Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Hope for Any Marriage (Yes, Even Yours!) with Steve & Lisa Call
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Have you ever been "stuck" in your marriage? Maybe it's the same old conflict loop that seems to play over and over. You run through the familiar moves and countermoves until one or both of you reaches the point of exhaustion. So you put down the weapons for a bit, and limp into a cease fire, but nothing ever fully gets resolved. And you both live on edge, knowing that you are one disappointment or careless remark away from starting the vicious cycle all over again.
Or maybe you're not fighting, but you're not really connecting either. You've got your friends, he has his work and his toys, and you come together to shepherd the kids through the next weekly round of activities. But when you take the time to be honest with yourself, you fear you've lost the spark, the sizzle, the joy that you once knew as a married couple. You may vocalize what sounds like an innocent enough question, "Is this all there is?", but therein might lie the doorway to any number of unhelpful and potentially destructive mirages of escape or numbing out.
However "stuckness" shows up in your marriage, Surviving Saturday is here with a reminder that there is hope. For real. Come spend a little time with Wendy & Chris and their dear friends, Dr. Steve Call & his wife Lisa, and maybe you will catch a glimpse. The Calls are the co-authors, with Dan and Becky Allender, of an incredibly helpful new book, The Deep Rooted Marriage: Cultivating Intimacy, Healing, and Delight--a book that provides encouragement and practical guidance for building, nurturing, and even repairing a marriage. Ya just gotta get down to the roots...
Steve is a longtime counselor and counselor educator at the Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, and Lisa is a story work coach who has completed multiple levels of training in narrative focused trauma care at the Allender Center. Through the Reconnect Institute, they have worked with countless couples to dig up the roots of recurrent conflict, and provide opportunities for reflection, renewal, and resurrection.
Where to find our guests:
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Theme
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Surviving Saturday, a podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons.
Significance of Easter Saturday Despair
00:00:12
Speaker
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.
00:00:23
Speaker
That Sunday 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.
Introduction of Hosts and Guests
00:00:40
Speaker
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 coach. 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.
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome back. Today we have um some special guests with us. We've got Dr. Steve Call and his wife, Lisa. Hi, guys.
00:01:19
Speaker
Hello, hello. So good to see you guys. So y'all are in Washington State. I think we first met you two or three years ago when you were doing a marriage workshop with Dan and Becky Allender.
00:01:35
Speaker
And then we've had a few chances to get to know you since. But I'd love for you guys to both start just by introducing yourselves, each of you, and the work that you do.
Steve and Lisa Call's Marriage Workshop Journey
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, you want to start? Sounds great.
00:01:49
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Well, um, we have been um the trajectory of being involved in marriages for probably maybe since we got married, Steve, a little longer, just yeah since we got married, basically. Yeah. We've been, we have a lot of good material from some of those early years, but, um,
00:02:09
Speaker
Steve's been in this field and then together we've been working together on marriage workshops for maybe 15 to 20 ish years and honing it to where we've gotten to.
00:02:22
Speaker
Right now, what we're doing, our favorite, favorite thing to do now is marriage intensive. So we've been doing story work with couples. And so it's culminated in that. And I am just three years into my training of doing story work. So that's co-aligning with,
00:02:38
Speaker
what we've been doing with couples and it's been really fun to work together. And now we have this book. Yeah. I would say one of the the beautiful parts of our journey has been that we've been able to do this together.
00:02:50
Speaker
The, the marriage work with both couples, but also retreats. It wasn't always fun. It wasn't always fun. that's really really stressful It was and hard, but we have gotten to be where it's actually fun. Like we're having a good time and, and, and every, every argument, every fight, every difficulty, we were like, well,
00:03:09
Speaker
that'll be a good story so As we go and it's just like, you're going to use that tonight. Oh, well, okay. I guess it's fair game. yeah so um It's actually feels really redemptive. Yeah. Well, that's been one of the distinctive features of the workshops that we've gotten to do with you where you guys are bringing stuff real time. It's live. It's not theoretical. It's not 10 years ago.
00:03:33
Speaker
This was you know a challenge. But look at us now. it was It's actually encouraging to have been around you guys as you're in process and things are still happening. You're like, wait a minute. There's a deeper level of your story.
00:03:46
Speaker
that I'm learning now and need to try to figure out how to adjust to or another chance to sort of apply this.
Steve Call's Professional Background
00:03:53
Speaker
That's been actually a comfort and inspiration to us. Yeah, it's good to hear. It's kind of the good news, bad news, right? That, oh they still have a lot of problems. Oh, that's good news. But that, you know, it's I thought we were going to get to a point where we're going to be blissful and we're not going problems. And now, actually, we're just going to be able to maybe do better repair. We're going to be able to have more fun in the midst of it. But it doesn't mean that We didn't have a conflict that morning that we're coming to present. and So we decided use that story along the way.
00:04:21
Speaker
So it's all real. Yeah, we find great hope in that, that there's not a a perfect spot we're trying to get to, but it's a matter of growing and healing together.
00:04:33
Speaker
And yeah. We'll get into the book in a minute, but a lot of the categories you bring up about what it means for marriage to usher in redemption for each of you and for you together as a couple.
00:04:46
Speaker
um Did Steve get introduced? No, was going to say I wanted to. You're a psychologist. Sure. Yeah. Steve is a clinical. I am a clinical psychologist. I primarily work with couples, relational work. I teach at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology with Dan Allender.
00:05:05
Speaker
That's where a lot of this material has come from and our work together. I started working with couples, gosh, 25 years ago, I think. And I love it. And it's also really difficult work.
00:05:17
Speaker
And I know, is it what you always knew you wanted to do? it It wasn't. I went, I did my undergrad in economics. way I did. And I,
00:05:28
Speaker
Had a wonderful mentor at our church, Denny Rydberg, who used to be the president of Young Life before he passed away. And he was a wonderful mentor. And he invited me to consider working with college students. And so I did for the first five years. I just worked with college students, group work, mission work.
00:05:45
Speaker
But I loved the one-on-one meetings with students. And I found that that's where just found great hope in coming alongside of college students and their struggles. I didn't know what counseling was. had never been in counseling. I didn't even know really the the process of it, but I went back to school and discovered a passion for it.
00:06:05
Speaker
And it was a really difficult process in terms of it you know the educational piece, in terms of what gets stirred up for us as we learn. in our own story and our own family of origin, our own history.
00:06:17
Speaker
Uh, but I found that I, I don't, I don't know if I could say I was gifted in it. I think I just found a calling. Uh, and I think we could say you're gifted. Well, I think it it just, grounded I felt grounded. I felt like I, there was so much of my work it fit that fit, uh, with who I was personally that seemed to match professionally. So, well, and now that we know our story and we know how attuned you were to your own mother and how,
00:06:42
Speaker
what a listener you were and able to make sense of things that you had been honing that skill unbeknownst to you that now we know, you know, why you happen to be really good at that. yeah yeah Yeah.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah. I will say you're one of the the things that Duke University should be proudest to claim. Not that I give much credit to Duke for much of anything, but I i make a big exception when it comes to you.
00:07:07
Speaker
oh Yes, I love Duke. i I have deep roots. ah Speaking of deep roots, but I love i love Duke. Yes, that's for sure. And I love you anyway. like you just You may be the only dookie to get on this podcast.
00:07:21
Speaker
I want to mention too, occasionally, like y'all's video freezes up a little bit. If we kind of jump in a little bit, it's only because we can't tell that one of you is about to start. So we'll we'll try to pause and watch
Marriage Dynamics and Family Origin Stories
00:07:33
Speaker
out for that. but Yeah, sounds good.
00:07:36
Speaker
So this is not y'all's first book. um And I'd love to hear a little bit about the first one and also about the Reconnect Institute that you run together.
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah. ah You know, I've been working for a few years. I would say a decade, decade and a half with couples. And there were certain themes that just didn't seem like they were addressed in other contexts. And so we both, we both added to this book, contributed to the first book. It's called reconnect.
00:08:07
Speaker
I think that came out in 2019. So five years ago. And it, it, it, at least for me in the writing, it was meant to be a tool or a resource primarily for men. Not that it's not helpful for women,
00:08:20
Speaker
But I wanted, in my work with couples, often there's there's a higher, again, careful with how we word this, but often for men, there's this ambivalence, hesitancy, therapeutic work, what are we doing here?
00:08:33
Speaker
And so I wanted to write something that gave them a platform in terms of what relational work could look like and sound like and be like. ah Some categories, specific categories that they could maybe connect with and maybe gain some awareness and insight.
00:08:48
Speaker
And so that, that, book I think launched us into more of the marriage work. We started the Reconnect Institute right after that, right after the book Reconnect.
00:08:59
Speaker
And with the primary goal of coming alongside couples in their marriage and walking with them in their journey the conferences that you spoke about, but also these marriage story intensives.
00:09:10
Speaker
Those those are our, I think our place of deep deep connection with couples. We have couples come in for three days and they are with seven other couples. Dan and Becky are here with us and Lisa and I get to teach together. We get to work therapeutically with couples. And I've really, i think we both have really enjoyed that part of the process.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah. I think during the, writing and and developing that book, we really realized how important it is to understand our story, our family story of origin, and how they're playing out in our marriages. And so many times we get in these cycles and these loops and the how we're here again, like how are we in the same conversation, the same argument, the same hurt.
00:09:55
Speaker
And we begin to see the really great impact of our stories and understanding those for each other and being able to understand our own, being able to to understand the others and what a difference it made in, in being able to navigate some of those challenges and go, wow, there's something else at play and it's really strong. And so as we begin to even since that in our own marriage and then since that with couples, it just felt like this is, this is really important. This is really big and we love doing this work together. And so I think that's where it started to to blossom into if we could just have couples for, for an intense weekend and let's talk about some of these categories, you know, in a, in a time where we can really spend lots of time doing it so that they can begin these conversations before going back rather than just
00:10:46
Speaker
50 minutes every other week or whatever that just doesn't yeah do it. And so that's been so fun. Like that's, that's just been a game changer. Yeah. Yeah. You can see stuff happen in more like, like having the time to really explore and process and stay with something.
00:11:06
Speaker
um Our early history was we we started probably early in our marriage, going to marriage retreats and marriage workshops and stuff. And they would always provoke a fight of some sort. They actually usually made things worse. I'm not sure it was by design, but part of it was it was bumping up to we had unmet needs. we had but But it was a long time. the first several, I think we went to, there wasn't much mention of trauma.
00:11:32
Speaker
There was maybe a little bit, you might be like your dad, you might be like your mom or something very servicey like that. Nothing about how were you harmed? How were you left? Where was shame?
00:11:43
Speaker
Where was, you know, there's something that got really rooted in you. um and And so it it took a while, um i think, to find places where that was also part of the conversation.
Role of Trauma in Marriage Challenges
00:11:57
Speaker
And and and we did some of that in a hourly therapy thing. But like for me, I'd like, you know, get 50 minutes into session. I'm finally feeling something and getting to real something real. It's like, oh, we got to go.
00:12:10
Speaker
and then you're sort of left with it. yeah Right. Yeah. And I think one thing that has struck me about your work and about this book, we met young like y'all did.
00:12:23
Speaker
And we were both Christians. We met through our church and were very close friends for seven years before we got engaged. And so when we got married and hit some really bumpy bumps, think it was easy to assume something was wrong with the other person.
00:12:44
Speaker
We had just married the wrong person. We didn't have a category trauma. ah trauma or the pain that we had come from. And one of the remarks you make in the book, Lisa, that I'm building to is that a lot of us hear the word trauma and we're like, you know, that feels like a little exaggerative, maybe a little hyperbolic. I grew up in a pretty good home. I mean, I know trauma and mine was fine.
00:13:16
Speaker
um And yet we have these experiences and you all even go so far as to name it attunement trauma. And i think that just put it maybe in a more normalizing category. So I'd love to hear you speak to that, Lisa, about how a listener who might say, yeah I don't know if trauma feels like the right word, but I'm definitely stuck in my marriage.
00:13:39
Speaker
who Yeah, I don't even think. culturally we've used the word trauma much until recently in the last, well, since maybe the pandemic, but it hasn't been a word that we've used or we've thought we could use. And I, yeah, for us in noticing some of the impact of some areas in our life that maybe traditionally wouldn't be called trauma, you know, like I wasn't sexually abused or I wasn't harmed or I wasn't, you know, something that feels like in a bigger category.
00:14:12
Speaker
and But when we paid more attention, like for me, especially loneliness became ah theme that I really was beginning to pay attention to and, and really trying to figure out what, what is this? Why, why is this so core to my being? And as I began to trace it back to some of my younger stories and the impact of this misattunement, you know, as a child and not being able to to feel known and feel understood and realizing what an impact that has played in our relational dynamics that it feels like, wow, this, this has the category to create such trauma, you know, between us and such hurt and such pain. And so I think as we began to explore that more and it resonated with couples that we met with, um, and, and certainly for me and noticing that Steve had had, um,
00:15:12
Speaker
so much practice in his own family of origin with attunement and how that really drew me in when we first met. You said you met young, we met like at 16 and right away there was just this attunement and yeah i hadn't even noticed that, oh, I didn't even know that's what I was missing and what I was needing. And so we were drawn together really young, but then when it wasn't there, because we have our patterns and we both have our patterns in conflict where we would maybe go silent or, you know, and then there was this,
00:15:43
Speaker
panic that would set in and what is happening. And so it, it felt very traumatic and to give it that name and to give it that weight actually brought a lot of healing and a lot of understanding between us.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so we definitely use that language now. I think so many people can resonate with those younger hurts and those parts in their life that they brought into the marriage and how they create so much crisis and trauma within just maybe a regular conversation you thought you were going to have. And all of a sudden it's gone, you know, to a level 10.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um So, Steve, when Lisa would historically get lonely um before y'all had words maybe for that's what was happening and she was tapping into, I'm assuming, Lisa, the ways you were not attuned to or maybe your emotions did not matter as much in your home.
00:16:43
Speaker
What did you pick up on when she brought the symptoms of her loneliness and what did they do in you? It's really good question. Part of my story is i had a mother that was very preoccupied with herself, with our family, not our family, but my dad was in the military, was gone for a number of years. And so she was just preoccupied with our well-being, meaning when was my father going to come home? How are we going to be safe at night? Very anxious. Very, very anxious, preoccupied.
00:17:19
Speaker
And uh, would often look to me as the oldest, uh, for comfort, uh, for soothing. Uh, so I, I, at times I described this in the book a little bit more, I would become what I would call surrogate spouse.
00:17:36
Speaker
Uh, I would provide my mother comfort, soothing distress. Uh, when my mother was okay, we were okay. And so I worked really hard to make sure that she was okay emotionally, physically,
00:17:48
Speaker
But when she wasn't, what I would say, when when she wasn't available, when she my mother wasn't often available physically or emotionally, I just learned strategies to cope. you know i I played sports. I was active. i was busy.
00:18:00
Speaker
I would go in the garage and juggle on and a unicycle. I would go and do these. I had a skateboard. And so I became really focused on accomplishing things, achieving things. I'm a three on the Enneagram. And so I'm just built for achievement and it worked pretty well.
00:18:19
Speaker
But what happened for Lisa and I is when Lisa became what I would say inaccessible when she wasn't available emotionally because she was feeling lonely. It was really, it would really activate me. It's a really, i think, helpful word.
00:18:34
Speaker
I would get what we call triggered. i just would get bothered. I'd get irritated. and get frustrated. But also i think more than any of that, I had this profound sense of futility that I could not help, that I could not do something about Lisa's loneliness.
00:18:49
Speaker
And I think it evoked in me this this place of shame. What's wrong with me? How come I can't help Lisa? What can I do different? But I can't, I can't make it better, which at a core, I think that's what futility is. And so I had this I think this dance with shame for a long, long time and still do at times when Lisa's loneliness gets triggered, and it feels very helpless because I knew what to do with my own mother, but I can't at times know what to do with
Childhood Roles and Conflict Resolution
00:19:20
Speaker
Lisa. Well, and and I think we if we could back up a little bit, when we first met and were married in the first few years, you know we both came from families that we didn't have need.
00:19:32
Speaker
We learned not to need, right? we We both were firstborn, we took, sort of took care of the emotions of our family. We we didn't have emotional need. So we learned pretty well not to have need. So when we got married, he basically found this woman who had no needs, you know, and hit the check we didn't,
00:19:51
Speaker
and if you're like ah me off. Wow. yeah Yeah. And so then I think when it got to where I began to go, wait, I have this going on. And he was surprised. Like, wait, so I thought we were like, I thought we were committed to not having needs. And then you can only go so long living that out before you go, wait, something's wrong. And so those were the times where we had to go, what is happening now?
00:20:14
Speaker
I've met your mother and you don't, you can't respond like your mother, you know? And so that there was a real confusion and and it was very stressful. And and difficult And I think that's what's propelled us and into this work because we really did struggle like this was hard.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, we can relate to so much of that. Partly, i think it was in in working with with Dan and people at Allender Center and you even coming to to understand the concept of parentification.
00:20:44
Speaker
And like, I used to wear it as a badge of honor, like, you know, mom and dad divorced and I'm the quote unquote man of the house. And I'm, you know, I'm reliable and I listen and I stick around and she'll listen, you know, I'll listen. And I got same way, good at attuning, good at caring.
00:21:03
Speaker
I physically developed later, so I didn't date a lot at first, but I was every girl's best friend. Because I'm that, you know, they would tell me what a loser, how terrible their boyfriend was. And I, oh yeah. And I knew how to bring comfort. That was like, you know, I got this.
00:21:18
Speaker
um When we got into marriage, then like we didn't fight really. We had about two or three conflicts during engagement where we're like, what is this? Like what, what, you know even as friends, we never fought or anything. It was just a fun, but then.
00:21:31
Speaker
real conflict comes in and I could relate to what you're saying, Steve, of like, what the heck? I thought I had all the tools. I'm the guy. But i I feel out of my depth.
00:21:44
Speaker
um It was the first part. And then the other part was the stakes felt so high. Like my whole body was going, oh shit. Like this is bad on a level that I couldn't even understand was so triggered.
00:21:57
Speaker
Like there was a desperation for me and I can't fix this. um And that didn't help you either. No, I think the message I got, because my story was more of, I did need to be there for some caregivers, but mainly the caregivers in my life weren't sure what to do with my own emotionality um because I think they didn't know what to do with theirs. And so i needed to not have emotional needs or to have big feelings.
00:22:26
Speaker
And so when I did need you, And you couldn't fix me. The shame that I had felt over having big emotions when I was young transferred to having need.
00:22:40
Speaker
And so then it cemented in me, something must be terribly wrong with me. I'm not fixable. And then I also hated you. I think I hated you and me at the very same time of like, what is so broken in me that I can't be fixed and And I thought you would be the one who would be the fixer.
00:23:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and it was, it was, again, it was a big shift too, to have that, like, you know, that rescuing. Cool. I got this man. I'll, I'll ride in and I'll, I'll write the love song and I'll bring the flowers, you know, and dress up like the night and all of that. And then for it to be problematic, it was not helping partly because another thing I couldn't see was that was about me That was really, I'm trying to save the day because I had to be a day saver, not how can I tune to what you actually need and want and actually provide that for your sake?
00:23:37
Speaker
Like, and that was a ah difficult line um to to even figure out. Mm hmm. um What would you say were for you guys the where were the breakthroughs in terms of um not just, oh, let's learn how to communicate better. Oh, let's learn about, you know, i want lots, you know, but I should, you know, what, where and and how did that interact in particular with faith? I think y'all grew up Christian, if I remember correctly, but how how did the faith journey help and maybe sometimes not so much help?
00:24:10
Speaker
Hmm.
00:24:13
Speaker
I think, you know, for us, it wasn't really until maybe about 10 to 15, maybe 12 years ago, where we, i think, became just for some reason a bit more intentional around our story, and which is what we're talking about, both for the two of you and the two of us, that our story, our family of origin story plays such a significant part of our marriage relationship.
00:24:37
Speaker
And that, to me, is the core message in the Deep Rooted Marriage book. And part Part of what we have begun to discover is there are still stories within our family of origin that we are still unpacking, revealing, naming.
00:24:54
Speaker
ah that That often without that intentionality, I think that's where couples struggle and where we struggled. I think we began to develop ah just a bit more ah of awareness and attunement with each other as we started exploring some of those stories, some of the history with our, particularly with our family, particularly in the relationship with our mothers, our fathers, that that's where I think so many of us are often stuck in the present, is we're still remembering the past in a way that doesn't allow for healing, for growth, to for change to occur.
Faith's Influence on Marriage Perspective
00:25:30
Speaker
ah there was one There was a moment um probably six years ago, seven years ago, we were doing conference. And we started off on a Friday night. And I think we had like 25 couples. And we were talking about the Genesis story of how Adam and Eve, obviously Adam initially being made in the image of God. And there that that scripture has really touched us profoundly.
00:25:58
Speaker
that it invites, I myself, invites Lisa, it invites each couple, but I think it invites each person to actually embrace the calling, the invitation, that we are the image of God on behalf of our spouse. that That has radically shifted us in the way that we think about, teach about, but also live in our marriage.
00:26:19
Speaker
ah It is a tremendous privilege, um obviously not what we can live up to fully, I think when I say that, when we say that in other contexts, there's some people that say, I don't want that. Like it's both inviting, but it's also, think can be overwhelming.
00:26:37
Speaker
Well, and there's an understanding about it too. Like going back to, we both became believers when we were in our teens. So we weren't necessarily grew up in Christian homes.
00:26:48
Speaker
and And I don't think your family ever, you know, was following God, but my family kind of came at that point as well. So we were a little bit of new believers when we got married, um, at 22. Um, and I think in a way that kept us from going back into our stories, because sometimes when you, you are new in your faith and you're, you're trying so hard, you're just trying so hard and you're just like, we're just going to pray harder. We're just going to work harder. We're going to, um,
00:27:21
Speaker
do all the things. So sometimes I think it can be a bit of a hindrance, right? Because why aren't we getting this right? Okay, i got to try harder. And I think it wasn't until a little bit later that we tried all the things we did all the right, you know, quote unquote, things to do.
00:27:35
Speaker
And we realized there's something else going on here. And it's like, I think being able to understand your brokenness and be okay with that, because when you're new believers, you're like, Oh, everything's healed. Everything's good. I'm just going to pray harder, you know?
Normalizing Conflict in Marriage
00:27:49
Speaker
so yeah it just kind of Hands on where you're at in your faith journey. And I think when we were able to accept, wow, there's some brokenness here and it's, and it's a lot of is connected to the past. And so we began to do that, but I feel like it was a hindrance for a while because we just kept trying, we're going to just work harder.
00:28:06
Speaker
And I think a lot of people, a lot of Christian marriages are stuck in that cycle. Like, why isn't this working? We're doing everything right. Yeah, I think for us, it was the discovery, like what saved us in the the first two years were super tough. and We had this deep conflict, but we did get into like a couple's Bible study through the graduate school I was in where other people said, oh, you fight. Don't worry. We do, too.
00:28:30
Speaker
And there at least was this normalization of it when we didn't feel super isolated. We at least had people who were like, oh, my gosh, yes, you fight. But you can learn to fight fair. And that became sort of, OK, there are tools.
00:28:43
Speaker
And we start reading books on how to communicate. And I'm a you know a lawyer by training. I know how to argue really well. So teach me some more tools. OK, great. But then it became sort of, for me at least, the tools better freaking work.
00:28:57
Speaker
And i would be like, I would find my frustration and stress rising. Cause like, we read the daggum right book and we learned XYZ and counseling. Why the heck can't we get this right? Come on. It ought to be easy.
00:29:11
Speaker
And I brought a lot of that energy too, which according to how it hit you, but like there's a lot of pressure and. you know a lot of pressure, but I mean, I'll own like,
00:29:22
Speaker
Shame was so diffuse throughout my system. Like it it was in my veins. And so- I kept as mad as I was, i kept coming back to inside.
00:29:40
Speaker
Something was wrong with me that this wasn't working. So if the tools didn't deliver, there was something wrong with me.
Personal Healing and God's Image
00:29:47
Speaker
And so even the idea of being made in God's image, that was very hard for me at that point in time. to internalize. It's taken decades of work for, um i mean, God could have done it whenever, but it has taken decades of work for God to penetrate through that shame and to dissolve it enough so that I really believe he is for me and he calls me
Podcast Episode Conclusion and Next Steps
00:30:16
Speaker
good. And therefore I can afford to change.
00:30:22
Speaker
Hey folks, we're going pause the conversation right there and divide this conversation into two different episodes. So be on the lookout for part two of this episode of the Surviving Saturday podcast.
00:30:35
Speaker
I want to take a minute though here in this interstitial space to extend an invitation, particularly to any men out there who might be listening or ladies, maybe you can pass this invitation on to your guy if you think it might be worthwhile.
00:30:50
Speaker
I am part of a nationwide organization, really an international organization, called the Samson Society. And the Samson Society is a fellowship of Christian men who are serious about authentic relationship and authentic community.
00:31:02
Speaker
humility and recovery, particularly kind of, any kind of hidden struggles or difficulties that men may have had. If you want to find out more about what Samson Society is about, you can check out the website samsonsociety.com.
00:31:21
Speaker
And also they have a fantastic podcast that is called the Pirate Monk Podcast. Pirate and then monk-like monk in a monastery. The name comes from a book that was written by a pastor named Nate Larkin back in early 2000s called Samson and the Pirate Monks, calling them into authentic brotherhood and that's another way can learn about the organization as well. It's been a Real great blessing to me in finding some honest real down-to-earth brothers to walk with to share honestly about what's going on in our lives.
00:31:55
Speaker
It's really some of my favorite people that I've encountered have been through ZAMF society. It's people who get this idea of being a journey and doing work to understand why we are the way we are, why we react and operate the ways that we do, particularly when we're stressed and lonely and frustrated and all things like that. And it's a great just fellowship and a positive, just an alternative to to what you might find out there sometimes if, you know, community in your church or in your normal c circles of friends is not really coming out like you'd like
00:32:31
Speaker
Why I'm mentioning it now is because I am actually one of the co-chairs of the Charlotte Chapter, which now meets on Wednesday nights Matthews. And so if you have any interest at all in just coming and checking out and meeting sometime and seeing what we're all about and meeting some of the other really great guys who are involved, please shoot me an email at chris at nurturecounseling.net and I'd be glad to give you some more information and let you find out when and where we meet and see if you want to come by and visit pop in you don't say anything you don't do anything and I can show you other ways to get involved in the organization as well so again just shoot me an email if you're interested and we'd love to have you come and visit sometime take care and we'll see you on the next episode of the Surviving Saturday podcast