Trapped Trauma ~ Dale Hodgeson Ep. 152

Have you ever noticed how your body seems to carry the weight of past experiences, sometimes even years after the moment has passed? Trauma has a way of getting trapped in us, showing up in unexpected ways, and leaving us wondering how to find release and relief.

In today’s episode, Dale shares from over 20 years of story work about how our bodies hold on to trauma and how grief can actually be a cleansing gift to our hearts and bodies. This is a powerful conversation that reminds us healing is possible, even in the places that feel stuck.

Stay connected with Dale at thetensionofhope.com 

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Transcript

Transcript is Auto-Generated

Denisha: [00:00:00] Today we have Dale Hodgeson back on the podcast. You guys, if you missed the last podcast, episode 1 51, you are definitely Wanna go back and listen to that. It was so good how we talked about rupture in relationships. We talked about repairing those relationships. We talked about hope trauma. Oh, such a rich conversation.

And today is going to be. Again, a rich conversation. Uh, we are welcoming Dale. Back to the podcast. he has walked alongside others in story work, which he really covered in the last episode. What Story Work Is for Over 20 years, he has training from the Islander Institute in Seattle and Open Hearts Ministry in Michigan.

Dale is passionate about creating safe spaces where people can bring their heartache and experience God's healing in community. And as part of the Narrow Gate team in Tucson, he considers it a privilege to witness the power of connection and [00:01:00] redemption in people's stories. So Dale, our last conversation was so good.

I am really excited about today's as well. 

Dale: Yep, me too. Can't wait to get rolling here. 

Denisha: Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing. It's not lost on me that what you offer, um, not only in these episodes, but with all that you do with the narrow gate, what you're offering is because you've experienced it yourself and you've done this hard work.

 We know that healing from our past trauma is such a journey. And, um, today we're gonna talk about trapped trauma and the process of entering trauma stuck in our bodies with connection, hope, and love.

So. How do we begin that one? That sounds deep. 

Dale: Yeah. Well, I think I'd like to start just by saying as, as you were talking about the different places people are in this process, how important it is to remember, when [00:02:00] we're engaging, going from disconnection to connection and going through this process that any movement forward is monumental.

So you've had a lifetime of. Series of things that have happened and structures and in patterns and themes that have caused harm in your life, and then you took you to go against that. Because I think a lot of time people think they should be farther down the road or they should be something different.

And I always look at any movement forward towards grace and mercy, towards connection towards repair. Any movement is monumental. and we're not here to define where anybody should be. We talked last time about how we don't compare stories because quite often we do that to not actually engage the pain of our own.

So it's a form of contempt towards ourselves. So we're not able to, or do we desire to say you should be in a certain place or not be at a certain [00:03:00] place because you are where you're at. And anything that you do to buck the old system is this huge, huge monumental thing, and you have to go step by step.

You don't get to jump over. It's layer after layer, after layer. It's redemption after redemption. It's, it's this process, this journey. That's a lifelong journey. And if, and I just, I turn these things, when we make connections, when we have repair, when we're able to grieve, are just, these, monumental places of, growth, but also redemption.

And so I don't ever get tired of redemption. that takes us kind of into this, this subject of stored trauma stress in our bodies because like we never stop getting traumatized in our life. And I mean, yeah, I don't, I think it's pretty much impossible to not be traumatized in your so ongoing trauma work.

I think is [00:04:00] imperative to my overall health as a human being because this stored trauma stress, which sometimes becomes a disorder, that's PTSD, but the storage trauma stress causes so many, I don't not, maybe not cause them, but amplifies or intensifies so many different diseases, mentally, physically, emotionally.

and so we see that in the chronic pain, the chronic illness in the United States, the billions and billions of dollars in depression, drugs, anxiety, drugs, um, and I'm not, and I'm not condemning those, I'm just saying they're their byproducts. A lot of it's a byproduct of stored trauma, stress, and so we just look at this as trauma.

Unaddressed un ENT entered. It stays in your body. And so, and especially on the, we're we're specifically this lane is the emotional lane. I mean, like I go to the gym and stuff and there's trauma stress released [00:05:00] and stress released at the gym. There's other avenues to release stress, but they don't affect your heart and they don't affect relationships.

And so that's what's so important about this particular, lane that we're in is this is about my heart. This is about relationships, and this is about love and trauma, and its power to disassociate and disconnect. It ruins and cheapens intimacy and love. And so that's the war that we're against.

We're going against it. We're going against that unseen force. That's gone on for generation, after generation, after generation. You know, I, and I kind of have a different view of the generational sin. like you don't eliminate generational sin because you can't stop sinning. Like I, I view it as generational disrepair.

I can disrupt de generational [00:06:00] disrepair like crazy. And so, I mean, there is some play that comes into these things. So if you hate evil, um, I, I can't eliminate sin outta my life. So I can't, I can't change generational sin through perfection. I ruin generational disrepair through repair. Sense. 

Denisha: That's so good.

Yes. 

Dale: So my failure is the launching point to connection, and there's so much freedom when I'm not trying to be perfect. Yeah. And so that's, that's just another piece to look at as we're going, as we're going into this longevity of why we would stay in a story work type place. and I always look at it in, in the realm of care, like we do these groups, but we don't give advice.

We're not looking to change you. Um, and we definitely can't help you. You can only [00:07:00] help you. I like to call these groups, care groups, so we come into a place where we can care for you and, and we care so much about you that we'll say some really difficult things to you, and we are okay disrupting you.

We're okay with your discomfort, and we're okay sitting with you in the deepest place of your pain and being on the blessing team. An encouragement team when you're in those places. So, you know, as we, as we just step into more of the process we talked about before, but only with a, a view of, We got all this information, scientific information of our brains, our bodies, how they interconnect, what goes on with 'em.

And then, so I want to use these tools moving forward in my life through my own choice to deal with the trauma stress that's still in my body. And I still have childhood, uh, trauma, stress in my body. I get triggered and, and you know, I, I come from a place where there's not, there wasn't a lot, a lot of.[00:08:00] 

Talking. I mean, there was no connection. There was a lot of silence and fear and anger at my, at the house I grew up in. So I don't have a lot of stories and I spent some time fragmented. So I don't have a lot of remembered stories. I can tell you 20 stories when something went fla across the room didn't happen.

But my body remembers all of it. And so when I get that feeling and it pops back up, I have opportunities then to care for those places in my life. And there are stories that do come up as time goes on, and that's what our story work is, is like where as an advocate for my young heart, what story do I need to tell on behalf of that harm that was done to me?

That's part of this power of this, process, and it's also this connection piece. So I'm really connected to my young self through these, like I don't think there's a, a kid living in me, so I'm just using, I use Young Heart just [00:09:00] because it's me, it's adult me, but my body is taking me back to young me.

and even, you know, I think we had talked off once before or twice before, but about, um, being in the womb and my mom was in a place of moving, uh, they moved five weeks after I was born from Tucson to Louisiana, and she's 19 with a, a one and a half year old kid. So there was so much anxiety in her blood.

I'm sure depression in her blood and fear in her blood. So when I came into this world, I'm full of cortisol. I'm full of all of the biochemicals created through worry, through depression, through, and that's how I came into this world full of all those things. Yeah. So there's, it's just good to know, and part of this process of dealing with this ongoing traumas is to know where [00:10:00] you came from, where did I come from?

and I look at that through what was done to you and what was not done for you. And then the next question is, how did I get here? And so that for me is, is what have I done with myself in light of this story? Then where am I going is how will I choose to deal with my own young heart and the hearts of others?

And so that's this process that we're in. Like, so it's an ongoing journey, lifelong process of relationship building of hope, of love, of intimacy that we're trying to, to engage through these traumatic deals. And it's also for me, a lifelong, uh. Journey of moving as much trauma stress out of my body as I can.

And one of the aspects of that is that's why I do ongoing story work. I, I just wrote a new story two weeks ago and shared on a Zoom group thing that we had through o through open arts ministries and things came [00:11:00] out that. We're suppressed and shoved down and still disconnected from, so I've been doing this for 25 years, and so I'm still writing new stories and my young heart has stories that needs to be told that I get to be the one that tells those stories on behalf.

Of silence, of suppression of something that was never told, something that was never entered, gets entered, and I got people's eyes and faces and ears and they're seeing me and they're engaging me and it's, it's healing. And so that's part of this stored. Trauma stress removal. I would like to use for an example, my wife's death process and she passed away six years ago of ovarian cancer.

And we had, we had just come out of the islander training in 20 16, 17, and we were on fire. We were just gonna set the world on fire doing group stuff. And about six weeks after we got back [00:12:00] from that, she got diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. So I think some of the things that came out of our training there had to do with regulation, had to do with touch, had to do with these really basic connections you make as a human being.

and more, I, I feel, this is my interpretation of, at a younger stage, like a little kid needs held. And the chemical reaction that happens when being held. So, her death process was like 18 months and it was, it required her to suffer greatly and I suffered greatly with her. My family suffered with her as well, but while she was alive and we were doing these things, we just did a lot of touch.

I've rubbed her in different places and when she's suffering, when she's dry heaving from the chemo. And so you have lotioning 'cause all of her skin's dead and it's dry and just putting lotion [00:13:00] and I was somewhere in, in the hospital and she was, had low white blood cells. She had to gown up and all that stuff.

And, and this is where I really noticed it. I was rubbing her back. Like I do a lot during that process. And then somehow I, something happened and I took my glove off to do something and I started rubbing her back again. I'm like, that feels good. And then that's when I noticed like this reciprocal connection in suffering.

And so we purposely engaged. Different processes to mitigate, to take away some of the trauma stress as it came. But this is, this is more trauma stress than you can digest. So it's a lifelong process to begin to keep moving that out of my body. And hence this, we're talking about why it's important to do that.

So we, you know, crying together touch was a big deal. and [00:14:00] just, yeah, weeping, grieving. was a regular part of our, process that we intentionally did in talking about things, talking about her death, talking about her ascension, talking about where, when she's gone, what's it gonna be like, and having those conversations so that it's all connection.

And it is all this biochemical thing that goes on that just, and I think that's where this really came to a lot bigger focus as far as the connection piece for me, is when you know somebody's gonna die, it's troops away, a lot of barriers and you just can connect to this really deep place.

And that's what I felt the most. In this process with Cindy is. Like you're move, like I'm moving right now, like my body's moving and it's got things going on inside of it that are healing. They're not detrimental to me. My tears are never detrimental to me. [00:15:00] They're also carry their own things out of my body, you know, and, and I know how to cry and I know how to groan, and it's taught me a lot of stuff about my body in this process.

And it's an ongoing deal. And, and, and even in her death process and after she died, I, I mean it started making markers and I would make markers and celebrate or, or notice, uh, different times to invite either my family in to mourn with me because mourning is when we bring other people into that. And, and also for times for me to just grieve.

And so, and I'd have markers and pictures and bring things in and, and built fires and burnt things and, and it's all this process of connection and movement. And so I just wanted to bring that up just to say like, I'm still processing trauma stress from Cindy's death process. It still pops up those grief spurts that pop up out [00:16:00] of nowhere and just grab you, you know, also just the, the loneliness piece that just bites at you.

so there's, and there's other things that come along with this, with this process, but I'm just bringing this up to say the importance for me and that I invite other people into is. if it's unengaged, it stays and over time it causes your body problems, it causes health issues and it causes relational issues.

So I'm just an encourager of that. And the space of care that we've created and are trying to expand and grow would be the place, you know, to have grief. Groups to have opportunity, but I've, I've used this material and, and my team, I mean, we've been through a bunch of stuff and they have walked with me through my grief process with Cindy.

When I go to Open Hearts Ministries, uh, before we lead groups for a week, we have five groups of our own to work on our own [00:17:00] stories before we do 12 groups. Yeah, and I've brought, I bring stories of Cindy's death. I've brought, been for the last six years been bringing stories of her death where I've been harmed and where they catch me and they care for me.

So that's it's not just my childhood past. It's current life and death and there's so many deaths in life with losing jobs, with losing people. All kinds of things that happen in life where you had this thing and now it's gone. That, you know, we don't want to forget those things either. And we don't wanna forget our current life where we need care.

And I, you know, as we're talking about this, it's also good to have done this work because you're young. Part of you will show up. And your grief. And the one thing I've noticed, especially in suffering, that we get young. Mm-hmm. And you'll use young words like scary and, it'll be that part of you that remembers [00:18:00] suffering of some sort or, or powerlessness will be up in the front.

Part of your being. So that's also really good to be aware of. 'cause then you can care for that young part of a person. As well as their adult self. And that was really instrumental from, for Cindy and myself. 'cause we could tell when we're really young, you know, so sometimes you have two young, kids grieving.

'cause we're just out of. We're not in the present, like we are totally triggered. And, and there was, those were some of the sweetest moments we had because, because we knew each other. We knew each other there. And I, I just think that's another benefit of doing this kinda story work is just that level of intimacy and connection place out in our current life.

Even in, in bad things like, loss. And so it just adds another element of sweetness and goodness. in connection, even in loss. And so I just wanted to add that piece to it before we move [00:19:00] into, you know, some other things we can do to do some long-term care as far as trauma staying in our body. 

Denisha: Dale, thank you so much for sharing about Cindy. I know that's a hard, still a tender part of your story and probably always will be. 

Dale: Yeah. 

Denisha: The permission that you both gave yourselves to grieve, to grieve together, and even now, six years later, for you to be able to still enter that process of grieving is so beautiful.

I wonder if that's something that we try to escape or try to move through very quickly. I know in the past, for me, it's, you know, well, are you done yet? Are you, you good? You good? Oh, I'm glad you're good. And I'm like, huh, that's interesting. You know, that we tend to rush grief.

I think that would be a good way to pass. 

Dale: Yes. you know, as you bring that up, just thinking about if you're, if you're not connected, how do [00:20:00] you know? 

Denisha: Yeah, good point. That's a good point. 

Dale: And so being connected, like I know like, 'cause I'm opening my heart up to all kinds of different things and that stuff just flows in with it.

And, you know, I think one of the things about grief that, and you know, the tears is, is remembering her. Like I connect in those tears. There's something that I, I'm okay with, I'm okay with tears. Like, I'm not trying to avoid them. I want them. Yeah, because every time, even today, as that little piece comes up, something came up out of me.

It left me, and through a connection with Cindy and with my grief, I'm a little, I'm a little bit lighter today, you know, even after that. And so it's something that I've learned to embrace And look forward to it and create sometimes, some spaces to make that happen. Yeah. To let the, the steam out and the, the stress out.

And, and also remember Cindy in that 

Denisha: [00:21:00] Trauma's an interesting, uh, piece, isn't it? How it, just the different ways that it affects our bodies and, and like you said, how it, it comes out. That's a little bit. A little bit more out of you, you know, in that, in those moments, yes. So often we try to just shove it under the rug or try to, man up through it or not process the tears.

That's something I really appreciate about you is you def you give permission, uh, for those you work with in story group, to have tears. That tears are okay, that they're celebrated and not shoved down. 

Dale: Yes, for sure. 

Denisha: so, how does that impact our body when we release some of that emotion?

How does that impact us? 

Dale: I could give you a, a semi crude description. when you get really sick to your stomach and you just feel awful, and then you just throw up, it comes outta your nose and, and you taste all that acid and you get it all cleaned out and then, and then you're like, oh. 

Denisha: You feel [00:22:00] better?

Dale: I would describe it in a group setting, especially as, I mean, because we enter in a lot of harm, but, and you've experienced this, I believe in the podcast weekend where we, we enter a lot of harm together and at the end of the group before we leave, we're laughing. We are in awe. We are lighter. And so I always experience something like that as we go through these, these group process deals.

So my opinion of that is, the crying, the tears, the, the connection to that emotion is letting something out of me. have like a couple of patterns of tears and one of them that. I seem to enjoy the most is like a panting of my stomach, and it's one of these things that just catch you and you're panting and there are some tears, but not many.

And over the last six years, I've, I've become able to [00:23:00] relax within that and let that continue to go for a while and not shut it off. And. All of that panting and all that movement, it's the stress coming out of my body. It's a release. And that's why I try to, stay in it and not get in my head and get out, click out.

'cause I can't get in. So it, it is something that comes, but that's, the one I feel gives the most relief for me. And sometimes you'll have like hardly any tears, but they're huge and they just drop. So there's, I think there's different ways our body actually releases tears. 

Denisha: I've thought about how my tears come out before.

That's interesting. 

Dale: I don't know all the chemical mixture of the tear things that are coming out, but there is also a healthy benefit of our tears coming out. There's a function of that, of those tears and grief. So, so yes, they are welcomed and encouraged. 

Denisha: That's why it's such a, one of the many [00:24:00] reasons, it's such a safe space to come and do story work with your team.

Dale: Yes. there's some other things that might, they're not necessarily in the realm of doing a story work, but it is in the, in the realm of being aware and choosing. And we, we keep going back to regulation reregulating, co-regulating. and that's a, that's a choice that we can make.

And you know, I think in our group times, we'll use Reregulating and Reregulating during stories where, where we go out of, of the realm of. Of tolerance and you're in a 10 and you should be at a six or a seven on the scale as if you could measure one. But you sense those things and we know when you're not, when you're on the, on the far end of hyper or hypo, any story work that we do is not gonna connect your heart because you're disconnected.

It is a form of disassociation. So those things are, [00:25:00] important in our group time. And so we do use. The breathing techniques throughout our group time. And, and then even as a leader, I'll use those 'cause I'm deregulated. So it's important also as you're leading in a group that you stay regulated.

And so I use the breathing thing all the time and, and what I'm, what I love about it in the group setting is, is this is co-regulation. Mm-hmm. Like there is, there is, if you're, there's this flavor of bonding in our breathing. Yeah. Yep. And so there's this, another just a little hint of this connection that you feel in your body.

And so I think that's important to remember too, is about, about the group work of this, multilayered piece of connection. It's, it's many different places. and I think we did that little experiment with when you guys were there. We had lunch and then we played a game, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That was fun.

So we, we use that to [00:26:00] illustrate coming out of the trauma work. Then we, then we shift everyone shifts as we walk into the kitchen and as we start putting lunch together, everything lightens. Yeah. Everyone becomes a different kind of person. We eat and we enjoy, we smell, we taste, uh, we usually have something that's comfort foodish.

So we just feels so good to eat it and get 

Denisha: hot roasted potatoes. I remember that 

Dale: exactly. And it feels so good to eat it. And we're just aware of this change. Yeah. And then we shift it over and I think we played a game called Farco. Mm-hmm. And everybody became 10 years old. 

Denisha: Mm-hmm. It was really fun. Just 

Dale: like they were when they were a kid.

Denisha: Yeah. 

Dale: And so it's just a great illustration of how we shift as humans in different situations, in different places. So being aware of those gives me more choice in how I care for myself in whatever setting I might be in. And so awareness, again, [00:27:00] power choice. And that's, that's more of this realm of, of how am I gonna care for myself, and that's this stored trauma process.

So like some, some things that I do would be, um, like I'm really into essential oils. I make my own lotions, and so I put patchouli in that. And so I, I wreak of patchouli and I disrupt people with the smell as I go about my business. Um, I do coloring color book, coloring book in the morning and I ground myself and let my brain mm-hmm.

Reregulate a bit. walking at one point in time, I walked a ton, so my body's moving and, you know, and some of these movement things like walking, uh, I do like resistance training at the gym, so weights and machines. I do yoga a couple of times a week, and it's like stress relief. But all of those are body connections and each one of those activities activate [00:28:00] different biochemicals.

My body receives. So I don't know if you've ever heard people talk about going to the gym and if, you know, I don't feel like good when I came in, but now that I've worked out, I feel better. Well, that's your body responding to your moving, your moving and, and the things that you're doing within the gym.

So even to be aware of your body when you go for a walk, when you go to the gym, when you, when you color, when you. Or doing any of these things, just this awareness, like I can control some of the chemical or the biochemicals that are coming in and out of my body so I can regulate my body in different ways.

And so I, I purposely schedule, they don't always happen on the schedule, but I have a rhythm of this care for my, for my trauma stress that's in my body. And an awareness of what my body's doing to help move that out and bring in healing, uh, through the, you know, endorphins and adrenaline and [00:29:00] dopamine and all the other, you know, reward center things that happen and some of those things.

So tho those are other avenues on top of this kind of group work that you can utilize. And again, all of the, all of that's about connection. 

Denisha: Yeah. Connecting back to yourself and your own body 

Dale: and what, what's going on for me and my body? Yeah. 

Denisha: It's hard to sit down and color. I just started coloring recently and I love it and um, it's hard to sit down and color though and be making your to-do list for the day or it's just a really great spot.

You're just there. You're trying to stay in the lines. It's just a great way. 

Dale: Yes. 

Denisha: Help be present. Make in your day. Yeah. 

Dale: Yeah. I like it. 

Denisha: What else? What, so there's ways that we can move trauma out of our bodies and stress, right? Trauma, trauma, stress, I believe is, that's how you refer to it as I know I've sat with women who say I haven't [00:30:00] had trauma in my life.

And the more we dive into their story, you know, and we're not looking for trauma, but the more we dive in trauma means something different to everybody. 

Yeah. I 

Denisha: don't think, you know, we talk about Big T, little T trauma and, you know, we try to categorize it. What I found in the work that we do with women is that you can't compare for sure.

Almost can't categorize it. You never know how an event, a conversation, a core memory is gonna impact your body. tell us a little bit more about that. how do things get stuck in our body that need to be moved out? 

Dale: Your body reacts to your interpretation. 

Denisha: That's a good point.

And 

Dale: it releases certain chemicals. And, and our bodies were made to, to digest and get those through in little spurts. But when it's ongoing and you never get to rest, you know, we know the word hypervigilance [00:31:00] and most traumatized people, I mean, as I look at these things, you have this, this, it's in, there's emotion going on.

Mm-hmm. It's moving. In here, it's moving inside your body. So someone who has never been traumatized, and that mean that's their, that's what they're saying, but it's gonna show up in how they talk, how they talk about themselves, how their relationships, and I don't get to, to define, I'm not looking to, I'm not looking to define small T Big T.

Other than for safety reasons, if it's Big T and you, you wanna make sure you're really safe around that process. But I don't get to define that. The person defines that. And so I don't have a concern. Like, that's not my concern. Like, how do I care for you? Why are you here? Uh, why are we talking? Well, I wonder why you said that.

I wonder where this came from. I wonder why every time you say that you cringe. I wonder why you keep putting yourself down. I wonder why you hate that [00:32:00] person. I don't. And our, trauma of the effects of our trauma show up in our relationships. And so that's what's so awesome about what you do is you do stories like you do people, and you have a sense when something's not quite lined up, 

Denisha: how do we know that for ourselves?

So. Let's say someone's listening and wondering, you know, do I, I wonder if I should be doing some of that work to move that stress out of my body. How does that show up in ways that we would recognize 

Dale: yourself personally? 

Denisha: Yeah. 

Dale: Yeah. Well, it's really hard to see our own structures, our own patterns, our own themes.

' cause we self justify so much. And so it's much easier to say things and step into other people than it is to step into our own. 

Denisha: Okay. That that's story 

Dale: work. Yeah. That's why we need group. We need community and we need people that are honest and, but kind. Yeah. And that will say, and, the whole thing, [00:33:00] this, this is structured to expose all that like, so it's not regular life.

Denisha: Right. Good point. Where you can 

Dale: hide behind this and you can hide behind that and you can excuse your way out. This context is, I mean, the curriculum is staged in a way to just unpeel all this. Yeah. And it's really hard to stay hidden. 

Denisha: very true. Because I believe I tried that a little bit in our podcast weekend a couple years back.

I believe I tried that a little bit. 

Dale: I do too. 

Denisha: Yeah. And it was a beautiful breaking in a way. Yeah. You know, for me to open up and it's such a safe place. 

Mm-hmm. 

Denisha: So we talked about this in the last episode that we're doing some podcast weekends with you guys at the Narrow Gate. We're joining forces.

I'm so excited about that. I love cross pollination of ministries and I'm so excited to do that. We are full, um, for that event this, this fall. [00:34:00] Um, but tell us how do you offer this with the narrow gate? 

Dale: I mean, what we're wanting to do, and it takes people to do it. And so what we've done over the last six years is we've done some Journey group with the O Open Heart Ministry.

We like to start with that. It's a 12 session program that takes you through your family of origin. And so it's for, you know, it's really, really helpful for people who've done, never done story work at all. Yeah. It's really, really disruptive, but it is basically a doorway in. And so the lander stuff, the story where it goes into more detail about how do we engage the stuff behind what just got turned, which just got opened up.

Okay. And so we, we also have a, a journey book two, which is a, we use a body outline. So you lay down and get traced, your body gets traced, and then we put it up on the wall. Then we begin to fill that in through our 12 sessions of different woundings and where you hold that in your body and that's, just an awesome process.

I mean, you're, 'cause [00:35:00] you're up on your feet and you're using right, left brain and there can be creativity and important and one of the things I love about the group work is. It's is its group work. Like people in the group are a part of the whole thing. Like, and when you have a good working group, then you don't have to do a whole lot.

Like, and so it's so cool. I love Journey two, just 'cause it's a little easier. It's a little, it's a little slow. Slow letters, slow moving and, but, but the story's there. You don't have to remember. It's written, it's drawn out. But the things that the participants see. And maybe never have, maybe this might be one of their second group time together.

Um, and I'm just saying that anybody can say something and be, have a profound impact on the group. And it happens every single time. to me that's just the spirit of God moves and he moves through people. Like if you're in our group, [00:36:00] there's words that only you can say. No one can say the words that you can say because it's gonna come through your grid, right, and through your story.

So you'll see a special flavor or a taste or a thing that no one else in the group can see. And when you speak it, it is just this. So we use those two processes to bring people into our team. And then our team, what we, the concept behind the narrow gate is to care for caregivers. And so as we offer these Journey Ones and Journeys twos, the leaders that do that, we'll be doing story work.

So we've done like healing to Wounded Heart, a thing called to be Told. thing called story Sage. It's some allinger center stuff. And now we're, we're using, uh, podcasts from Adam Young. it is called the Places We Find Ourselves. And we, he's got a certain teaching and the podcast and like we'll be doing this weekend, [00:37:00] we'll be doing a thing called the Big six, and then we'll also be doing a second podcast that's about the u which about going down to, to death before resurrection.

'cause everybody wants to trump over. And so how do we, how do we get into the death part of the story so that redemption can take place? And so we'll be using that just to, again, build this trust. But, so we use podcast stuff to do to help us as a community, and that's, that's what we're trying to build a bigger community of leaders, a community of care.

So churches. Wherever people are traumatized and they don't know what to do with 'em could come over and we can offer care to them. That's the goal. 

Denisha: That's so amazing. So if people are in Tucson, they can participate in your in-person groups. Let's say someone was in Ohio, uh, could they still reach out to you and you can connect them with a Journey [00:38:00] group or Open Heart's ministry?

Dale: Yes, and and we're beginning to open up at Open Heart's Ministry. We just did something similar to what we're gonna do on a Zoom thing for OHM that we're starting to use to train leaders and invite the OHM family into. So we're trying to build this zoom opportunities that it would do exactly what you're talking about.

Denisha: That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Uh, Dale, thank you for, I, I think I said this last time, but I think about this is, thank you for going there. You know, I know Dan Allander says we can't take people farther than we're willing to go ourselves. And you've gone into some depth of your own story and then entering other people's stories.

It's not easy work, but it is beautiful. Thank you for all you do. Yes. And if someone wants to connect with you, whether they're in Tucson and going, I wanna be in this journey group that you're doing, or whether they're in Ohio, how can they reach you?

Dale: Detention of hope.com [00:39:00] is our webpage and you can just leave a message on there or, my email is d hodgeson2@gmail.com. 

Denisha: Perfect. And we'll put that in the show notes as well. Cool. So everybody can grab that. So get ready. Nice. Alright. I think this, pokes a place in our lives when we feel stuck as adults when we feel patterns repeating and wanna know where, how do we get out of this?

It's going back to where they originated from and doing this, this story work. So thank you for engaging in this process and for leading others, uh, into doing their own process of it. 

Dale: Thank you. Really appreciate it. Yeah, 

Denisha: thank you. Well, I look forward to having you back on the podcast. There's about a hundred different topics I think we could list, uh, that we could have some really robust conversations on.

So we'll have to do this again, sir. 

Dale: Okay.