying to still compete with the maiden.
00:08:50
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yes Yes. yeah We do. And it, it takes a very deliberate effort to not stay there. Yes. To be willing to become less visible than invisible, but to know that we know what we know and it is worth passing on. And and that means we have to face our grief.
00:09:19
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Right? Because there's a lot of grief in no longer being the maiden. Oh, yeah. there's just There's so much grief in that. Right. Right. There is a lot of grief in no longer being the maiden. and um Even though I loved Kathy's comment, made it we want maidens to rule the world. But maidens do not have what it takes to rule the world. No. No, but they won't get enough food.
00:09:48
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when they will get annihilated. Yes. Yeah. and And that's on us actually. That's on the intuitive woman. If she allows, if if she allows the maiden to run the world, then that maiden, the inside of her will decay. She will have nothing. She was not made to run the world. Right. Sweet baby. Like that is just cruel.
00:10:13
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Right, right, right. ah So yeah, there's a lot of maturity that has to come forth from us. So, you know, if I read or talked about books in order, this would make more sense.
The Rite of Exile and Personal Growth
00:10:26
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But I want to take us back to the right of exile yeah because the the leaving, the being sent away, the saying goodbye, I want you to speak to that because I feel that that is a necessary lead up to women who not only become wise, but women who speak because I think the path through the wilderness is a necessary period of time. A lot is happening there. Yes. And so what we have not named is there's six rite of passages that I talk about um and it and it's birth initiation, exile,
00:11:08
Speaker
creation, intuition, legacy. And it's over the lifespan, right? So first breath to last breath. If we go to exile, exile is actually what the maiden will go through and it'll either take her out or not. So it is part of the maturation. It is necessary to go to the desert. And all of us have known what it's like to be betrayed, to be turned on,
00:11:36
Speaker
to be alone in a space where no one understands us, no one gets it. And going it through the Rite of Exile, I would even say, are those desert moments where even God's voice feels silent. It's those moments where we can't find anyone but our own self.
00:12:02
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And we hear all the other voices, all the accusation, all the cursing, and we have to wrestle them down until we hear our own voice. And our own voice sees us clearly, and then she starts to whisper what she really believes. And then we realize that that silent desert is a gift because we got to hear ourselves and we know who we are. And when you make it through the rite of exile,
00:12:31
Speaker
you know that you're invincible after that, which means death cannot fully kill you, right? It means that betrayal will not make your heart hardened. yeah It means that you can still stay alive and your spirit can stay alive. um And that to me, the right of exile is my least favorite. And I do think it is where we were talking earlier, the women,
00:13:00
Speaker
who are intuitive, the wise woman, she has to tell the maiden, you can make it through this. Because the maiden otherwise goes into exile and she doesn't know which way is up. She doesn't know what the true good mother voice is.
00:13:18
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she She doesn't know. I think that as maidens entering into the exile, we tend to feel we've done something wrong. We've got a new path that surely we're not supposed to be flung out here in the wilderness. Right. And maybe it's actually you need to speak your truth and your voice and your story from your body and other people have more access to it than you do. And so actually, exile is a gift to you, not because you're in trouble, but because you've actually lost your way. And so we're going to put you in a space where you are only confronted with yourself. yeah And in that confrontation, you see yourself and she takes your breath away. You're in all of what you find in exile, actually.
00:14:14
Speaker
So, you know, as we start bringing it to a close here, I have a couple of questions. um In story work, we're typically trying to help a person identify the themes of their life, particularly the experiences of of pain, but also of glory that have brought them to the conclusions they have about themselves, about others, and about God.
00:14:43
Speaker
And then our bodies hold all of that and we begin to have a different relationship. Like we said before, like mind, heart with body and how do those interact? So I'm curious when you think of the purpose of exile,
00:15:02
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Where do you see God in that space? So I know we're learning to listen to the truest voice of the woman in this case, but I don't want to confuse that for the voice of God that can be hard to hear in exile. So where, where do you see God in this exile space and how does it begin to help a person maybe see, hear God and see him more authentically?
00:15:33
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here God is the one whispering through your story and your body the truth. And so let's take stretch marks. Let's take wrinkles on our body. When you look at yourself, you either hear someone saying something about those lines on your body,
00:16:03
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Or if you listen really deeply, you hear you're your, hopefully your truest, most honest voice, which is what's actually happened, which is the creator gave me this body. And then as I began to weep over these griefs in my life, I began to get these crow feet around my eyes. Or as I began to stretch and grow something,
00:16:32
Speaker
in my belly, I began to get these stretch marks. Or when I was a teenager and I grew too quickly or I grew quickly in my adolescence and I got stretch marks on my legs. It was really me growing up fast. And we actually have compassion on our story and our bodies and where they meet.
00:17:00
Speaker
And our voice is aligning with God's voice in that moment because it's actually what the creator says about us and about being made in his image. It's actually that moment where we are honest enough and agree, not with what society tells us or what we've been what lenses have been given to us, but it's that intimate moment. Going back to what you and I were talking about at the beginning,
00:17:28
Speaker
The lens of someone else is not there. It's my lens of myself and God's lens of me. And it's very intimate because no one else has to say only you know what you lived through and survived and where you risked places to co-create with God and what it cost you. Yes. Yes. and That's I think what we hear.
00:17:58
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in those moments, in those really quiet, quiet places. Yes. Thank you for clarifying
Learning from Pain and Finding God
00:18:04
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that. I um i firmly believe, and i and I think we agree here, we can't present for healing what we do not name.
00:18:15
Speaker
So if we don't admit something is broken and in need of care and redemption, then we cannot seek that. And so um again, you know i I'm human and I grieve and I have pain in my own life. And so a week ago, I took some time and let my pain begin to write a letter to me.
00:18:42
Speaker
and just tried to let it the words come unfiltered. And I was pretty stunned at what it had to say to me. And partly, and I think this is why I asked the question about going into exile and how I have tended to blame myself for seasons of exile. It must be some mistake I made.
00:19:03
Speaker
And so my pain actually in this letter said to me, you have not wanted me to join you on the journey because you thought that my presence outed you, that you had made a wrong turn. And you were more than happy to let anger join you. And in fact, you chased it down the road. You couldn't get with it fast enough.
00:19:27
Speaker
um' But the pain and the grief, the vulnerability, the unguarded nature of that in the wilderness tends to be more than we can bear if God is not to show up at some point.
00:19:43
Speaker
And yet part of being in the wilderness is where in the heck is he? And I would say that being out there uncovered, undefended are the places I have met him most sweetly and most authentically. um Far more than putting myself on the couch with a great devotional. Not that he can't meet me in that way.
00:20:10
Speaker
But it's in the places where I don't know where I am, and I don't have a compass, and I'm not sure I can hear him, and I don't think anyone else understands. And those tend to be the dark tombs of the places where he dwells. And so it's ah it's oxymoronic, but i i that is something that as an older woman, I know in my bones, that is where he comes, even though every time I wonder Hmm I love that Hey guys, this is hi Sometime co-host and producer today crisp just popping in for a second. I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to you guys conversation And I now want to mansplain it for everybody The question I did have though as you all are talking about this I found myself thinking about Wow, I This is so powerful to hear and just hearing the the common themes in you guys' stories.
Applicability of Female Practices to Men
00:21:13
Speaker
and And I'm not saying, let's make it about the guys. but But is there something to, can men benefit from this kind of thinking as well? Both thinking of the passages of life. But also, I think i think there's some meant male you know writing and scholarship about that. But the idea of the somatic connection, the body connection, that feels like we where we men are way behind and not as
00:21:37
Speaker
at ease being in touch with our bodies and the somatic aspect of things. Can you guys speak to that for Dr. Bauman, but anyway as well? Yeah, I would love to. I even love that you asked that question because when I write books, it's because my research is geared towards women that it is, but the men who have read my books come back and say, Christie, I needed this.
00:22:01
Speaker
And I think for men, the one thing I see all the time is they are disembodied by nature. Yes. Where I am internal, where even my sexual reproductive organs are in my body, males are outside of their body. And so the disembodiment of the masculine is pretty normal. that And so it's going to take more work for a man to have to come into himself. Whereas I am going to bleed every month, whether or not I want to.
00:22:30
Speaker
Right. And so it feels different what's being asked of our bodies. And yet, oh my gosh, the body tells us so much. And I think the one place that I mean, there's, there's many places, but the one place that I'm going to throw out there that might sound so crazy. But I think for men, I asked them a lot of times, men who sit in a session with me, if they were breastfed.
00:22:56
Speaker
And it's crazy because the mother wound is such a big deal for the masculine. But the first time we were all satiated male and female is either at the breast or at a bottle. ah Wow. So for a man in his own story of satiation or desire or longing or unmet needs,
00:23:20
Speaker
it to me starts in that first story of how were you satiated for the first time? Oh wow. Yeah. So I know that that's such a like twist it seems, but that's a question I ask men all the time because I think so much of their desire, I'm like, Oh, it's in your body, but let's talk about it because it actually came from outside of your body. That is fascinating. and Yeah. I had the privilege recently of getting to hear your husband, uh, Dr. Andrew Baldwin speak.
00:23:50
Speaker
And we hope, spoiler alert, he's going to join us on the podcast at a future date as well. Um, but I got one, he just floored the room of about 200 men. When he said that, that same part about women by nature have been almost required, you know, to be in tune with your body, to pay attention to the rhythms of it and what's happening. And at least it's sort of, there's a grace in that, in that like, you can't ignore your body's length. I am here. I need to be dealt with. Whereas.
00:24:20
Speaker
We have been, you know, it's external, number one, we we can get by without paying attention to anything about our maleness. And then we've got the message of the church that comes in that basically, I mean, I grew up feeling like, damn, why did they give me this penis? If it's going to be just trouble for everybody is essential. And it felt like trouble for me. That's the messaging of sort of period culture and, and definitely not like, Oh, this is goodness and part of how I'm made. So I love even hearing how you you're reframing.
00:24:47
Speaker
such ordinary things to to speak of the sacred and of the divine. I think that's really compelling. Yeah. Yeah. I do think it's very important for us to move toward the masculine body.
Understanding Masculine Physical Experiences
00:25:03
Speaker
Like it it's so important. And again, not talked about and having two boys and being married to my husband, there is a sense of where I want to understand what the masculine body has been through, how it's been trained, what it's been taught to do, because my my desire is to tend to and care for the the masculine bodies in my life that I've been interested with. And so I want to understand that, but we don't we don't take deep dives into that very often. Like we aren't thinking that way. And and it's again, I think satiation is such an interesting question of
00:25:43
Speaker
how have we been satiated? Because I think it actually then comes out to what do we desire or long for. Yes, you have my wheels turning now. I'm actually go and think about that a lot because I have I've been on a journey of a complex uh just um unraveling my my connection with the feminine and where it's been good and where it's kind of worked and you've added another layer to it that I'm gonna have to go and think about so i'll dip out let you guys wind out but thank you for let me pop back in and like that you're normalizing
00:26:16
Speaker
um just this kind of conversation, it is is music to to my ears. And hopefully we men, hopefully men are listening to this episode even, and that we can learn to tend to our lives and their bodies better, but we have to learn how to do it with ourselves at the same time. I think it's that same thing with story where you can love better your your partner's story when you understand your own better. Probably the body works similarly at that. Yes. Thank you, Chris.
00:26:44
Speaker
All right. So Christie, thank you so much for being here. I want to make sure everybody knows you're actually coming to Charlotte in January.
Christy Bauman's Upcoming Workshop
00:26:54
Speaker
You're going to be at my church at warehouse 242. I cannot be there and I'm really bummed, but tell us the time and give us a description of the event. Yes. So actually it's January 25th, a Saturday, and it's from nine to four.
00:27:12
Speaker
We're going to provide food and actually I wrote an album with this book so that people could experience it. And the woman who recorded the music is coming and she's going to play live over everyone who's there. so that we are going to help your body experience ah the teaching, not just hearing a lecture or a talk, but we actually want to help women be more in their bodies. And the day will look like an experience rather than a conference so that you leave hopefully with some change that you feel embodied in a different way than you did when you walked in.
00:27:57
Speaker
Fabulous. So Saturday, January 25th at warehouse 242, which is a Wilkinson Boulevard. um If you will send me information, Eventbrite, whatever you have, I would be happy to make sure that my clients have access to that to sign up. And if anybody wants to dialogue with you further, how could people get in touch with you?
00:28:22
Speaker
Yes, my website is just kristybalman.com. So you just put my name in there and you'll get a website that has my assistant and all my offerings that I offer. Okay, and Kristy is a C-H and a Y, and Balman is B-A-U-M-A-N. So Kristy Balman, just Google you and find you and you are in Brevard, correct?
00:28:48
Speaker
um am brevard north carolina yep And sometimes on the West Coast, we have some space there, but ah yes. And this, um, her rights workshop, if you are in Charlotte or nearby, what I love about it is it's going to be like one of the cheapest conferences because with the ticket, you not only get the food and the time and the music and the experience, but I send you an audio book. And so you also get with the ticket. ah So, you list that's cha of you yeah, if you want, you know, so to speak of a book club experience in one day, yeah you just, um, and you get all of it right there. And, you know, I am a mother of three children. And so time is not something that is easy for me, but this book feels like a year's worth of therapy a and day.
00:29:38
Speaker
for a very cheap price. And so that's my hope is to get it out and make it accessible to everyone who wants it. Fabulous. Well, I wish I could be there. I will catch the next one. um But it was such a delight to talk with you and I will talk with you soon. Thank you so much. All right. Bye, Christy. Bye.
00:30:01
Speaker
The Surviving Saturday podcast is brought to you by Nurture Counseling PLLC, a counseling teaching and training center based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. We help families flourish one story at a time. Nurture Counseling provides counseling, counseling intensive for couples, conflict resolution coaching, story work groups, seminars, workshops, and retreats to provide a safe and welcoming context for exploring the agonizing experiences of pain, brokenness, and evil that disrupt our lives.
00:30:28
Speaker
and that God often uses to nurture deeper trust and intimacy with Him and with each other. You can find us online at www.nurturecounseling.net