Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 275 Adam Young - Make Sense of Your Story
Today, we dive into the power of reckoning with our personal stories - the formative experiences and wounds from our past that shape who we are today, often in ways we don't fully understand. My guest, Adam Young, has spent years helping people make sense of their stories, to find freedom and wholeness. As Adam shares, the truth is, our past isn't just the past - it's deeply woven into our present. The feelings, fears, and patterns we carry from childhood can profoundly impact our relationships, our mental health, even our sense of calling. But the good news is, our brains have an incredible capacity for change and integration. Through curiosity, kindness, and the support of others, we can begin to uncover the hidden narratives that have been subtly steering the course of our lives. And in doing so, we open the door to a deeper, truer version of ourselves - one that can finally step into the unique purpose we were made for. This is a conversation about the transformative power of reckoning with our stories, no matter how messy or painful they may be. It's about finding the courage to face our past, so we can step more fully into our future. So join us as we make sense of our stories.
Adam Young is a therapist who focuses on trauma and abuse, and the host of The Place We Find Ourselves podcast. Adam is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with a Master degree in Social Work (Virginia Commonwealth University) and Divinity (Emory University).
Adam is the author of Make Sense of Your Story: Why Engaging Your Story with Kindness Changes Everything. He currently serves as a Fellow and Instructor at The Allender Center. Adam lives in Fort Collins, CO, with his wife and two children.
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The goal is freedom. Why freedom? Because when you are free from the places you are stuck and bound, then you are able to fully experience your calling, which is you be, can become who you are, and you can begin to do the work that you were put here to do. And by work, I don't just mean vocational work. I mean you can participate in the corner of the kingdom of God that has your name on it, because you are free to be fully you
Joshua Johnson:Joshua, hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, today we dive into the power of reckoning with our own personal stories, the formative experiences and wounds from our past that shape who we are today, often in ways we don't fully understand. My guest Adam Young has spent years helping people make sense of their stories, to find freedom and wholeness as Adam shares the truth is, our past isn't just the past, it is deeply woven into our present, the feelings, fears and patterns we carry from childhood can profoundly impact our relationships, our mental health, even our sense of calling. But the good news is, our brains have an incredible capacity for change and integration. Through curiosity, kindness and the support of others, we can begin to uncover the hidden narratives that have been subtly steering the course of our lives, and in doing so, we open the door to a deeper, truer vision of ourselves, one that could finally step into the unique purpose we were made for. This is a conversation about the transformative power of reckoning with our stories, no matter how messy or painful they may be. It's about finding the courage to face our past so that we can step more fully into our future. So join us as we make sense of our stories. Here is my conversation with Adam Young. Adam, welcome to shifting culture. Excited to have you on thanks for joining me.
Unknown:Thank you for the invitation. I'm happy to be here. I'm
Joshua Johnson:excited to get into our stories, our collective stories, our individual stories, and how to make sense of our stories so that we could see some health in our life, that we could see some peace and some Shalom. I would love to hear a little bit of your story and how you got to the point of realizing that once you started to make sense of your story of origin, your family history, that it helps your own life. It helped your own story, it helped your mental health. As you walked forward,
Unknown:when I was 35 years old, I didn't know that I had a story. If you would ask me, you know, what's your story? I would have probably told you a little bit about my growing up years, but I had not linked my present what I would say is symptoms, the symptoms I was having, anxiety, depression, problems with relationships, problems with God, I would not have linked any of my present experience to my past story in my family of origin, it just wasn't a connection that I had made. What started that process for me was I read a book called The wounded heart by Dan Allender, and that book suggested that our past is informing our present. And that was the beginning for me of realizing that, hey, I have a story in my family of origin, zero to 18, like I had experiences growing up in my particular family, and those experiences have profoundly shaped the brain that is now in my skull, that is what's filtering all of my present day to day experiences. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson:and so then what happened? Like you were feeling depression, anxiety, you had disordered relationships with yourself, with others, with God. Once you started to to link those things together, what started to happen in you and in your body?
Unknown:Yes, in my body, that's a great question to begin with, I started feeling unfelt feelings. In other words, I started feeling feelings that my body housed, but that I did not previously have access to. Why didn't I have access to them? Because I had not linked any of my present experiences to my past story. Once I started to explore some of the stories of my growing up years, you know, some of those stories were filled with heartache, tragedy, abuse and so as. I began to enter those stories with another person listening and caring for me. I started feeling feelings like sorrow, like anger, like grief, but like fear. I started feeling a lot of feelings that my body had held but that I didn't have access to previously. So
Joshua Johnson:do you see, do you find that common with people? Do they feel they don't know how to feel feelings? They don't know what they're feeling? Absolutely
Unknown:super common. And it's common for a couple of reasons. Number one, some people don't have access to their feelings simply because their brain has disconnected the portions of their brain that feel feelings, that feels sensations, such as our anterior insula, that's the part of the brain that feels our bodily sensations. Well, in lots of people, that's disconnected, they're not connected to that portion of their brain, and for very good reasons, there was never a safe environment to feel those feelings when they were 1215, 18 years old, and so they had to disconnect from from those feelings. And that that was certainly the case for me.
Joshua Johnson:So if I'm feeling depressed or anxious or all sorts of different emotions that I think is going to be disordered, and it hinders my relationships with others, myself, with God and the world. Why is it that reckoning with your story, making sense of your story of origin? Why is story so impactful? Why does that the thing that actually helps us move forward to a healthier place? Yes,
Unknown:that's a fabulous question, because it's the truth that sets us free, but very often, the truth of the past of our lives torments us first, which is why we've been avoiding it. It can be very hard to grapple with some of the heartaches, tragedies, traumas, abuses that you felt and experienced as a seven year old boy or girl like that. That stuff is very tender. It's very raw, and it's very powerful inside of us, and many of us, understandably, this is not an accusation. Many of us understandably have distanced ourselves from some of the core stories of our growing up years because they're simply too painful to bear, at least in our 20s, in our 30s, 30s, sometimes into our 40s. It's not a function of age, it's a function of Do you have support? Do you have care? Do you have mentors? Do you have what Francis Weller in his book, The Wild edge of sorrow, calls the village that is elders, men and women who have grappled with their own stories and can guide you in the process of grappling with yours.
Joshua Johnson:I think what you just said there is really key and important. And I think a lot of people that if they're listening to this, or have listened to to other things about grappling with their story, that they I could start to do it on my own. Yeah, what? What is an empathetic listener, somebody that could guide us through. How do they help us walk us through these things?
Unknown:Yeah, this is not something that can be done only by yourself. I think many people have the assumption that if I have a cup of coffee, a journal, my Bible and a good view out the window in my favorite chair, I can heal and you can experience significant healing between you and God. However, in my experience, the way God shows up most often for me is through the body of Christ, ie other human beings, what you referred to as an empathetic listener. Why is that so healing? Because you have a right hemisphere in your brain. I have a right hemisphere in my brain, and I am created in the image of a we, and not an I, a Trinitarian God, which means that I'm wired for connection. I need connection with you, not just because my nervous system needs regulation, but I need to hear you tell me what you hear in my story, because I'm too close to my own story to read it well. I need your perspective on my story. I need to know when I share a story with you where you feel fear, where you feel anger on behalf of that boy, where you are confused, where you are in awe of that boy. I need to hear your experience of my. Story to make sense of my story that's
Joshua Johnson:so good and so helpful, I think, as we're trying to restore Shalom in our bodies and our our minds and our holistic relationships, telling our story, sometimes people think that if I just give you a brief overview of what my story was, that there it is, there's my story, there's the 30,000 foot view you talk in your book about telling individual scenes of your story are crucial and important. So why is it you want to hear the scenes of things and not just the broad overview of your story. Yeah,
Unknown:great question. The scenes are where the implicit memory lies? What is implicit memory? Implicit memory is our felt sense in our bodies of what actually happened. And so if I tell you, for example, that I grew up in a house. My parents got divorced. My parents didn't but for example, my parents got divorced when I was seven. You know, I went to this school. This happened to me. I got married at this age. If I tell you a 30,000 foot overview of my story, I am remaining emotionally distant from the boy or girl in the story. But if I tell you that at my 10th birthday party, my dad came home drunk and I was humiliated in front of all of my friends, even just that little bit that I just shared with you, you can feel the difference in your body, you get closer to that 10 year old boy by telling the details of the particular scenes on the ground level. And for healing in the brain to occur, we have to get connected to the particularity of the stories. That's what makes neurons reconnect with one another in a healthy way. The neurobiologists call that integration. The Hebrew Bible calls it Shalom. It's getting at the same thing.
Joshua Johnson:So, can you speak? What is that? How does it do that? How does it integrate? How does it bring us, you know, wholeness, yes, yeah. So
Unknown:when we have an experience as a boy or a girl that overwhelms our ability to cope, we call that trauma, and the essence of trauma is really two things. It's powerlessness and it's abandonment by potentially protective caregivers. In other words, you're alone when you are overwhelmed by powerlessness, and by powerlessness, I mean you can't use your voice or move your body in such a way to make the bad things stop happening. So when you have powerlessness and you're alone in the midst of it, you don't have caregivers there intervening on your behalf, your brain becomes overwhelmed by that experience. And what that means neurobiologically, is that the is that the neurons that represent the feelings of that story become disconnected from the thoughts, become disconnected from the bodily sensations, become disconnected from the autobiographical memory, and we call that fragmentation, all right, Shalom is the opposite of that. Shalom is integration. It's when the right hemisphere of my brain connects to the left hemisphere of my brain via a portion card called the corpus callosum. But in trauma, those neural networks get separated from one another, fragmented from one another, which is why we often experience what we consider overreactions in the present, right? So you know your wife might look at you with a particular facial expression or use a tone of voice, and all of a sudden you're reacting at a level eight or nine when her tone was maybe a two or three. Now why is that? It's because implicit memories from your growing up years are being activated so you feel what you think of is an overreaction, but it's actually not.
Joshua Johnson:When I was growing up, when I was three, I remember, this is one of my first memories. Is I remember drawing a sign with my dad, big old sign, and welcoming my sister home from the hospital. Yes, and my sister comes home, and she was a colicky baby, and she was someone that needed a lot of attention. She was really loud, and I felt I felt dismissed and alone, and I often think that nobody did anything to me. Yeah, but this is what I felt, and so I've dismissed that for a long time in my life, until maybe 10 years ago, when I was like, oh, what I was feeling there. I've been trying to compensate for that for so long in my life. But why do people then dismiss their wounds? I think I did because I didn't think anything, anybody did anything intentionally to me. It was just something that I experienced and I felt a certain way, and then my whole life, I've been trying to compensate for it.
Unknown:Yes, well, there's a difference between intentionality and impact that three year old boy experienced something that had a big impact on his heart, his body, his way of understanding himself. Why do we dismiss these stories? Jeremiah, six and eight. It's one of my favorite passages. It's repeated in both chapters and what, what God says is he indicts the leadership of Israel. Why? Because God says they dress the wounds of my people as though they were not serious. Peace, peace, they say, when there is no peace. Sadly, many of us do that with our own wounds. We dress them as though they're not a big deal. We say that happened 30 years ago. It shouldn't be affecting me any longer. Or we say, you know, I was three years old. How can that possibly be affecting me as a 45 year old man? Well, you are dismissing what your body is inviting you to contend with and to welcome. And when I say welcome, I mean to set a place at your table for a guest that's coming for dinner. What if you did that for some of these memories? What if you set a place of hospitality for that memory you had, making that sign as a three year old boy, welcoming home your sister, and then the subsequent months of your life where you felt either ignored, Abandoned, deprioritized, whatever you felt, in my opinion, those feelings matter deeply to God, and they need to matter to us. Why? Because they are very powerful in our brains.
Joshua Johnson:They're extremely powerful. And I could see where things went awry in my life because of that and because of the power of those feelings. And so I think one of the things that that you have said, I mean, if we're reckoning with our family of origin or growing up, we're gonna reckon with memories of mistakes our parents made, of things of of abandonment. I have, personally, I have a fantastic growing up, like my parents were, incredible, but there are always a few memories that were like, hey, this actually impacted me and my feelings and where I was going, and it set me on a trajectory which I needed to reorient, because I needed to reckon with my story. How do we reckon with the past of our parents? What they have done, the wounds that they have may be inflicted upon us, and how do we honor our parents at the same time? Yes, how do we say we are honest about what has happened, but we also like, hey, they're my parents. I love my parents. So how do we do that work?
Unknown:Yeah, it's a great question. Two thoughts immediately come to mind. The first is, we have to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. In other words, according to Jesus, your parents are sinners. That doesn't make them wicked people. It makes them human like you. But according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, your parents lust and your parents have contempt, murder, adultery, murder. That's what Jesus lays out in Matthew five. And so have how and by lust, he's not just talking about sexual consumption, but it's this sense of an inordinate desire to consume. And so can you put words to the way you were consumed by your mother and father? And likewise, can you put words to the way you suffered their contempt, what he calls murder? And if you can't then the question is, what are you refusing to look at with eyes wide open, to honor your father and mother is to have a commitment to truthfulness and light. It is. Dishonoring if my I have a 16 year old daughter, I have a 13 year old son, if they do not feel the freedom to tell me how they are experiencing me as a father, then they are not honoring me. But it's not their fault. There's something in the home that is making them feel unsafe to tell me the truth, and sadly, many, many people do not feel the freedom to sit their mother down, to sit their father down, to have a dinner and to simply say this sentence. Could I talk to you about some of the ways I felt harmed by you as a boy or a girl. But to ask that question, and it's an invitation, is deeply honoring. Why? Because it comes from a place in their gut that wants more relational connection and intimacy with their parents. Another word for that is reconciliation and redemption. They want more goodness, honesty, authenticity with mom and dad. That's a holy desire, and it's an honoring desire
Joshua Johnson:that's fantastic to enter into, wanting more into intimacy, wanting more connection with your parents, knowing that there have been been wounds, and I know as a father, I'm sure as you, as you, as a father as well, we, we're I'm trying the best that I can, but I know that there's going to be times when I am doing this to My own son, I am, I'm going to be wounding him in places. And so for me, I could do two things as a parent. One, I could be totally paralyzed and not want to make a mistake that I actually don't engage relationally with my son, and I try to keep him all nice and safe, and he doesn't live a life than growing up or or two that I just run all over him like I could just be myself, run all over him and do some things. How do we have a healthy relationship with as parents? Yeah, to our kids growing up so that they can maybe even recognize reckon with her story sooner than their mid
Unknown:30s. Yeah, 40. Well, the most important attribute of a parent child relationship is the willingness to repair ruptures. Ruptures are inevitable relationally. Why? Because we live in a fallen, broken world, and so there are often, I mean, parenting can be rightly characterized as Adventures in misattunement and failure. The question is not, am I failing my son and my daughter? The question is, am I willing to repair the harm that I have done, and what do I mean by repair? My son's name is Eli. Eli, tell me what that was like for you when I lost my temper, and then it's an owning of the harm that I did, an acknowledging of the impact that had on his heart and his body. And then a Eli, it hurts me that I hurt you. And when he sees that on my face, portions of his right hemisphere in his brain re wire in a healthy way, and that's called repair, he feels validated. He feels like I have owned and acknowledged the ways I've heard him. And he has hope in that experience, that exchange of repair, he has hope begin to be built into his brain that when relationships rupture, they will soon be repaired. And what we call that in our field is secure attachment, and that's a really big deal when you become an adult.
Joshua Johnson:So yes, I want to talk about attachment in a little bit, but first I want to like, how do we then if, if that is the case, and secure attachment, if we have grown up with insecure attachment, and we're into a space as an adult, and we don't get that repair from the person that has ruptured the relationship, but we're reckoning with our story, how Can we repair what was ruptured? If it's not face to face with the person that ruptured that relationship, how do we reckon with our story and start to repair in a different way, with with other people? Yes,
Unknown:well number one, there has to be an honest naming of. Harm that you experienced from a parent who is now deceased, and by an honest naming, I mean with yourself, it is very hard, especially when a parent is gone, to begin to put language to some of the ways that they failed us. In fact, in my experience, most Christians are much more apt to spend time and reflection on the ways they have failed, unharmed and sinned against others than they are apt to spend any time reflecting on writing down, grappling with the ways they were failed by mom and dad, particularly if mom and dad are deceased. So the first step is there has to be an honest naming of the ways your heart was wounded by your parents. Doesn't make them bad people, it makes them human people who were sinners and who therefore harmed you. Number two, forgiveness. And forgiveness is a process. It's not a one time event. You cannot forgive what has not been named truthfully. So there's no such thing as I forgive my dad that's meaningless because it's so abstract. I can forgive my dad for coming home drunk at my 10th birthday party, but I can't forgive my dad carte Blanc. I just That's meaningless. So there has to be a naming, there has to be forgiveness, and then there has to be attending to the boy or girl that was harmed. So you have a relationship with that three year old. Part of you, for example, that that very young boy three is super young. You have a relationship with that boy who made that sign. And you can tend to and welcome and listen to the heart cry of that boy that is very reparative for the brain, but you're not able to repair relationally with a deceased parent because they're no longer here for conversation
Joshua Johnson:and and I assume the same goes for people who don't want a repair
Unknown:of relationship. What do you mean by
Joshua Johnson:like, if I just say that, you know, people are still alive, but they're like, Yes, I don't want to to have this relationship repaired. Just go live your life. I'll live mine. And we need to keep separate.
Unknown:Yes, but I just want to say there is immense grief in that because you are, as Paul writes in Corinthians, you have your heart open to your mother or father and their heart is closed to you. There is grief upon grief in that and at some level, it's easier when they're deceased, because the opportunity is gone.
Joshua Johnson:So I want to talk about attachment, then, especially for people that has experienced the three different forms of insecure attachment and growing up, and then is there a possibility to move into secure attachment so that we can actually have healthy relationships in our life and that we don't we're not trying to avoid or be distant, but we could actually engage healthily. How do we move towards secure attachment,
Unknown:absolutely. First of all, yes, you can move from an insecure to a secure attachment. Why? Because of what the resurrection of Jesus Christ means in neurobiological terms, is that neurons can rewire. The brain can change. 40 years ago, we thought the brain could not change. We didn't know about what's called neuroplasticity, which is just a fancy word for your brain can change, and that's a really good thing, and it's a real biblical thing. So the Spirit of God is continually rewiring the neurons in our brain, how through experiences with other people that are honest, receptive and again, it's that process of rupture and repair when I can experience my need. And I'm not using that word pejoratively, we all have need when I can bring my need to other people and have that need met and cared for and be supported by others, that's very healing for a brain that learned I'm alone in this world and I can only rely upon myself so. How does the brain change? Well, for example, for an avoidantly attached person, it's learning that other people can be there for you, support you, care for you, and that you are capable of receiving care. That's a huge, huge gospel truth, you are capable of receiving not just the care of God, but the care of the body of Christ, ie other men and women.
Joshua Johnson:I know that this, this takes time. This doesn't happen overnight. It's not like I've made a decision, my brain has now changed. What is the So, what's the process to be able to work through this so that our brain can can actually change over time? Yes,
Unknown:if I have two words for the process, those two words would be curiosity and kindness to begin with. Are you curious about where you are relationally stuck, or are you curious about the places where you have very big emotional reactivity? So are you curious rather than condemning, I shouldn't have felt that. I shouldn't be this afraid, I shouldn't be this angry, whatever it is. Can you replace I shouldn't be with? Huh? That was a very big feeling I just had when I had that interaction with so and so, I wonder what the story is behind that reaction. I wonder curiosity what's going on inside my heart and my body. But the other word is kindness. Kindness. Kindness will take you further in the healing journey than a year's worth of therapy with your dream guru therapist, whoever that is. For you. Why? That's not a slight on my profession. It is a acknowledgement of the power of kindness to change the human heart. In in Romans, two, verse four, Paul says, It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. Now, if that's true, why do we often resort to harshness or some some form of striving or some form of self abasement? Instead? Of in asking this question, what would kindness to my heart and body look like right now?
Joshua Johnson:Man, kindness is, is a huge thing, and I think it's it is for me, sometimes it's easier to be kind to others than kind to myself,
Unknown:and you're not alone in that that is so common, so common.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, so one of the things that curiosity does is if I remember time when I I heard something from a co worker, and I reacted out of out of my own pain, and I yelled at them, and it wasn't anything to do with them. It was actually just something else was triggering me from here, I think the curiosity to me is like, where is it a story? One of the questions that I could ask then is, why? Why did that happen? I did a exercise with with a group of people, was called the circle of why, and we just kept on asking why, until we actually got down to the root, why. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And it was really helpful for me, yes, why is why a good question for us to ask? It's
Unknown:a good question if it can be asked with kindness and curiosity. It is a question that will gradually connect you from the present circumstance, which you might think of as an overreaction. It's not but you might think of it as one. It will connect you from the present to what's underneath from your past story. So anytime we are reactive, it's a way of making implicit memory known. Implicit memory being bodily sensation, emotional experiences from our past that are getting activated in our present, day to day life. And so the why question when it's asked with kindness, can help you underscore and understand where you, like God said to Hagar, where have you come from? In other words, what is the wound in you? Heart that is being pricked right now in this current circumstance, and that's a very important connection to make. Why? Because until a wound is named, it cannot be healed. You can't invite Jesus into an unnamed wound because you don't know it's there, and so you can't experience the comfort of God, but God longs to comfort those wounded places in our hearts. And
Joshua Johnson:so if we can't heal from an unnamed wound, and we have been curious, and we actually don't recognize where this wound originated from, like that, like the the memory I have of my sister coming home from hospital, it wasn't a bad memory for a long time, and then through prayer, I was like, that's where that, that feeling that I have now, that's where it originated. That's where it started. Yeah, but it was through prayer and a process with somebody else that I got to that yes, and I needed to get get there. So how do we, how do we then uncover some of these wounds, yeah, that we didn't know existed? Yeah.
Unknown:Well, you, I think your, your question bears the answer brilliantly. You've said two very important phrases through prayer and another person. Very few of us can uncover our wounds by ourselves. I would dare say none of us can not fully you need the presence of a wise guide. You need the presence of what I call a warrior king or queen, someone who has grappled with their own story, and therefore can enter into yours with kindness and a ferocity that is willing to name truth, truthfully. So when you say through prayer, my guess is at some point you said to God, there's something going on in me, God, and I don't know what it is, and I am inviting your Spirit to reveal and through that asking, seeking and knocking and through a friend or another person, you were given the gift of the three year old memory, and you stewarded it, that gift Well, in other words, you didn't dismiss it. You began to let it have weight.
Joshua Johnson:That's so good. I think that's helpful for us. So now we've, we've named our wounds. We've We've asked our wives where we're moving towards things. One of the things that you talk about in your book that is helpful for us to do is mind mapping. Can you talk about mind mapping? What is it and why should we do it? Sure,
Unknown:mind mapping is a term coined by Dr David Schnarr, and what it simply refers to is that by the age of five, children have the ability to know something of the intentions of their parents, so if I spill my milk at the dinner table, I can read my dad's face and his tone of voice and map his mind by saying internally to myself, dad is angry at me because I spilled my milk, but if that milk rolls off the table onto mom's new dress, I can now see another shift in dad's facial expression, or and or mom's facial expression, And I as a five year old have the ability to map their minds and to know there even matter at me, because it just ruined mom's dress. So mind mapping is simply a fancy way of saying we know intentionality of others. We know we know something of what's going on inside the hearts and minds of our parents by the age of five, and that means, as a seven year old, a 10 year old, a 15 year old, you were able to read the face and the tone of voice of your parents and know something of what they were thinking and feeling towards you.
Joshua Johnson:We do it intuitively. I would assume that so it is not something that consciously I am saying, what is what is my dad thinking right now? And how is it? How is it going to actually affect me? We do it very quickly and intuitively. Yes. Then, how does that help us in our relationships? Moving forward to be able to see that intuitiveness of others, and if it's a disordered relationship, and we know that, and we could read the mind we go, it's not there. Is there a way to help relationships moving forward through our intuitive mind? Mapping,
Unknown:yes, and it comes back to the sentence that it's the truth that will set us free. And part of the truth, and this is very hard for a lot of people to come to terms with, part of the truth is that some of the harm you have experienced was intentional. That's not to say all of it I do intentional harm to my children, and I do unintentional harm to my children. My children need to know which is which, and mind mapping is the idea that they do know which is which, because they're able to read my face, my body language, my tone of voice, and know something of my intent, and so for for all of the listeners, you have memories of being harmed by both your mother and your father, can you bring some curiosity to the intentionality behind some of that harm, I'm not saying all of the harm that you suffered was intentional, but some of it was. Why can I say that? It's not I'm not saying it. Jesus says this. This is the claim of the scriptures. We do intentional harm. It can be repaired. That's called reconciliation, but it can't be repaired if it's not named. Honestly,
Joshua Johnson:sometimes I think with healing processes, I think sometimes, some people talk things to death of we're just gonna circle this over and over and over again and talk it to death. How do we start to embody the healing that that happens? How do we recognize what is happening in our body and feel it in our body and heal with our body? How what's the body aspect of this journey? Yes,
Unknown:when you harm me and I and I say to you, can we talk about this, this situation where I felt harmed by you? And I tell you what it is, you will have a feeling in your gut of like, Oh, I'm sad that I said or did that thing and hurt you. And you will then have a facial expression that communicates to my right hemisphere that you are hurting that you hurt me. That's called the conviction of the Spirit, when we have that felt sense of I'm hurting, that I hurt you. When my son sees that look on my face, repair is well underway, he will not need to talk that to death. When, when you refer to talking things to death, what I think of is that one person is not being heard, and so they are trying to be heard this. The dilemma is certain people are unwilling to hear how they have hurt you, and so you keep trying to say it differently in the hopes that they will validate your experience and repent, but they are not showing any signs of a willingness to repent.
Joshua Johnson:I think this has been really helpful to reckon with our stories, make sense of our story, and to be able to move towards some healing and repair, and that we could feel the sense of wholeness and shalom going forward. One of the ways I think that American culture specifically is highly individualistic, and we like to think of our individual stories, but we also live in a collective culture, and the culture around us has stories that we have told ourselves that make sense of the world, and we have stories that have caused harm and rupture and that needs some repair, yes, and wholeness. How do we then move towards an individual reckoning with my own personal story and family of origin to then a collective cultural story that brings about maybe some healing? Yes,
Unknown:well, I think it's the same question for both categories, whether it's my family of origin story or the collective story of our nation. The question is, will we be truthful about what has happened and when it comes to our collective story? You know, a lot of things need to be named, but the two that come to mind most readily is, as Americans, we live on stolen land. That's part of our collective story that doesn't make us wicked people. What makes What? What? Mad? Is, am I willing to acknowledge that, grieve that, and grow through that? And the second big thing is, white Americans have built immense wealth by exploiting black laborers from the continent of Africa. That's a significant plot line of the story of America. Does that make white Americans evil people? That's missing the point. The point is, will we name truthfully what has been true, not just about Adam's life when he was eight, but the story of our particular country, our particular collective, whatever collective you belong to, and we all belong to multiple collectives. But as a white American man, I have to grapple with my collective story, both as a man, which is to say, I have to grapple with patriarchy, and as a white man, which is to say, I have to grapple with white supremacy. And by grapple, what I really mean is, am I willing to name it truthfully? Am I willing to say this happened?
Joshua Johnson:It reminds me of what happened after apartheid fell in South Africa, it was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, right? It was like, let's tell the truth, and then let's reconcile that there's there's two aspects of it, and I think we want to jump towards reconciliation without truth telling, or we just want to say something, but not reconcile. Yeah,
Unknown:and there is no way to move to reconciliation without hearing the hearts of those who have been exploited. In other words, without hearing the truth of what one actually went down and how that continues to affect people that have been marginalized and exploited.
Joshua Johnson:Really good Adam, if people pick up your book, make sense of your story, which I think is going to be really helpful for a lot of people to be able to do this. What hope do you have for your readers?
Unknown:Oh, it's a great question. My hope is is, I would say twofold, number one, that they would begin to experience a hospitality for the parts of themselves that they have dismissed, ignored, pushed down, are afraid of, feel ashamed of. So there's, you know, there's a chapter on grappling with your sexual story. There's a question grappling with your family of origin story. These are places where we have immense shame, and I want that shame to be welcomed with a posture of curiosity and kindness, so that there can be new vistas of freedom for the readers, the goal is freedom. Why freedom? Because when you are free from the places you are stuck and bound, then you are able to fully experience your calling, which is you be, can become who you are, and you can begin to do the work that you were put here to do. And by work, I don't just mean vocational work. I mean you can participate in the corner of the kingdom of God that has your name on it, because you are free to be fully you
Joshua Johnson:man, wouldn't the world be such an incredible place if people were free to be you, free to be them, and that they could actually put their stamp on the world, because this is what you were made for, man, that would be an incredible place. The world would be so much fun to live in I would love that. I would love a world like that. It's good. So let's, let's move the needle to make a world more like that. And so people go out and get make sense of your story, reckon with your story, wrestle with it, and so that we could actually be the people that God has created us to be, fully ourselves. Adam, I have a couple quick questions. One, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you
Unknown:give my 20 I have no question in my mind, you need to welcome all of your feelings with a posture of kindness. 21 year old. Adam, I
Joshua Johnson:love the way that you are kind to your 21 year old Adam, because you are kind to him as well. And that's a beautiful thing for us to recognize and to see your kindness to your past self. I think we all need some of that kindness to our past selves as well. Mm. Hmm, anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend,
Unknown:ooh, reading or watching lately. I'm always reading. Walter Brueggemann, I never stop. He's my favorite Old Testament scholar. His commentary on Genesis is just opening my eyes to new things. His work on he has a book 40 years old, that is, I never stop reading. It's called the prophetic imagination. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson:it's so amazing. It's really good. It's really good. Fantastic. That's good. How can people go get your book, make sense of your story, and where else would you like to point people
Unknown:to you can get the book make sense of your story anywhere books are sold, and if you want to know more about me or my work. Adam Young, counseling.com,
Joshua Johnson:perfect, sounds good. Well, Adam, this is a fantastic conversation. I loved going deep with you in your story, and then in our collective story, in my story. And then how do we reckon with our past, our family of origin, move towards healing, get some secure attachment. Now today, even if we had insecure attachment in the past, that we could have healthy and whole relationships, that we can move towards Shalom and peace and wholeness in our lives and our relationships with others and with God, with ourselves and with all of creation. So thank you, Adam, it was fantastic. I loved our conversation. Thank you. It was super fun being here. You
