Recovering ourselves, a look at trauma and healing through the GROW method.

We often live life from the bottom-up or outside-in, rather than living from within. Our bodies inform our emotions, and our spiritual growth, rather than living from the inside out with a settled emotional core. How do we go from a dis-regulated lifestyle to integration with the Father's heart? How do we actually become like Jesus? Join Joshua Hoffert as he interviews Ron Huxley. Ron is a MFT, creator of the Trauma Toolbox, and is anticipating the release of his new book, The GROW Reset.

For more info about Voices from the Desert, visit our Patreon: patreon.com/VoicesfromtheDesert

For more about Ron Huxley, visit: https://ron-huxley.com/

Transcript

Joshua Hoffert (00:39.812)
Yeah, Absolutely. Okay, I'll do a quick little intro and introduce you and we'll go so 321.

Welcome everybody to another episode of Voices from the Desert, Desert, Desert. The echo is because the desert is, you know, so empty, right? And, you know, the desert is where we really encounter ourselves is we go through those barren wastelands.

Ron Huxley (01:10.402)
Right. I got it, yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (01:23.132)
And our heart needs to be terraformed. And so that's, that's kind of the, the, the background of what voices from the desert is. So if you haven't listened to an episode before, we talk about the journey of deep spirituality and healing and recovery, and especially through the lens of the, the old Christian mystics, the ancient ways and the ancient paths.

And we like to have friends on where we interview. And my name is Joshua Hofford. And I'm typically with my co host, Murray do it, but Murray's been on an extended absence taking care of the farm and dealing with the my my co host Murray runs a an animal recovery center as well as a number of other things. His wife is a psychologist. And, and he runs a prophetic training ministry as well. So he's

he's been preoccupied with that stuff and hasn't been able to be on the last few episodes. And so we miss him dearly, but we bless Murray and love him dearly too. So today, we have one of my old friends who was really instrumental actually in him going back thinking young Josh, and the kind of input that this man had into my life and I reached out to him about I don't know it was a month or so ago.

Ron Huxley (02:41.281)
it.

Joshua Hoffert (02:48.458)
asking him if he'd be game to come on the podcast. And lo and behold, it turned out that he's also publishing a book sometime soon. And so the timing was very fortuitous. And I'm very happy to have my good friend Ron Huxley on on the podcast. And so Ron, you can say hi real quick and then I'll Yeah.

Ron Huxley (03:12.718)
Okay, yeah, thanks for having me here. I guess that makes you older, Josh, now.

Joshua Hoffert (03:17.424)
I mean, I'm older Josh. like to say that, older Josh would have really, offended younger Josh.

Ron Huxley (03:20.491)
And.

Ron Huxley (03:27.779)
I'm sure. Yeah. I don't think younger Josh could have had any clue.

Joshua Hoffert (03:29.434)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's true. Yeah, that's true. I think if younger Josh listened to my podcast, he'd be like, that's not right. You know, you don't know what you're talking about. And so I think that's the hopefully everybody's in that place.

Ron Huxley (03:46.606)
Yeah, that shows there's terra formation that has occurred in you.

Joshua Hoffert (03:49.934)
That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yes. Well, I went to a you know, I went through a kind of desert with the frozen tundra of PII for seven years. So maybe that counts. You know? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. There is a lot of sand there. There's some nice beaches. Speaking of beaches, my friend Ron hails from California. And actually not that far from the beach. So he lives in he lives in Cambria. And

Ron Huxley (04:00.142)
Oh, it definitely counts, yeah. I don't think it's all about sand.

Joshua Hoffert (04:19.684)
which is close to, you know, you get to see the elephant seals are right down the road from you. Hearst Castle are right down the road from you. So you've got all kinds of that's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Where they have the, the Eagles nest that everybody has heard about on our podcast. Cause Aaron lives, there's a live stream of an Eagles nest in Big Sur that Aaron follows. They, they, have a camera fixed on it. And then every, you know,

Ron Huxley (04:25.218)
Right? Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just down below Big Sur. Mm-hmm.

Ron Huxley (04:47.181)
Okay.

Joshua Hoffert (04:48.452)
But twice a year or so, think there's a, maybe it's once a year, twice a year, there's an egg laying. And so it's a big deal. Like there's hundreds of thousands of people that follow this, these Eagles. And so that's not that far from you. You know, if we came and visited Aaron would probably want to go up to big surges to peer off in the distance. Yeah. And see, that's right. So just so, and so people raw, people understand the context for Ron enough for why Ron,

Ron Huxley (04:59.499)
wow.

Ron Huxley (05:03.692)
No, I guess not.

We would go there. We would definitely, yeah, definitely go there.

Joshua Hoffert (05:18.78)
is one Ron's a great guy. He's a licensed family and marriage therapist. He's worked. He's worked with for a long time you worked with kids in the foster the foster system. And so very much frontline trauma recovery, and, know, attachment bonding and things like this were kind of front and center for a long time with you and you ran a clinic actually, I think right that

specifically dealt with kids that were in the foster care system. And then you've also developed something called the trauma toolbox, which is a I was actually just checking it out the other day because there's a couple other organizations we work with that I'm going, they could really use this. And it's a great resource for training for trauma informed care. And

Ron Huxley (05:48.098)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (06:14.434)
Right, yeah, free training.

Joshua Hoffert (06:15.83)
Yeah and you've and you've written a you have written at least one other book I know that.

Ron Huxley (06:21.102)
Yeah, I've written a couple of books. One was so long ago, no one knows about it, but yeah. And then one more recently, both of those parenting books. Yeah, yeah. And so, and that can be found at parenting toolbox instead of trauma toolbox, those parenting toolbox. But my main focus and work is around trauma and how to help people find ways.

Joshua Hoffert (06:26.478)
It doesn't count anymore.

Joshua Hoffert (06:34.701)
Okay, right. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (06:41.241)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (06:51.924)
Embody mind and spirit. Find some healing from trauma.

Joshua Hoffert (06:53.998)
Right.

And you were for a while you were working with pastors to pretty pretty consistently, right? You still do. Okay.

Ron Huxley (07:00.866)
I still do, yeah. Most of my referrals now are from the churches in my area. And so I work with lot of pastors, pastor referrals, so a lot of spiritual-based. Not everybody, but the majority of people are faith-based people looking for answers that do include body, mind, and spirit.

Joshua Hoffert (07:07.823)
Right.

Joshua Hoffert (07:13.797)
Right.

Joshua Hoffert (07:19.887)
Right.

Joshua Hoffert (07:24.046)
Right? We actually did a like an online seminar together. think it was you and I and Murray did it together a few years back. And that was really fun. Yeah, that was really fun.

Ron Huxley (07:32.706)
Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, that was fun.

Joshua Hoffert (07:40.561)
And just so everybody knows too, I've got to plug this that we have a Patreon now. I don't know if anybody out there has joined our Patreon. We know we have a few people that follow us pretty passionately. And so if you want to check out the Patreon, and where you usually get early access to the video content, most of the audio most of the podcast is audio based. But then on Patreon, we give them a sneak peek into the video. And we post resources on there and things of that nature. And so

know, if I get a if I get a secret advanced copy of Ron's book, I might post it on there, you know, and so yeah, so you can check out our Patreon and the link will be in the podcast description. It's a good way of supporting the podcast. So Ron, Ron and I go back to church life together in California, where I grew up in a task of arrow.

Ron Huxley (08:15.128)
You know, we can work on something. Yeah, absolutely.

Ron Huxley (08:22.604)
Mm-hmm.

Ron Huxley (08:27.864)
Yeah, cool.

Ron Huxley (08:36.717)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Hoffert (08:39.556)
And I know you guys were part of the vineyard that we all went to back then. Right. That's where we met. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (08:45.186)
Yeah, we were part of the Vineyard and then on going into the home church that we all did together. I was going on for a good six, seven years, think.

Joshua Hoffert (08:50.272)
the home church, we did that for a while. Yeah. And, and then and then I moved away, of course. And married Aaron and stayed in Canada. And you guys did. You guys did the healing rooms together with my dad and my stepmom. And and then you and your wife, Deb, who's also a counselor as well, right? A licensed licensed counselor.

Ron Huxley (09:17.986)
She's a rehab counselor, yeah, so she does some lay ministry counseling through our church and still stays involved with that.

Joshua Hoffert (09:19.759)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (09:23.758)
Right. Yeah. So they're the counseling family there. And although they do say that counselors are the most messed up people, you know, that's

Ron Huxley (09:32.974)
Well, the reason we become therapists is because we can't afford our own therapy.

Joshua Hoffert (09:38.217)
Yeah, that's right. So you'd get loans to go through school and hope that it fixes everything. And then, you know, yeah, that's right. I mean, that's a whole other topic in and of itself, the fact of storytelling, right? And there is something to that living vicariously and helping someone process trauma by seeing what's happened to others, right? It's actually true, you know? Yeah, that's the

Ron Huxley (09:44.02)
Yeah, yeah, kind of like vicariously work it out through different people we're working with, yeah.

Ron Huxley (09:54.216)
yeah.

Ron Huxley (10:03.896)
Yeah. yeah. Yeah, we're not blank slates, right? We interact with people and their stuff affects us and our stuff. yeah, mean, so it really, does mean that whatever form of healing work you do, whatever it might be, is really you've got to be doing your own work ongoing to, yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (10:08.634)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (10:12.282)
you

100%. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (10:30.308)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (10:33.262)
to really be helpful with other people. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (10:36.698)
So I thought one of my earliest, you know, memories of Ron, and I won't go into too many details is when you guys ended up at the same conference in Reading that I was at. And that radical that whole weekend radically changed my life. And you guys were, you know, we didn't go together. But we you know, we ended up there too. I don't think I even knew you guys were going to be there. I can't remember.

Ron Huxley (10:51.15)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (11:06.128)
You know, I just remember being, yeah.

Ron Huxley (11:06.572)
I can't remember either if we knew or didn't know, but yeah, we definitely connected when you were up there. That was a great time. Yeah, for sure that was.

Joshua Hoffert (11:13.762)
And so you watched a massive change happen in my life from that point forward. And, and then we're, you know, intricately and intimately involved. And then, you know, we, when Aaron and I were married, we came back and stayed with you guys a couple times. And, and you and Deb were very instrumental in Aaron going back to school and earning her degree in psychology or bachelor's in psychology. And

Ron Huxley (11:37.11)
Yeah, yeah. Erin's mom was really instrumental in us going to Reading and living there. that was a transformative experience for us in that time with Bethel. she had been already up there. she let us stay with her when we went up to visit. yeah, a lot of life has been done together.

Joshua Hoffert (11:45.529)
Right?

Joshua Hoffert (12:03.376)
there's certain things that certain things that you've said over the years that have lodged themselves into my brain and and have created. Well, I remember when you got you guys had kind of dove into sozo ministry for a little while. And I remember you saying when you were you were working with people and that you had the same people coming back over and over and over again. And you said and I this just really summed up

Ron Huxley (12:13.038)
I

Joshua Hoffert (12:31.994)
part of the part of the, the kind of quick fix mentality that happens in inner healing ministries, was you don't need another sozo. You need counseling, right? We're not just going to fix this quickly. You need to learn how to reset boundaries in your life and actually live practical, you know, practical tools for actually living. And then with that said, I remember another thing you said, and I think this was in the online seminar we did.

Ron Huxley (12:43.222)
Yes. Right. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (12:51.456)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (13:02.088)
you were talking about being able to give someone techniques for calming their body when they were in anxiety, when they were overwhelmed by big emotions, you said, you can't have a bigger thought than your biggest emotion. was one of the things you said in the context of that. And then you said, something along the lines of there being a difference between being able to breathe and calm your autonomic nervous system and, and the, and, and

Ron Huxley (13:12.524)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Hoffert (13:32.203)
knowing what the Father thinks about you and having that be your baseline that calms you into his presence, right? Those are two different things. And so the, I've often thought about how the path to that you can be emotionally mature because you have the right set of circumstances in your life, right? You don't need to be a Christian or anything to be emotionally mature. You have securely attached parents who

Ron Huxley (13:37.346)
Right, Yeah.

Ron Huxley (13:53.643)
Mm-hmm.

True.

Joshua Hoffert (13:58.993)
taught you coping mechanisms for life and how to recover from big emotions. Like, you know, that can be very practically handed to you. And you don't even have to have good parents, you might have had a good parental figure in your life that helps you understand that and learn that, right? Yeah, yeah. But that but that doesn't mean that you know what the father's like, and that you have a robust spiritual life. There's a difference between emotional maturity and spiritual maturity.

Ron Huxley (14:03.874)
Mm-hmm.

Ron Huxley (14:13.198)
Yeah, it could have been a grandparent or someone else. Yeah, for sure.

Joshua Hoffert (14:26.916)
And there's a difference between emotional health and spiritual health too. Right. And how you define those things. And so I think, yeah, it does. It does. And so what you've put together the, the framework for the book that you have coming out, the grow model sounds so fascinating. So tell us a little bit about that, how that the interplay of how that helps us in spiritual maturity, emotional maturity, and to develop health in all those areas.

Ron Huxley (14:30.478)
Absolutely, Yeah, it goes both directions, right? can have.

Ron Huxley (14:42.721)
Right.

Ron Huxley (14:54.69)
Yeah, so I was trying to synthesize the 30 plus years of experience I have had in the field in trauma therapy and trauma informed care trainings that I've done for organizations. And I wanted to model that would be easy to understand and follow. And actually I wanted to model that I could easily understand and follow so that when I'm actually working with someone, I don't have to like reinvent the wheel every time. Like there are obviously,

Joshua Hoffert (15:14.542)
Right, right.

Ron Huxley (15:22.302)
unique variables to everyone, but also there are some just some basic principles that are based on real hard science, but also are very practical in their application. And that's what I was looking for, that balance. So I played around with this a bit and finally came up with the acronym of GROW, G-R-O-W. And it's four phases or rhythms.

Joshua Hoffert (15:26.789)
Right.

Ron Huxley (15:51.266)
that you would use somewhat sequentially in that you would start off with G grounding. As you mentioned before, we have to get our nervous system grounded and being able to be in a calm place of our body, our somatics to be in a calm reaction. Because if we're in a hyper reaction or hyper vigilant state, then it's very hard oftentimes for people to

think straight as well as to connect with the Lord because their nervous system is so dysregulated. So getting grounded is a first step. Once we get grounded, then we can move to R, which is recognizing the issues, the patterns, the lies that we are living out. It doesn't matter if you know them, but if you're not grounded, you can't manage them and you're not going to understand them until you get grounded. So once you get grounded,

You can recognize these patterns, these lies, these issues that are going on in your life. From there, you have to then open your heart to the oh, open your heart to new patterns, new beliefs, new the truth, right? You have to then start engaging in practices, is where it becomes practical, practices that allow you to create some type of change. Because you can know what your problems are,

but never change. So you have to be open to and committed to that process of practices that allow transformation to occur. From there though, you need to be able to W, walk it out. You need a little walk in wholeness so that actually this is sustainable over time, right? Not just one time, but on an ongoing basis. Like I've dealt with anxiety throughout most of my life.

Joshua Hoffert (17:20.943)
Right.

Joshua Hoffert (17:38.416)
Right.

Ron Huxley (17:46.562)
As result of that, I've had to learn principles that allow me to maintain that. It doesn't mean that I never feel anxiety anymore. I just know the right tools to use when I do experience anxiety. And now that I know what it is, I recognize it, I know how to ground myself, I know how to practice this to engage in, and now I know how to sustain that over time. So that's the GROW method.

Joshua Hoffert (17:55.887)
Right.

Joshua Hoffert (18:10.96)
you know, I remember going through a what I would call or what many would call a dark night of the soul, right? coined by john of the cross, one of the Catholic mystics in the 1616 century. And it's a season, I'm sure you're aware, but just so people are aware, right? A season where your your perception is that God has abandoned you is

you know, he's out to lunch and you don't worry went right. And you're looking. Yeah, it is it is very common. I remember when I came out of that season, because I had I had been taught about it. I had read about it. You know, I was I was familiar with it. You know, I was familiar with the Bible verses about, you know, that connect into there. And I came out of that season, thinking that I was going to be full of life and energy and you know, like,

Ron Huxley (18:41.954)
Yeah. And that is pretty common for people to have those seasons or moments. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (19:09.146)
feel and I'd finally feel put together. Right. And I came out of that season way more aware of the work that needed to be done. I could see my defensiveness, right? I could see how walled off I was my inability to open up. I was so hyper aware of those patterns and and not feeling put together, but realizing just how you know, just how unput together I was.

Ron Huxley (19:11.406)
Okay.

Ron Huxley (19:29.708)
Uh-huh.

Joshua Hoffert (19:39.896)
Right. So to me,

Ron Huxley (19:40.846)
But you had, it sounds like you achieved clarity through that process though, right? Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (19:43.65)
I did, right? I did. And, you know, on some level, I think those, what you've laid out in that grow framework, right? Is, kind of what happens to people would go through those formative seasons, right? On a, in a, on a bigger, right? You, I mean, you can work someone through that in a, kind of a, know, maybe in a two hour session. Okay. Let's calm you down. Let's kind of figure out what's the belief structure. Let's, let's say it. Okay. But what.

Ron Huxley (19:58.028)
Yeah, I think so.

Joshua Hoffert (20:13.539)
Does that make sense? Right? know, you can work through someone through that, right? But you could take a two year window and go, hey, you're learning all those principles too, right? It's my macro and micro in terms of the experience there. I, I, I, there's this, there's this video. And I wonder what you think about this, that I came across a few years back. And it's a deer, technically an impala, being chased by a

Ron Huxley (20:15.756)
and then right.

Joshua Hoffert (20:43.235)
I think it's a Jaguar. And the Jaguar has got it in his mouth. Right? It's you know, animal animal planet or something like that. It's got in its mouth and the deer looks dead. Right? It's just limp, totally limp. And then these hyenas come and are starting to like, hey, we want to get this deer too, right? So the Jaguar is defending its supposed kill and they get into a tussle. This happens over like 50 seconds, right?

They get into a tussle and the the Jaguar and the hyenas all forget about the deer. Right? They're fighting. The deer is laying there. Not moving whatsoever for about 30 seconds, probably. And then it starts to shake violently. Right. And, and you could see it shaking and shaking and shaking and shaking and shaking. And it starts to get up and wobbling, shaking. And then it kind of gives one final shake, like a dog, you know, shaking off water, and then it runs off.

Ron Huxley (21:13.39)
Mm-hmm.

Ron Huxley (21:41.654)
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.

Joshua Hoffert (21:43.15)
Right. Never to be seen again. Right. You know, free and happy and, and it, in that, in that, in that instance, you kind of see grow happening, you know, on an instinctual animal basis, right. You've got the, I've, I've gone through my, my, you know, fight, fight, flight, freeze appease. They tried to the flight that didn't work. And then they went freeze preparing for death. Right.

Ron Huxley (21:59.886)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (22:09.24)
you

Joshua Hoffert (22:13.397)
And then it wakes up, right, it's calmed its nervous system. That's what the shaking is all about discharging all of the adrenaline that's been pumped into the body, right, checks its surroundings, right, recognizing, opening itself to a new belief structure running away to join the herd again, right and walking out. So it's in that in that, you know, 30 second period, it's processed the trauma, discharge the the adrenaline.

Ron Huxley (22:24.654)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (22:43.735)
chose a new path and then walked it out, right? And you know, it's, it's, you know, it's kind of fitting it through there. And humans, because humans are more complex than a deer, we really need to go through the same process that the deer went through. But our channels for expressing that are much different than the instincts of, you know, an animal, right? We need

Ron Huxley (22:51.34)
Yeah, it's a good example.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua Hoffert (23:10.991)
community, we need people wiser and more strong and stronger than us to help us find our way forward, we need the wisdom of elders. So with the breakdown of the family, the establishment of the nuclear family in Western civilization, right? You're, you don't see nearly the kind of integration in people's life because of that. That's one major, I that's one major, you know, people get stuck

before the G. They have no idea how to calm themselves. They're stuck in a heightened. They're stuck in. What did you say you said? Vigilant right there hyper vigilant. They're constantly looking for the threat and they don't even know that there's another way of living. Right? They have no idea how to do that because they never had a parental figure do that. They never had a friend to show them how to do that.

Ron Huxley (23:46.485)
they don't.

Joshua Hoffert (24:09.999)
anybody walk alongside and go, how do you calm yourself down? Right? And it's so simple. And it's hardwired into the instincts of animals in the animal kingdom. But for humans, it's more nuanced how we process that, right? And, and we don't, we just don't, we really don't have the framework, the framework is eroded in, in society around us towards that.

Ron Huxley (24:26.818)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (24:37.454)
Yeah, particularly Western society. I think we're so cognitively focused that everything becomes about our thoughts. And while they're definitely a significant part of the whole scheme of who we are, our framework and identity, they're only a part of it. You know, what you're describing with that deer is that deer

Joshua Hoffert (25:00.237)
Yeah, that's right.

Ron Huxley (25:03.328)
actually went into what science calls the dorsal vagal shutdown. And this shutdown is a collapse mode. Basically, and you see this in trauma survivors as well, where you can't fight off your attacker and you can't run from your attacker. Therefore, your only then effect is go into a freeze or shutdown mode where the nervous system literally collapse and it shuts off. So it looks like in the deer that the deer was dead for all practical purposes.

Joshua Hoffert (25:07.721)
Okay.

Joshua Hoffert (25:25.816)
Right.

Ron Huxley (25:33.28)
and actually might've even looked registered as if it was because the nervous system and the deer shut down with the added idea that maybe if I stop struggling, they might lose interest. They might give up, go fight some hyenas. And then the nervous system went into an automatic program, what we call tremoring, where it shakes to release the traumatic energy.

Joshua Hoffert (25:48.942)
Right.

Ron Huxley (26:01.996)
that it experienced on his nervous system, allowing it then to escape. And that allows more mobility. So a higher level of functioning provides more mobility in our lives. The ability to move, to interact, to do, to seek help. That's how it looks like for us in our world. But the problem has been in our Western society is that we're so overemphasized on cognitive, i.e. talk therapy, that we forget that

Joshua Hoffert (26:18.211)
Right.

Ron Huxley (26:31.766)
It's our body that also is affected. And actually there's a book called the body keeps a score and the whole, the whole by Bessel van der Koek and the whole reason for that book is to help us understand that you can't sometimes approach problems purely from a cognitive, i.e. left brain format. You have to address it from a right brain and bodily format.

Joshua Hoffert (26:38.53)
yeah, that's a great one.

Ron Huxley (26:57.772)
because the body keeps the score. It remembers every traumatic thing that's ever happened to us. So we have to be able to connect with that. And spiritually what this does is when we're in a heightened hypervigilant state, our body is now running the show and telling our mind how to think, feel, and act. And our spirit, which is supposed to have that job to tell our mind how to think, feel, and act, and then our body is supposed to then move and behave,

Joshua Hoffert (27:15.873)
Right, right.

Ron Huxley (27:27.426)
The body is now taken over out of a fear response and it's controlling the mind and now the mind has shut down the spirit. So we can literally go through our own dark night of the soul or the dark night of the soul of whatever trauma we're going through makes it very difficult to connect to God. People say, you know, I pray but it's like God's not listening. I feel like there's no one there. I don't understand why God's abandoned me.

You know, all these situations, maybe it was even what Jesus felt on the cross, you know, God, why have you forsaken me right at that moment? think just a feeling of separation that he was having physically, emotionally from the father created this great, you know, sense of his own collapse and death, know, actual death. So there's a lot of scientific principles that are in all of this, but it makes sense in terms of how do we heal and

Joshua Hoffert (27:57.421)
Right.

Joshua Hoffert (28:08.109)
Right. Right.

Ron Huxley (28:25.26)
We heal from that mentally, physically, and spiritually by first grounding our nervous system. And then that allows our mind to come online and allows us to think clearly so that we can then connect with Holy Spirit.

Joshua Hoffert (28:32.291)
Right. Right.

Joshua Hoffert (28:43.373)
Yeah, that's and, so, yeah, I love that we live bottom up rather than top down basically. Right.

Ron Huxley (28:50.114)
Yeah, and actually the trauma science is bottom up and inside out, right? And so it's bottom up body, mind, spirit, and inside out, me and we work on what's going on inside before we work on the outside. And we often do the opposite of all those things, top down and outside in.

Joshua Hoffert (28:56.515)
Okay. Right.

Joshua Hoffert (29:04.697)
Right.

Right. Right. Well, I just have a couple thoughts. I one is just, you know, rethinking it would do it would do it would be a good study to rethink how Jesus interacts with each person. And, how he goes about calming their nervous system. Right, especially in any healing that happens.

personal interaction, that kind of stuff, right? How he goes, how he goes about helping them engage with, you know, when there's a woman with the issue of blood, right? Like daughter of Abraham, your faith has made you well, right? The tenderness of the voice, the intentionality, all this stuff, right? You you can, you can, you can see in the interaction, you can imagine the interaction when he says, who touched me, that power went out from me, right? And this woman heard heightened her, her, the

Ron Huxley (29:51.182)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (30:00.642)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (30:06.253)
the hyper vigilant state she must've been in because she'd been rejected by all of society, right? Goes, right. And, he goes, no, it's okay. Right. Okay.

Ron Huxley (30:10.536)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The shame, all of that. Yeah. Disappointment that she's gone through for years of doctors and you know, that one little, yeah, yeah. And all I could do is like, if I just touch, you know, the hem of his robe.

Joshua Hoffert (30:21.538)
Yeah.

spend all of her living on doctors. says, right. We're 12 years.

Joshua Hoffert (30:31.289)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (30:34.23)
Right. I can be made well. Like it was a desperate attempt to that. I think it's his compassion too that he shows and neurologically. Right. Yeah. Calls her by identity. Daughter of Abraham. Right. She felt like she probably had no identity or felt so much shame that it was buried. And then he calls it out. Right. Through all of that. It's interesting. Yeah. Instead of talking about her physical condition, he actually calls out her.

Joshua Hoffert (30:34.285)
Right. Absolutely.

Joshua Hoffert (30:41.783)
He regulates with her. He calms her down, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (30:57.185)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (31:04.332)
her identity. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (31:05.453)
Yeah, he doesn't even address her, her physical condition, really. He doesn't, he doesn't need the word, you know, the quote unquote word of knowledge to go, you haven't had an issue of blood for 12 years, and now you've been healed, right? Doesn't he just speaks directly to the core of who she is, regulates himself with her regulates her with himself. And she learns a new way of being right. And he does this, this is the woman caught in adultery. This is the gatorian demoniac, right? He helps them to regulate to his reality, right?

Ron Huxley (31:09.964)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (31:15.906)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (31:29.486)
Right.

Yeah, touching the lepers, right? Is like, right? So on all of these, yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (31:35.031)
And then absolutely. He's working through those. He's really working through it and in, in all the steps. Right.

Ron Huxley (31:44.45)
He's the person, right? He's reaching out and connecting with the person, the human being, right? It's like even more important than the physical healing, which they want. He's like calling out who they are, giving them dignity, a sense of worth through his actions and words and touch, all those things.

Joshua Hoffert (32:05.259)
I, you know, I read a book a while back that helped me to understand some of what you're talking about. And it was, waking the tiger by Peter Levine.

Ron Huxley (32:16.642)
Right, yeah, he's very somatic based, somatic experiencing is his work.

Joshua Hoffert (32:18.923)
Yeah. No, it's not a Christian or anything, right? It's kind of the opposite. In a way he is.

Ron Huxley (32:23.158)
No, it's not.

Ron Huxley (32:27.859)
No, yeah, he has a little bit of an evolutionary sort of basis for his ideas, but he does touch a lot on the body.

Joshua Hoffert (32:30.596)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (32:35.459)
he, he said something to this two, two things he said in the book that really, that I thought were quite profound. The first one was that most people mistake trauma with the event. Yeah. And so they think, well, I have to revisit the event to heal my trauma. Right. And when we take the deer, for example, right. The trauma isn't the event. The trauma is the adrenaline that it needs to discharge through its body with the tremor response. Right. So

Ron Huxley (32:47.15)
Okay.

Ron Huxley (33:00.834)
Right. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (33:03.587)
That's where the trauma is dealt with, not by rethinking, thinking again about the Jaguar, you know, and plotting an escape route, right? It has to find a way to discharge the nervous system. And, and that's so, you know, people, people who go through inner healing or counseling oftentimes will say, well, I don't, I've already dealt with that. I don't want to revisit it. Well, we're not saying you have to revisit it. What you may have to think about it.

Ron Huxley (33:10.252)
Yeah, yeah.

Ron Huxley (33:27.896)
you

Joshua Hoffert (33:33.207)
Right. But you, but you're, what you have to deal with is the, the fact that you've been stuck in a trauma response ever since. Right. That's the trauma is the lingering effects.

Ron Huxley (33:33.507)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (33:43.598)
Right. And they think, I didn't do it right or maybe maybe my sin was too bad or I didn't read my Bible enough. There's a lot of spiritual bypassing that occurs in our religious community around these things and why they're still struggling when it might be simply their nervous system needs to be, you know, renewed as well as their spirit as well. But because we are

Joshua Hoffert (33:46.477)
Right.

Joshua Hoffert (33:59.93)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (34:09.635)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (34:11.768)
higher cognitive order beings than like the deer, there's really two factors. One is we need to be able to process it on a somatic level and discharge a lot of negative energy that's built up in our nervous system, that our nervous system has built emotional programs around to protect us. It's just adaptive. But the other part is it's not revisiting the trauma event, but the lies we have believed.

Joshua Hoffert (34:31.619)
Right, right.

Joshua Hoffert (34:38.947)
Right. Right. Right.

Ron Huxley (34:39.374)
about the event that has happened to us. Like, flunked second grade, therefore I'm stupid. Right? Or because, you know, my husband had an affair, no one ever is going to love me again. There's all these different things, or I've done something so hideous, you know. And so we get this dichotomy in the church often like, I know God loves me, but I don't feel like he does. Right? I know I'm a worthwhile person, but I don't feel like I am. Right? I know it's going to be okay, but I don't really think it is. Right. And so we get

Joshua Hoffert (34:44.878)
Right. Right.

Joshua Hoffert (34:52.899)
Right. Right.

Joshua Hoffert (35:02.275)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like 95%.

Ron Huxley (35:09.856)
Yeah, because the body where the emotions are stored are fighting against that cognitive reality. Right. And so I don't need you to go back through the event and remember it other than we need to understand the lies that you have come to believe the narrative of yourself, your identity and how that's been impacted. That's what's important.

Joshua Hoffert (35:37.365)
what that's that's there's you know that's what a so let's say this because that's what a body calming exercise won't teach you right so what when you talk

Ron Huxley (35:47.918)
Right. It allows you to be able to recognize it because if you're in a hypervigilant state, you can't think about that.

Joshua Hoffert (35:54.456)
Right, right. So when you're talking about walking it out, learning to live differently and new patterns, what when you counsel someone, what what are some of the thinking of, because I'm thinking this, that there's the there's the reality of inner healing and helping someone calm their nervous system and discover, this is my belief structure, and I need to needs to change, right? There's so that's kind of the the structure of the inner healing that we see.

Ron Huxley (36:00.344)
Mm-hmm.

Ron Huxley (36:13.614)
of

Joshua Hoffert (36:23.575)
And I put the, you know, Christian therapy into that kind of box, right? That to more or less better degrees, right? Some, some places do it better than others, right? Some are kind of rudimentary. You know, you think back to some of the early, the early, at least in the evangelical Pentecostal world. You know, let's here you have a memory, revisit that memory, where's Jesus in the memory, right? Some of the rudimentary practices, which can be really

Ron Huxley (36:32.974)
and

Ron Huxley (36:51.34)
Yeah, and that could be good.

Joshua Hoffert (36:52.943)
It can be good, but it can also be the memories of very finicky thing. You know, it's, it remembers things that aren't there. You know, uh, anyway, I was thinking about a whole bunch of kinds of things, a whole bunch of things, but so there's.

Ron Huxley (37:04.32)
Right, yeah, it might be just more like, how is, you know, listening to how God thinks about you, right? That might be a transformative event, Presenting them in the memory and where were you at the time can be very helpful as one tool. And then also being able to just ask God, how do you think about me? How do you see me? How do you feel about me? Right? And, and then I've talked to people where I do cognitive sort of behavioral therapy.

Joshua Hoffert (37:13.335)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (37:20.579)
Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (37:24.014)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (37:32.042)
and we're just kind of having a conversation, but no real transformations occurring. And then we just stop and pray and ask God how he thinks about you, which is sort of a spiritual cognitive behavioral therapy if you think about it. And God says how he thinks about you and then it's not runs out and tears flow. And suddenly there's a huge transformative event because the spirit got engaged. And

Joshua Hoffert (37:41.635)
Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Joshua Hoffert (37:49.058)
Right.

Right.

Well, and that's my that's my part of my contention with the and I was saying this to you when we chatted last week is we have this inner healing kind of thing happening in Christian spheres. We have, you know, something I've been intimately involved with the prophetic ministry talking about encountering God, hearing his voice and how that's metered out and how the Holy Spirit comes to us and all of that. And and then we have the this, you know, this resurgence in the spiritual formation crowd, you know,

Ron Huxley (38:13.934)
you

Joshua Hoffert (38:24.387)
Dallas Willard and, and, and now into into John Mark Homer is really popular in that case. And Jim Wilder and the, and that group and everything, right, we've got that kind of spiritual formation crowd that talks about practices and rhythms. And all of them seem to be, they've got to be integrated, right? Because what you just described is we're talking about the therapeutic thing, we have to pause

Ron Huxley (38:40.046)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's good. Mm-hmm.

Ron Huxley (38:52.749)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Hoffert (38:54.211)
how and there's an encounter with the presence of the Holy Spirit that resets the the way the therapies so there now we've got the inner healing with the prophetic you know you those things are being integrated right and then there's the how do they how do you help that person walk it out as you said you know so many years ago you don't need more inner healing you need therapy right you need to you've got to walk it out

Ron Huxley (39:01.784)
Right?

Ron Huxley (39:18.958)
Yeah, you gotta walk it out. You gotta learn how to live in a different way. know, Romans 12, yeah, Romans 12, one, you know, is giving our lives to Christ, but Romans 12, two is thinking like Christ. And so we have to start living that renewed mind out in day-to-day actions. And it may just be simple little steps of spiritual formation that occurs on a regular basis.

Joshua Hoffert (39:24.281)
That's the hard part.

Joshua Hoffert (39:33.336)
Right.

Ron Huxley (39:46.2)
So it's an ongoing process of sanctification, we would call it even, Of learning how to live in a different way. You are new creation, but now you need to renew every day to continue this work. It doesn't happen once for all.

Joshua Hoffert (40:02.607)
there's there's simple things I love. This is one of the reasons I love studying the desert fathers, the lives of the early Christian monks so much is they'll have simple practices that they'll talk about that and and a typically an affectionate relationship with a spiritual father. Right. And I think I think they you know, I obviously didn't understand the science behind it or anything, right. But they tapped into something that was

Ron Huxley (40:15.118)
Mm-hmm.

Ron Huxley (40:21.356)
Right, yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (40:30.627)
that was deeply transformative, because of the science behind it, right? Where they've got these simple practices, like one would be praying the Psalms, right? Every day, there's 12 Psalms, you're going to pray, they're going to pray them through. So they're, they're, they're establishing a baseline of this is how the Lord thinks and what, you know, life in him looks like, right? So there's that there, there were, there were spiritual practices like

Ron Huxley (40:33.155)
you

Joshua Hoffert (41:00.959)
every night review your day and ask God what pleased him and what didn't please him. Right? The daily examine, right? You find that back in or way back in early Christianity, right? And then you've got the the practice of visiting a spiritual father and asking. The question typically is what do I need to be saved? That's typically the question, right? And and getting simple, practical advice. Right? I remember one I'm thinking of one particular example where

Ron Huxley (41:06.987)
Yeah, the daily examinations we call it. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (41:30.851)
there's seven monks hanging out with one spiritual father that they've all have their different their their different cells, they call them right a little bit set apart from each other, they do their practices and they get together once a week, right. And, and the spiritual father, when they ask, what do we need to do to live in community together? And they say, well, we're going to go to our cells for seven days, pray and ask the Lord, and then we'll come back and

reconvene together. Well, they all noticed that this particular father who's overseeing them, I think his name was Arsenius, stays the whole week he stands before a pillar and statue. And he hurls insults at it, throws rocks at it, and then begs it for forgiveness. Right. And there. So after the week is done, and they reconvene, they go, well, you know, what were you? What was he doing? You know?

Ron Huxley (42:25.326)
I don't know.

Joshua Hoffert (42:26.177)
And and they all are maybe this is what we should do. Maybe this is what we should do. But you know, Father, why were you doing that? And he goes, when I hurled insults at the at the statue, did it get offended? No. He when I threw rocks at it, was it hurt? No. When I apologize to it, was it moved? No. So we should be amongst ourselves. You know, right. And so it just becomes this like

Ron Huxley (42:48.226)
Yeah, I like that. That's great. Yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (42:52.035)
This baseline for, that's the kind of people we are when we're together, right? If, if we say something that we, that hurts us, we don't let it affect us in that same way. Right. Right. And, and so he puts this example out, it becomes the way the community interacts. And so they have.

Ron Huxley (42:55.896)
Right. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (43:01.912)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (43:07.886)
Yeah. Yeah. So they had spiritual fathers, which, know, and I'm sure spiritual mothers and but there are people who spoke into their life and community and told them, you know, ways to live right. And how to walk out what they were practicing and learning and believing. So, yeah, it's a beautiful example of how to what, you know, I'm calling the grow method, but they were doing, you know,

Joshua Hoffert (43:15.683)
Yeah. Yeah, there. Yep.

Joshua Hoffert (43:28.964)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (43:36.716)
centuries before. Intuitively, yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (43:37.966)
Yeah, intuitively, there's a there's another guy. His story is amazing is he's he was a robber and murderer ends up. No one really knows his can, you know, his quote unquote conversion story, right? But he was a notorious villain and ends up staying with the desert fathers. And he's he was struggling with lustful thoughts for years, and praying that they would go away. Right? And he'd go and he finally confesses it to

Ron Huxley (43:59.448)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Hoffert (44:04.245)
one of the desert fathers and he says, well, come out here with me. And he says, look that way. And he says, and he says, I see a bunch of demons in the sky. And he says, well, look that way. And he says, wow, I see way more angels up there. And he says, those who are with us are more than those who are against us. Continue to struggle. I'll pray for you. It's going to be okay. Right. And right. This 10, the tenderness of this, like I'm having this trouble. let me reframe it for you. Right. And, and so he's able to, to

Ron Huxley (44:21.614)
Nice, yeah, yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (44:32.207)
You know, walk forward and find a measure of healing and, and rest from this inner battle because of a, let's calm you down, right? Your baseline is now my baseline, right? Let's what, what's the lie that you're believing? those that are against us are much bigger than those that are for us. Right. Okay. Well, let's deal with that. Right now. Okay. Now go back into your cell and continue to pray. I'm going to pray for you now, right now. We're walking it out. Right. It's like, it's so right there.

Ron Huxley (44:38.638)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ron Huxley (44:49.059)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (44:59.864)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our example are there, right? And so we try to reinvent the wheel, but really the resources are there and all these people, know, John Comer and everybody else, you know, they're just people helping us guide us along the path of our own life, right? And so ultimately we have to look at ways like, what do I need to sustain my life in a way that feels worth living and is,

Joshua Hoffert (45:03.981)
Yeah.

Ron Huxley (45:29.464)
pleasing to God and lives in harmony with those around me. Right, just how to maintain my healing throughout life. Right, yeah.

Joshua Hoffert (45:35.427)
Yeah, absolutely.

Joshua Hoffert (45:41.667)
Yeah, that's right. Well, and that hopefully, not hopefully, but when your book comes out, that'll be a good resource for people to walk that out as well. So yeah, once it's once the book is officially published, we'll update the podcast with a link to be able to purchase the book. And we'll share that on social media too. So you keep us

Ron Huxley (45:48.662)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ron Huxley (45:59.958)
Yeah, I'm hoping this spring 2026 will get it out. that's my hope. So God willing, Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on to share all that.

Joshua Hoffert (46:05.485)
Yeah. We've wet your appetite now. Everybody that's listening. Yeah. So we'll, we'll make sure to, yeah. Absolutely. It's always great to spend time with you, Ron. I love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Good. Good. Okay. Well, we'll, we'll have to, I want to have you back on and actually talk about parenting. That would be a, you know, that would be a fascinating topic.

Ron Huxley (46:16.866)
Yeah, both Josh's are good, right? We're going to need to do some integration work, I think, to maybe pull them all together. Yeah.

Ron Huxley (46:30.446)
Great. Okay.

Joshua Hoffert (46:35.035)
And yeah, yeah. Okay, Ron. Well, thanks so much. And everybody thanks so much for tuning in. And until next time, God bless.

Ron Huxley (46:35.224)
Yeah, anytime.